Out of the 105 students in the senior integrated science and technology class, only eight are women.
Amanda Martindale and Kettie Holland are two of those seniors.
“I’ve been in classes where there have been 40 guys and only three girls,” Martindale said. “The guys don’t really treat us differently except they want to join our groups because all the senior girls are perfectionists.”
The ISAT program is trying to shake off its reputation for being a man’s major. In a university where the overall population is 60 percent female, some ISAT faculty are concerned that only 20 percent of ISAT majors are women.
“It’s really disappointing. I wish there were more women in ISAT,” said Amanda Biesecker, an ISAT professor.
This summer, 30 ISAT faculty members attended a two-day workshop led by Donna Milgram, the executive director of the National Institute for Women in Trades, Technology and Science.
The workshop taught them how to better recruit and retain female students in science, technology, engineering and mathematics fields.
Maria Papadakis, an ISAT professor, is involved in JMU’s efforts to attract more women into the ISAT program.
“It’s a multistage process,” Papadakis said. “Individually, we have professors who are changing their curriculum to make it more hands on.”
ISAT has a recruitment committee to more aggressively recruit women. Papadakis said in May they’re having an in-house training for faculty to improve recruitment and retention of women.
Biesecker said retention hasn’t been a problem for women majoring in ISAT, but the problem lies in getting girls initially interested.
Some professors in ISAT see the cause of the problem in the very name of the program. Louise Temple is an ISAT professor who also teaches a class about gender issues in science.
“The so-called hard sciences have fewer women,” Temple said. “I think women see the word ‘tech’, and they lump it in with the other hard sciences. It’s a huge misconception, because ISAT covers a large variety of fields.”
Temple also sees a lack of role models and unintentional discrimination against women to be a problem.
“The leadership in the science field is men, the credit and the awards go to men. Men are the ones getting promoted and recognized,” Temple said. “Most of my students in my lab are women, and when I take them to meetings and the awardees are mostly men — even the keynote speakers are men — it’s discouraging.”
The eight senior women have bonded within their major because they collaborate on projects and frequently take classes together.
“The girls are some of my best friends,” Holland said. “We tend to work together because we all know we are good workers.”
Holland said she had a different major in mind coming into JMU but changed track.
“When I applied to JMU I was a biology premed major,” Holland said. “When I came to CHOICES I was sold on ISAT because of the alternative energy stuff and the environment conservation classes.”
The ISAT dean’s office, the School of Engineering, the ISAT department and the computer science department contributed about $10,000 to help ISAT faculty recruit women in high schools who are interested in a science, technology, engineering or mathematics major.
Papadakis said she sees the goals of the ISAT faculty as the three As —awareness, acceptance and action.
“We have been successful in the awareness phase of making the entire faculty aware of the low percentage of women,” Papadakis said.
There’s a high level of commitment in the faculty to increase the number of women in ISAT. They’re designing the action phase now and hope to have a noticeable difference in the program over the spring semester and fall of next year.
Papadakis has high hopes for the future of women in the program.
“My goal is to see about 35 to 40 percent female enrollment, which would about double what it is now,” Papadakis said. “Women should not be intimidated by the science and technology fields. They should try it; most of the women in the program are happy and will be successful in their careers after college.”
Source- http://www.breezejmu.org/news/article_80f887c0-213f-11e1-860f-0019bb30f31a.html
Amanda Martindale and Kettie Holland are two of those seniors.
“I’ve been in classes where there have been 40 guys and only three girls,” Martindale said. “The guys don’t really treat us differently except they want to join our groups because all the senior girls are perfectionists.”
The ISAT program is trying to shake off its reputation for being a man’s major. In a university where the overall population is 60 percent female, some ISAT faculty are concerned that only 20 percent of ISAT majors are women.
“It’s really disappointing. I wish there were more women in ISAT,” said Amanda Biesecker, an ISAT professor.
This summer, 30 ISAT faculty members attended a two-day workshop led by Donna Milgram, the executive director of the National Institute for Women in Trades, Technology and Science.
The workshop taught them how to better recruit and retain female students in science, technology, engineering and mathematics fields.
Maria Papadakis, an ISAT professor, is involved in JMU’s efforts to attract more women into the ISAT program.
“It’s a multistage process,” Papadakis said. “Individually, we have professors who are changing their curriculum to make it more hands on.”
ISAT has a recruitment committee to more aggressively recruit women. Papadakis said in May they’re having an in-house training for faculty to improve recruitment and retention of women.
Biesecker said retention hasn’t been a problem for women majoring in ISAT, but the problem lies in getting girls initially interested.
Some professors in ISAT see the cause of the problem in the very name of the program. Louise Temple is an ISAT professor who also teaches a class about gender issues in science.
“The so-called hard sciences have fewer women,” Temple said. “I think women see the word ‘tech’, and they lump it in with the other hard sciences. It’s a huge misconception, because ISAT covers a large variety of fields.”
Temple also sees a lack of role models and unintentional discrimination against women to be a problem.
“The leadership in the science field is men, the credit and the awards go to men. Men are the ones getting promoted and recognized,” Temple said. “Most of my students in my lab are women, and when I take them to meetings and the awardees are mostly men — even the keynote speakers are men — it’s discouraging.”
The eight senior women have bonded within their major because they collaborate on projects and frequently take classes together.
“The girls are some of my best friends,” Holland said. “We tend to work together because we all know we are good workers.”
Holland said she had a different major in mind coming into JMU but changed track.
“When I applied to JMU I was a biology premed major,” Holland said. “When I came to CHOICES I was sold on ISAT because of the alternative energy stuff and the environment conservation classes.”
The ISAT dean’s office, the School of Engineering, the ISAT department and the computer science department contributed about $10,000 to help ISAT faculty recruit women in high schools who are interested in a science, technology, engineering or mathematics major.
Papadakis said she sees the goals of the ISAT faculty as the three As —awareness, acceptance and action.
“We have been successful in the awareness phase of making the entire faculty aware of the low percentage of women,” Papadakis said.
There’s a high level of commitment in the faculty to increase the number of women in ISAT. They’re designing the action phase now and hope to have a noticeable difference in the program over the spring semester and fall of next year.
Papadakis has high hopes for the future of women in the program.
“My goal is to see about 35 to 40 percent female enrollment, which would about double what it is now,” Papadakis said. “Women should not be intimidated by the science and technology fields. They should try it; most of the women in the program are happy and will be successful in their careers after college.”
Source- http://www.breezejmu.org/news/article_80f887c0-213f-11e1-860f-0019bb30f31a.html
No comments:
Post a Comment