IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - December 2017 - 50

is that the venture moves forward
toward meaningful impact. The fact
that HESE allows teams to work however they think is best has a two-fold
effect on students. First, it relieves
part of the intimidation factor. No
one is good at everything. HESE
allows students to take on what they
think they are best or most interested in and doesn't force fit students
to a task. For women with low selfefficacy, this is beneficial because
it keeps them in the class, assuring
them that there is a role for everyone to play regardless of how their
background or skill set compares to
others. Additionally, we have seen
that once the semester gets going,
students dive into more aspects
of the project than they imagined.
They become more comfortable
with ambiguity and learn over time
that they can take on whatever they
want. This boosts their confidence
and can help women embrace more
technical classes that they may have
previously feared. As one student's
experience shows
My first year in HESE, I designed an assessment protocol that included 10+ unique
focus group and interview
question sets, led the Institutional Review Board (research
with human subjects) ap proval process under a tight
time-frame, and that Summer
made sure the more than
300 in-person interviews conducted on the ground ran
smoothly. After that, fluid
mechanics seemed a lot
more doable!)

#7 Create an Informal
Support Network
When students do eventually graduate from the program, they are
bonded together by their experiences. They have shared late nights,

countless rounds of journal edits,
intense fieldwork in a developing
country, and a semester's worth of
strategic reflection afterwards. Many
students are involved in the program
for multiple years of their undergraduate education; some stick around for
a year after graduation to advance
ventures through post-baccalaureate
fellowships. We connect students with
peers and alumni to provide feedback
for ongoing work streams and also to
act as additional sources of motivation and accountability. Alumni
share insights about what it was like
working in the field or going through
the publication process. Students
also have the opportunity to study
alumni's career opportunities and
trajectories. We don't inherently put a
gender angle on the support network;
we connect students with the person
who is most relevant to their needs. If
it is a gendered issue (feeling insecure
as a woman in a developing country)
then, of course, we connect them
with another female, but otherwise
we're gender neutral.

the program. We've found that even
after recruitment, some students still
don't believe that we value humanities backgrounds as much as technical ones. On the first day of each
semester, we're sure to point out
that it's an equal playing field across
everyone in the room. It doesn't matter if you're an engineer or a geographer, a freshman or Ph.D. candidate;
everyone has something to bring to
the table.
Our dynamic student pool is a
major draw and resonates with our
student base. As one undergraduate described,

#8 Recruit Everyone, Not
Just Women

Some students are motivated to
join because they know that the real
world is filled with people of all colors, textures, shapes, and sizes, and
they need to learn to work across
disciplines, cultures, and walks of
life to be successful. But for a lot of
our students, it's simpler than that:
they want to meet new people who
share their passions, regardless of
background. For female students,
HESE is a place where they can meet
peers from other majors, and come
together to form a major presence,
in contrast to being a minority within their disciplines.

The idea of this being an engineering class is intimidating
because I don't have a technical or mechanical background at all. The combination of humanities and engineering is one I've never
really considered or seen in
any other program or class,
but it's a combination that
makes so much sense.

The work done by our students is
intended to impact a diverse array of
people, of all ages, genders, races,
and cultures. We believe the best
way to develop solutions usable
by a diverse population is to have
teams of individuals with diverse
perspectives co-create the solutions.
Hence, we recruit everyone. We further emphasize the critical need to
leverage all sources of diverse knowledge. One tactic that has been particularly successful is sending HESE
student ambassadors to classes to
talk about their experiences. Female
students are influential in showing
other women that they have a place
within the program. In our online
campaigns we are sure to point out
the historical gender equity as well
as the multidisciplinary nature of
IEEE TECHNOLOGY AND SOCIETY MAGAZINE

#9 Focus on Skillsets and
Mindsets
Engineering education is often too
focused on teaching expansive technical know-how, without closing
the loop and showing how such
∕

DECEMBER 2017

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - December 2017