IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - June 2008 - 51

Pipelining
Attractive Programs for Women

Bringing Real-World
Relevance into
Engineering Classrooms

and little effort by faculty to encourage
young women to stick with engineering.
On the other hand, women are more likely to continue their studies after they're
exposed early on to team-based, hands-on
instruction that focuses on how engineering can solve societal problems.
"The conversation about why women
are not doing well in undergraduate
engineering programs has changed," Bell
says. "It's gone from 'What's wrong with
women?' to 'What's wrong with engineering education?'"

Meaningful, hands-on projects will encourage women
to choose engineering studies-and to stay with them

Several factors, including a high dropout
rate after freshman year, contribute to
the low number of female engineers.
The IEEE's Women in Engineering
(WIE) Committee and Educational Activities Board (EAB) are teaming up to provide universities with hands-on projects
designed to encourage women to pursue
degrees in electrical engineering and
computer science.
The new two-year initiative, "Increasing the Representation of Women in the
IEEE's Fields of Interest," is aimed at
resolving problems in academia that
many believe have led to a lack of female
engineers. The IEEE plans to spend
US$378,000 on the program.
Spearheading the initiative are IEEE
Senior Member Amy Bell, an associate
professor of electrical and computer
engineering at Virginia Polytechnic
Institute and State University, in Blacksburg, and Moshe Kam, vice president,
IEEE Educational Activities. "Women's
underparticipation in electrical and
computer engineering and computer
science worldwide threatens the competitive vitality of the workforce and the
profession," Bell wrote in describing the
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MWIE.2008.925806

Changing How Engineering
Is Taught
initiative. "It restricts the employment
opportunities of half the population."
The underrepresentation of women
in electrical engineering and computer
science is a persistent problem that has
long been recognized. In 2004, U.S.
women, for example, earned less than
15% of such degrees, while they earned
46% of the bachelor's degrees awarded
that year in biomedical engineering and
41% of the bachelor's degrees in environmental engineering. Other countries
face a similar gender gap. For example,
less than 10% of engineering degrees
awarded in Japan, Italy, Spain, and
South Korea went to women.
Overall, women make up only 8.5%
of all engineers in the United States,
according to statistics compiled by the
U.S. National Science Foundation and
the American Society for Engineering
Education.

Deterrents to Women
A large-scale U.S. study, the Women's
Experiences in College Engineering project, as well as other studies conducted at
Purdue University, Virginia Tech, and
elsewhere, have uncovered a number of
deterrents. They include a lack of female
role models, the absence of peer support,

SUMMER 2008

The IEEE initiative aims to change the
way engineering is taught by introducing practical projects in freshman classes. It calls on the IEEE to work with
educators to develop hands-on projects
and online workshops for freshmen.
This month, a group of engineeringschool faculty will start developing proposals for projects that address
real-world electrical, computer engineering, and computer science problems
whose solutions can benefit society. The
idea is to first present a problem in a
background lecture along with at least
one solution. That will be followed by a
summary lecture that reviews the problem and discusses the challenges and
tradeoffs involved in its solution, as well
as the solution's effect on society.
A review committee will approve all
proposals for development. Individual
lessons are to be turned into online
teaching aids and posted on the IEEE
Web site by November. Both the WIE
Committee and the EAB are set to promote them to members and to the engineering-school community. Educators
whose lessons make it to the IEEE Web
site will receive US$5,000.
(continued on page 56)

IEEE WOMEN IN ENGINEERING MAGAZINE

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - June 2008