5 October 1995

Carnegie Mellon to Host Conference on Making Academia A Supportive Environment for Women in Engineering and Science

PITTSBURGH--Carnegie Mellon University will host "Bridging the Gender Gap for Women in Engineering and Science," a day-long conference about the challenges of transforming colleges and universities into productive, supportive learning and work environments for women in these fields.

Nearly 30 experts from colleges and universities around the country will gather at 8:45 a.m., Saturday, Oct. 14, at Carnegie Mellon's Hamburg Hall to discuss the difficult issues facing women teaching, doing research and studying science and engineering in academia.

Conference coordinators say the event will provide an opportunity for a "unique dialogue" among researchers who study women in science and engineering, women engineers and scientists, students, academic decision makers and faculty from the tri-state area and across the nation.

"It is critical that we move the conversation from how women can adjust to the climate to how the climate can accommodate diversity," says conference chairperson Barbara Lazarus, an associate provost at Carnegie Mellon. "We are excited that so many people are joining us to ask the hard questions that will move this agenda forward."

Carnegie Mellon President Robert Mehrabian, Provost Paul Christiano, engineering school Dean Stephen Director and science college Dean Susan Henry will be featured speakers along with deans of engineering from Cooper Union College and the Georgia Institute of Technology. Other experts from Purdue University, the University of Washington, the University of California at Berkeley and Howard University will participate as well.

Denise Ecklund, principal scientist, Intel Corp., and Sue Rosser, senior officer for Women~s Programs at the National Science Foundation, will also be speakers and participants at the conference, along with George Campbell, president of the National Action Council for Minorities in Engineering, and Suzanne Brainard, director of the Women in Engineering program at the University of Washington. Brainard is also president of the Women in Engineering Program Advocates Network.

The conference is divided into three segments: Population and pipeline, climate and curriculum, and institutional transformation. The first area focuses on research that indicates women become more discouraged about entering engineering and science as they progress through the educational pipeline from elementary through graduate school.

In climate and curriculum, the issues revolve around the thesis that engineering and scientific disciplines have cultures that can adversely affect the status of women attempting to enter them. But studies have shown that one of the most effective ways to ensure that women will go on to graduate school is through a hands-on experience with research.

The third area, institutional transformation, will focus on the five phases through which institutions pass on their journey toward providing an environment friendly to women in engineering and science.

"Bridging the Gender Gap" is sponsored by the Intel Foundation, with contributions from the Pennsylvania Space Grant Consortium Program, Westinghouse Electric Corporation~s Campus Recruiting Program, the ALCOA Foundation and Carnegie Mellon.

An agenda of the program and speakers is attached to this release. For further information, contact: Gwendolyne Wood, Office of the Associate Provost, (412) 268-8934 or gw2k@andrew.cmu.edu

Return to: SCS News Releases
SCS-Today
School of Computer Science homepage

This page maintained by copetas@cs.cmu.edu.