Women in Science and Engineering: Increasing Their Numbers in the 1990s A Statement on Policy and Strategy (1991) / Chapter Skim
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3. Effectiveness of Intervention Models
3. Effectiveness of Intervention Models
Pages 51-70
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From page 51... ...
, 51 percent of such programs targeted "'minorities only, and 'all' students with special efforts for minorities." By contrast, only 9 percent of the intervention programs targeted 'women only and 'all' students with special efforts for women, and another 28 percent targeted "'minorities and women' and 'all' students with special efforts for minorities and women." The study found that programs targeting minority students do seine women: 51 percent of those participating in such programs are women, and black women participate to a much higher extent than do Hispanic and American Indian women.
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From page 52... ...
Activities associated with short-term projects -- - those usually lasting one or two days are career information, course information, and role models. In addition to these activities, long52
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From page 53... ...
Undergraduate Programs Prior to the 1991 AAAS study, there were no comprehensive studies of interventions targeting women majoring in a science or engineering discipline at the undergraduate level. However, research on a limited number of such programs has shown that those most effective~hat is, those most successful in awarding bachelor's degrees in the sciences and engineering to women share common elements: s3
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From page 54... ...
. having a developed program of recruitment and retention activities; using a variety of admission criteria to predict the performance of female students in S&E study, providing opportunities for female students to interact with professionals in academe, industry, and government; offering informed undergraduate and graduate counseling about course choices and future job opportunities; developing support or networking groups—both informal gatherings and the more structured meetings of student chapters of professional organizations, such as the Society of Women Engineers to reduce feelings of isolation and alienation for women in traditionally masculine fields; and cultivating departmental and campus climates that encourage academic achievement among women.
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From page 55... ...
peer advising. Academic counseling and tutoring, faculty interaction, and research experience are important for both male and female students in science and 4 The Douglass program has 10 components: Bunt~ng-Cobb Residence Hall for 99 undergraduate women majoring in math, science, and engineering and 10 graduate women, who serve as Bunting-Cobb Fellows/meIltors to the undergraduates; peer study groups, each led by a graduate student, Whose purpose is to get students to help each other; peer tutoring by upperclass undergraduates; study partnerships; Douglass Science Management Intern Program, whereby seniors majoring in math, science, or psychology work in scientific or technological corporations for one semester; career panels, held each semester, where women employed as mathematicians, scientists, and engineers can share career information and serve as role models for students; visits to the laboratories of female scientists and engineers, who discuss their research; informal taLtcs with women faculty, Big Sister/Little Sister Program, in which a first-year student may choose to have an upperclass woman as her "big sister;" and distribution of information on research/internship opportunities (Kennedy, 1990; see also Mappen, 1990~.
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From page 56... ...
There is an expectation that all students, regardless of sex, ~11 be challenged and will rise to meet the challenges presented to them. Gender is 5 An example of a work-study program that makes a special effort to involve women students is the Department of Energies National Laboratory Cooperative Summer Program.
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From page 57... ...
The recent AAAS study found that graduate programs targeting students in the sciences and engineering fell within five categories: 1.
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From page 58... ...
Recent recommendations for expanding opportunities for women in the sciences and engineering at the graduate level include federal funding support for graduate S&E education for women, provision of federal agency funds as an incentive to researchers to employ female graduate students, and federal monitoring of progress toward these goals (Task Force, 1988; OTA, 1988~. At the same time, however, the science community cannot reach consensus about what should have priority in the federal budget: projects such as mapping the human genome and the Superconducting Super Collider compete directly with basic research (and the stipends paid to research assistants)
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From page 59... ...
Career Interventions A technique that has proven successful at the postdoctoral and professional levels is networking: groups of women meet together, with or without a facilitator, to provide encouragement and to discuss special academic, technical, and social problems that they are facing, while others suggest solutions to related problems. For instance, the American Physical Society, through its Committee on the Status of Women in Physics, is creating a network for graduate women in physics by conducting workshops on career counseling and sponsoring hospitality suites at the society annual and regional meetings.
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From page 60... ...
In the major research universities, women held 24 percent of the assistant professorships, but only 3 percent of the full professorships. Women scientists were still twice or three times as likely as men to 60
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From page 61... ...
Although data in the Doctorate Records File and from the American Council on Education, the National Center for Education Statistics, and several professional societies reveal that while the proportion of doctorates earned by women across almost all scientific fields has risen dramatically in the last decade (in general, women receive about 27 percent of Ph.D.s each year) , their employment on faculties has not.
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From page 62... ...
At the same time that the numbers of women leaving graduate school are increasing, the availability of positions in colleges and universities, where most women scientists have historically been employed, is expected to be greater than in the past because of retirements by many current faculty. Between 1974 and 1980 NSE, through the National Science Board, established innovative targeted programs for facul~nding short courses, the Female Visitation Science Program, science career workshops, and the Dissertation Completion and Junior Female Scholar Awards.
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From page 63... ...
IN Industrial employers have cautiously implemented a large number of programs to attract and retain women scientists and engineers. In addition to starting salaries comparable to, and sometimes higher than, those offered to men, the private sector has also responded to the potential conflict between "the previously separate worlds of work and family (Nieva, 1985~.
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From page 64... ...
, 6 Such policies have resulted in a smorgasbord of programs: jobsharing, in which either spouse may share a job outside the home with another employee, perhaps even his or her spouse; part-time work, often with full-tune benefits; assistance in locating, obtaining, and improving the quality of child care; reimbursement or direct provision of child-care services; flextime, which allows an employee to work a full day whose starting time varies within a stated (usually two-hour) period; elder care, "providing some type of assistance with the daily living activities for an elderly relative who is chronically frail, ill, or disabled (Galinsky and Stein, 1989~; parental leave; and alternative work schedules for full-time employees, not restricted by an eight-hour day, five days each week.
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From page 65... ...
Among effective interventions are assistance with child and elder care; flexible work arrangements including flextime, flexplace, and job sharing; and training for supervisors in techniques for making jobs "doable" for women and for effectively assessing women's performance in those jobs. Nevertheless, many of these interventions are single efforts that produce only limited results.
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From page 66... ...
In addition, the President's Council on Management Improvement implemented "flexiplace" on February 12, 1990, to enable federal employees to work at home; although still considered a pilot project, the 27 participating federal agencies cite benefits including increased worker productivity and decreased overhead costs, absenteeism, and turnover (Segal, 1991~. However, many of these benefits are not accessible to federal scientists and engineers, male or female, whose major work activities are primarily research and development (R&D, 24.8 percent)
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From page 67... ...
. Participants in a meeting convened by DOE's Office of University and Science Education Programs concluded that "there must be effective support for programs which are designed to increase upward mobility of women." Their recommendations include the following: release time for women scientists to engage in outreach activities to educate and excite students to the career opportunities available to women with technical backgrounds; policies for training and retraining including flextime, educational leaves of absence, and experience as a detailee to HO and/or operations; women's committees to encourage communication and support professional development and mentonug for young people; vigorous efforts to examine pay equity, ranking, promotion, and recruitment of women and to make the findings public; and corrective action to address the current concentration of R&D women in the lower ranks of Laboratory S&E staffs (DOE, 1991~.
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From page 68... ...
The conference is the first of several steps that might be taken to enhance current intervention models. The conference has as its goals: reviewing the spectrum of postsecondary programs supported by the federal government and the private sector to increase the number of potential and practicing scientists and engineers; delineating effective components of programs that increase the number and quality of U.S.
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From page 69... ...
Are intervention programs more successful at the regional level, when an entire organization is involved, or when directed at a single department (either in industry or academe)
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