Hearing the Female Voices in Quality Creating a Diverse Workforce

1. 2011 New Faces in Engineering Hearing the Female Voices in QualityCreating a Diverse Workforce Sharyn Mlinar Sr. Quality Engineer The Boeing Company Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Sharyn.e.mlinar@boeing.com

3. INTRODUCE A GIRL TO ENGINEERING DAY FEBRUARY 24, 2011 Women are severely underrepresented in the engineering profession. Research shows that girls and young women lose interest in subjects and the fields of study leading to engineering careers long before they enter college. As part of our focus on girls, we will publicize the need for more women in engineering and will reach K-12 girls with positive messages about math and science education and engineering careers. Additionally we are striving to have engineering societies and other organizations incorporate their own focus on women engineers with a hope that these various entities can continue to collaborate in the future. Currently only 20 percent of engineering undergraduates are women. Only ten percent of the engineering workforce are women. For years, false notions of girls’ innate inability in math, lack of science preparation in high school, and assumptions about the effects of historical and institutional discrimination, have been offered as causes for the startling disproportion. Recent surveys, however, refute most of those theories, including the ones that question girls’ academic readiness to study engineering when they leave high school. Girls and boys take requisite courses at approximately the same rate, with girls’ enrollment often exceeding that of boys. Instead, experts contend that the major culprit is one of perception among girls and the people who influence them, including teachers, parents, peers, and the media. In short, girls have to perceive they can be engineers before they can be engineers. According to the National Engineers Week Foundation, nothing conveys that message as effectively as mentors and role models and no program more effectively brings girls and role models together than Introduce a Girl to Engineering Day, now in its 8th year. Agilent Technologies, Inc. and the S.D. Bechtel, Jr. Foundation are lead sponsors for Introduce a Girl to Engineering Day, with additional funding from the Motorola Foundation. Some suggested reading material for girls are: Girls Think of Everything: Stories of Ingenious Inventions by WomenGirls just wanna have fun in engineering: Techbridge can help you Introduce a Girl to Engineering For more information about Introduce A Girl to Engineering Day, visit The National Engineers Week Foundation For specific information about what schools, companies and organizations are doing for Introduce a Girl to Engineering Day, check out EWeek.org's National Pledge Roster

4. From Jean Piaget’s early studies of boys at school and Carol Gilligan’s studies of females (1982) to the compilation of longitudinal studies edited by Ceci and Williams (2007) the data appear to substantiate that males and females approach life and its circumstances with differences but that cognitive ability with regard to sciences and the arts is not different.

6. Table 1 Educational Attainment 2006 - 2008 U.S. Census Bureau, 2006-2008 American Community Survey

7. Table 2 Educational Attainment 2006 - 2008 U.S. Census Bureau, 2006-2008 American Community Survey

8. Table 3 Educational Attainment 2006 - 2008

9. Table 4 Poverty rate for the population 25 years and over for whom poverty status is determined by educational attainment level

10. Table 5 Median Earnings 2008 by Educational Attainment Level

11. Table 6 Science and engineering degrees awarded, by degree level and sex of recipient 1966-2006 • Tabulated by National Science Foundation/Division of Science Resources Statistics (NSF/SRS); data from Department of Education/National Center for Education Statistics: Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System Completions Survey and NSF/SRS: Survey of Earned Doctorates • (NSF, 2009)

14. Machine Design reported in December 2009 “only 1 in 10 male engineers leave the field by the time they hit 30, but about 1 in 4 women leave engineering after getting their degree.”

15. Table X Maternity Leave

16. Table X • Note: Service/Manufacturing industry data from the United Nations Statistical Yearbook 2000 (2004). Labor force, unemployment, part-time employment data from United nations Statistics 2000-2003. Data are rounded. Note that women are over represented in both part-time and service professions, indicating a lower wage base. • F = female, M = male, NA = no data available. • The rates in these countries, where the initial amount is higher that the amount for remaining leave. Moreover, in some countries such as the United Kingdom and Sweden, the leave may be longer, but there is less pay for longer leave periods. • (see http://www.childpolicyintl.org) (Watt & Eccles, 343-344)

17. Celebrate Diversity

18. Caring Traditions Apples & Oranges & Limes & … Helping Those In need Nurturing Peace Perspective Moving together Faith in Mans Humanity change Legacy Appreciating Differences Partnerships Free Speech Politics Tempered With Patriotism Self-expression Religious Freedom Different Viewpoints Wisdom On Occasion Challenges Veterans Teamwork Hope Learning Harmony Reflection No Fear