Workshop: Adelante: Focus on Latinas in Math and Science

University Of Texas At San Antonio, San Antonio TX

Investigators

Abstract

0339201 Cantu The Adelante: Focus on Latinas in Math, Science and Engineering Project seeks to add a number of Latinas to the rolls of graduate programs in math and science and ultimately to the numbers of faculty in these fields. The proposed project will bring together established women in these areas with promising young scholars and undergraduate students for a 3-day summer institute. The proposed project integrates 70 participants into the existing annual Mujeres Activas en Letras Cambio Social Summer Institute (MALCS-SI), to be held at the University of Texas San Antonio campus in August 2003. Although the Institute is multi-disciplinary, the MALCS event is generally attended by Latinas in the humanities and social sciences, with little emphasis or attendance by Latinas in math and science and engineering. The 2003 organizing committee would like to sponsor the first annual Adelante! Focus on Math and Science and Engineering. The program will consist of parallel concurrent sessions to the Institute where nine senior faculty members all Latinas in Math and Science and Engineering will offer advise, present their current research and career achievements, as well as, speak about the process for achieving a graduate degree in math and science and engineering. In short, they will serve as role-models and mentors to the 30 participants who will be drawn from South Texas institutions of higher learning, whose student body is predominantly Latino. The overall goal of the project is to increase the number of Latinas pursuing doctoral degrees in math and science and engineering. By targeting 30 undergraduate and master degree level Latina students in South Texas, the event will generate an interest in doctoral programs and subsequently will increase the number of applications to graduate programs in math and science and engineering in the next 3 years. Since the MALCS was formed, the annual conferences and institutes have inspired undergraduate students to pursue doctoral degrees. Several students who first attended as undergraduates are now participating as graduate students or as assistant professors. Indeed some who began attending the conference in the mid 80s as graduate students have already achieved full-professor status. The MALCS 2003 committee would like to do the same for math and science and engineering and plans to work with Latina members of the Society for the Advancement of Chicanos and Native Americans in Science (SACNAS) to make that goal a reality.