Increasing the Representation of Women in STEM via a New Interdisciplinary Engineering Program at a Liberal Arts Women's College

Sweet Briar College, Sweet Briar VA

Investigators

Abstract

The proposal assists a new engineering program at a primarily liberal arts women's college and increases the number of women in engineering and across the STEM disciplines by: 1) offering program scholarships including incentives for matriculation from a local community college; 2) guaranteeing students industrial internships in conjunction with the regional economic development council; 3) developing a "Recruits in Research" program involving high school juniors in research projects; 4) establishing an intensive and sustainable recruitment effort; 5) developing two interdisciplinary courses involving design and on-site project implementation in the U.S. and abroad; and 6) developing instrumentation capability within the integrated engineering laboratory. The project achieves discovery and understanding by involving high school juniors in scientific research, incorporating NI ELVIS/Lab VIEW workstations into the integrated engineering laboratory, guaranteeing industrial internships, and providing students opportunities to design and implement solutions to real-world problems. The college has committed to providing over $1 million over 5 years toward sustaining the initiatives, all of which will be institutionalized by the end of the grant period.