Junior Taliser Avery can tell you all about what it's like to be a woman in the engineering program here at Tufts ? and so can her three housemates, who are all part of the growing number of women pursuing a degree in the School of Engineering. The four students each provide different perspectives on their experiences, based on their varied majors within the school. But when it comes down to it, the overall consensus is that female engineering students have come a long way in the past few years. And they're not showing any signs of slowing down.
The Tufts School of Engineering boasts that 32 percent of its students are women, almost twice the national average of 18 percent. The 1999-2000 academic year saw the highest number of women students and faculty members in the history of the school.
Junior Erin Butler, a computer engineer and one of Avery's housemates, appreciates that Tufts has more women engineers than most other schools. "From what I know, we have more females than most places. A lot of more technological schools have less females than we do," she said.
According to Associate Director of Undergraduate Admissions Leon Braswell, Tufts may give women a second glance when it comes to admission into the engineering program. "I think that we're sensitive to the fact that the School of Engineering is mostly male," he said. "Women do stand out in the [engineering] admissions process just because there are so many more men applying to the school."
Making strides
Much of the energy and success of the engineering program can be accredited to its highly motivated students. Just ask Avery, an engineering psychology major, about initiative. The junior restarted the Tufts Ergonomics and Human Factors Society this fall, and serves as the group's co-president."Basically, we're trying to get [the engineering psychology] major organized so there's more knowledge about what classes to take," she explained. She noted that the major is offered through both the College of Liberal Arts and the School of Engineering, and thus the academic responsibility of the engineering psychology program is somewhat muddled. With the society, Avery is making sure that students like herself have a clear idea of the degree requirements.
"It also provides the opportunity to get to know other students in your major," she added.
Avery's housemates are leaders in the engineering community as well. Butler, for example, serves as vice president of Tufts' chapter of the Society for Women Engineers (SWE). The junior computer engineer explained that the society focuses on planning events to benefit women engineers.
The group also helps incoming first-year female engineering students plan their classes. The engineering program, which requires 38 credits - four more than are required by the College of Liberal Arts - is a highly structured courseload that demands students to declare their major by the end of their freshman year. Understandably, this puts a lot of pressure on those involved in the program.
Nationally, SWE is a nonprofit educational organization dedicated to publicizing the need for women engineers and supporting women in the field. The society celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2000, and, in retrospect, its goals have not changed much since its inception. The function that it serves for some of its members, though, has changed.
Junior Julie Litzenberger, another housemate of Avery's, reflected on this change. The junior civil engineer feels that, although SWE began as a feminism movement, it serves today's women engineers as a social group.
When Litzenberger interned at an engineering firm this past summer, she was part of a noticeable minority of women. At the beginning, she found herself keeping company with "lots of men in suits" who seemed surprised to be working with a woman, but who didn't treat her any differently from their male counterparts. These men, she added, were mostly established figures in their field - part of an older generation. Because her job allowed her to visit other engineering firms, she saw several different working environments, where she interacted with younger male engineers who seemed less surprised to see her.
The generation gap that Litzenberger noticed this summer is evidence of a growing acknowledgement of women as leaders in the modern workforce. Such progress can be attributed to groups such as SWE, as well as those professionals who strive to educate the public about the contributions that women have made to the field. In addition, programs that target young girls and encourage their self-confidence in traditionally male-dominated fields will have lasting effects on future generations.
Reaching out
In addition to helping students, SWE organizes events involving younger girls, such as last year's program that paired the engineers up with local girl scout troops. The students helped the girls earn their science badges while educating them about the field of engineering - something that many of the students wished they'd had when they were younger.
"We never talked about science-y stuff when I was a girl scout," Butler said, adding that she didn't even understand what engineering was until she came to Tufts.
Martha Cyr directs the Center for Engineering Educational Outreach (CEEO), a program of the School of Engineering that connects students and faculty at Tufts to elementary and secondary schools in outside communities. She explained that the program encourages teachers and students to incorporate engineering into everyday curriculum. The center especially concentrates on encouraging young girls to pursue an education in engineering.
"We focus on reaching girls because we feel that, at all ages, they are viewed as not the technical people in the class," Cyr said. "By having programs that we know are engaging for girls, we give them a feeling of ownership for what it's like to be an engineer."
The young girls who participate in this program aren't the only benefactors, however. Many women in the Tufts engineering program choose to volunteer their time to the program. "Female engineering students really like this outreach component," Cyr said. "They seem to really support the idea of reaching out to girls. It gives them an opportunity to mentor the girls, and that seems to be very satisfying to the women."
The focus of CEEO is the future. The center is constantly aware of the importance of engaging young minds towards their field. One of the programs that the CEEO offers to children is LEGO, a summer camp that exposes children entering grades five through 11 to engineering through problem solving, logic, and computer programming. The first week of the program is called "Girls Week" and is offered exclusively to young girls, while the second week opens the program up to boys as well.
Cyr explained that, while the main objective of the summer program is to spark interest among school children in engineering, the CEEO places special focus on the young girls. "We wanted to provide a week for girls to have an opportunity not to feel overrun by boys' personalities and competitive drives," she said. She added that the second week is traditionally almost 100 percent male.
In the two years that the program has been running, Cyr has noticed a difference in the atmosphere of the two different weeks. She noted that the girls are more likely to work together and share suggestions as they work on projects, while the boys tend to keep their ideas to themselves. "The girls like to build and program and they want their [project] to be the best, but they tend not to go head-to-head in competition," she explained. "The boys race against each other in direct competition."
Closing the gender gap
Perhaps from childhood, males are stereotypically more inclined toward engineering than are females, but the women of the Tufts School of Engineering are working hard to prove the invalidity of such stereotypes. They refuse to let ratios intimidate them or affect their experience as students.This program also holds special value to Cyr, who faced many obstacles in her experiences as a female engineering student, and knows the value of positive role models.
"I had professors who gave me worse grades for better work than my male classmates," she said. "When getting my advanced degrees, I had children, and there were faculty members who had trouble understanding that I sometimes had to put my family before my research work."
Thankfully, things have changed since Cyr was in college, especially at Tufts. For instance, Butler sang praises of her advisor, a female professor within the college. "It's fun to have female professors because you get to see what they've done," she said. "It's good to be able to talk to them as a female and hear about how things were when they started and there weren't as many girls in the program."
Litzenberger agrees that the faculty is a good resource for women engineers, providing encouragement all along the way. She also recognized the Assistant Dean of Engineering, Kim Knox, for her contribution to the program. "Dean Knox is a really good mentor for females at Tufts," she said.
Not everyone feels as enthusiastic about the faculty, however. Junior Liz Korb, another housemate and an environmental engineer, recalled one course in which she felt she had to prove herself to her male professor more than the men in her class did. She also expressed her wish for more female professors - in her department especially.
"I've had one female professor and I didn't like her very much at all," she said. "Pretty much every professor in my department is male. I really wish I had more of a female role model."
Yet, in some ways, Korb feels that women actually have an advantage over the men in the program. "I think my professors are more impressed by women because they don't think of women as engineers," she said, adding that professors are often more likely to encourage women who do well in the program than their male counterparts.
"It's kind of funny," Butler mused. "I don't usually notice it, but every once in a while I'll look around my classroom and realize that there's only five girls out of 40 or 50 people. But I don't let that intimidate me. If I have a question, I ask it."
Braswell is confidence that more and more women will be admitted to the School of Engineering in the future. "Tufts is continuing to build a strong cohort of women in the engineering program," he said.
In the meantime, those women who have already begun their education in engineering are, for the most part, enjoying themselves and their studies.
"Being a woman in the engineering program is great," Korb said. "No one looks down on you just because you're a woman."
