UP, like other colleges across the nation, lacks female engineering professors
By Ame Phitwong
Washington State Rep. Brian Baird recently led a science subcommittee hearing investigating the barriers women face in securing engineering faculty positions at universities.
UP has two female faculty members in the School of Engineering, resembling similar statistics around the United States that indicate a relatively low number of female instructors in engineering programs.
"We cannot afford to continue losing our best and brightest women, or minorities for that matter, from academic science and engineering careers," Baird said in a press release.
The committee is known as the Science & Technology Committee's Research and Science Education Subcommittee. The group believes that gender-based federal anti-discrimination laws have only been directed at college athletics and overlooked in the academic field.
A report released by the National Academies of Science suggests that federal officials begin evaluating universities for discrimination while hiring faculty.
The press release stated that the group wants the "federal government to vigorously enforce current federal anti-discrimination laws and coordinate workshops to minimize gender bias in academic science and engineering."
Bart Rylander, an engineering professor at UP, doesn't think UP's hiring practices are biased.
"I haven't seen evidence of discrimination in engineering against females," Rylander said. "We hired two female professors in the past four years because they were the best choice. Not because they were female."
Khalid Khan, associate dean of the School of Engineering, said that at UP, 10 percent of the engineering faculty is female. He said this number is actually good and that the process is slow in regards to increasing females in engineering.
"I think, in this country especially, the image of the dumb blonde beautiful girl with no brains is popular. Girls shy away in junior high because it's not cool to be brainy, but slowly that image is going away," Khan said.
According to Khan, the female engineering population at UP is between 15 to 20 percent. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, 57 percent of undergraduate and graduate students are female.
However, of that number, the American Society for Engineering Education states that only 20 percent of women receive bachelor's degrees in engineering.
Karen Ward, one of the female faculty who teaches computer science, was a software engineer before accepting a full-time position at UP. She had experience teaching as a graduate student and led some training sessions and classes in her field.
Ward loved fixing problems and finding solutions for her clients when she was a software engineer. She had not planned to apply for a teaching position.
"It was very satisfying. I was afraid I would lose that ability to help people solve problems," Ward said. She continued to help people, students in particular, solve problems and guide them in life and career decisions.
"I just had to redefine my product," Ward said.
Tammy VanDeGrift is the other female faculty member in engineering. She said she had always been interested in teaching and her experience in college solidified her decision to become a professor.
When she entered
college, her intentions were to become a math or physics professor.
"After taking several computer science courses, I came to realize that I was more passionate about computer science and I could see how technology could impact the way people live and communicate," VanDeGrift said. "Now that I am teaching college students, I enjoy helping them see if computer science or engineering is a good fit for their skills and interest."
Senior Anna Pereira, a mechanical engineering major, said it's obvious there are fewer females in engineering, but she doesn't think they are under represented. She said that the ratio of female students to male students in engineering is very close to the ratio of female to male professors. Pereira is interested in teaching someday.
"I would love to be a professor. Especially here at the University of Portland," she said. "But if I'm smart enough and can compete against some of the genius international competition, I'm not sure."
Pereira got into engineering because her father, a UP graduate, was an electrical engineer. She had observed her dad working with high voltage equipment and always thought it was "cool."
Although Pereira had an early exposure to engineering, Ward explained that not enough students get the opportunity to really know what engineering is like at a young age. She said that many students already have in mind what they want to do when they get to college. But because of lack of knowledge, she explained it was difficult for students to have the option to be an engineer if they had never been exposed.
Senior KC Cameron is an electrical engineering major. Cameron said she really liked math, but hadn't planned on going into engineering initially.
"It would be nice to see more females in the sciences. They're definitely capable," Cameron said.
Although she is a minority in the classroom, Cameron said the experience hasn't been negative.
"I don't think it's that bad," she said. "You're not going to make that many girlfriends, but the only place I think it'd be intimidating is the workplace."
VanDeGrift said she did not feel awkward working on a staff with mostly men.
"I assumed I would be on a staff of mostly male colleagues when I decided to study and teach computer science, so I have not experienced any need for adjustment," she said. As an undergraduate, VanDeGrift was the only female student in her computer science courses. Because of this, she said she experienced several years of working with male colleagues.
There is a national association created to bring together female engineers called the Society of Women Engineers (SWE). It is a nonprofit organization that is trying to establish engineering as a highly desirable career aspiration for women.
"SWE is a great organization for encouraging more women to study engineering," VanDeGrift said. She explained that SWE is not an exclusive organization and is open to male members. "Anyone interested in seeing a more gender-balanced engineering profession would be welcomed by SWE."
In 1988, the University of Washington created the Women in Engineering Initiative, which increased UW female graduates from 15 percent to about 22 percent, with the number of women pursuing graduate degrees in engineering doubling.
According to the Anita Borg Institute, 19 percent of women in France obtain engineering degrees. Women in France have the highest ratio of engineering degrees to total university degrees among any Western European country. In 1990, women in East Germany earned 28 percent of the engineering degrees compared with 7 percent in West Germany. In Bulgaria, women obtained 57 percent of all university degrees and earned half of the engineering degrees in 1992. They earned 73 percent of the mathematics and computer science degrees.
Ward, VanDeGrift, and Khan all believe the in numbers of females in engineering will rise, but gradually. They do not expect to see a drastic change in the next five to 10 years. They believe we should target all students at an early age and give them the opportunity to explore and excel in math, science and engineering. The change will have to begin early to alter the perception and eliminate society's stereotypes toward who an engineer is and the job field.
"I want a world that encourages people to do the job that God put them on earth to do. For some women, this is engineering. For some men, this is nursing. Neither of these professions is for everyone," Ward said. "But I don't want the men who would be excellent nurses and the women who would be excellent engineers to be dissuaded from a fulfilling career because soc iety can't quite envision them doing it. That is what we have to work to change."
