Abstract: |
Too often, the creation and limited support of a Women in Engineering Program provides administrators and faculty with an excuse to not tackle challenging gender issues in classrooms, laboratories and board rooms. Colleges and institutions can also regard the establishment of diversity programming as meeting the demand for institutional intervention and not take the next step of institutionalizing the underlying objectives systemically. Women in Engineering Programs can come to be regarded as the place where all problems are sent to be solved or, on the other extreme, irrelevant. The program can end up marginalized, remote, and under-funded. The programs, in fact, become metaphors for the problems of the women they are created to serve. This session provides practical tips on how to mainstream gender issues, create institutional ownership of your program objectives, develop internal funding streams, and sidestep institutional marginalization. |
