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Abstract:
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The Gender Parity Initiative of the SMU School of Engineering has the goal of reaching 50% female enrollment in SMUs undergraduate engineering population. SMU Engineering is taking a unique approach to achieving gender parity by engaging both students and their influencers. One key group of influencers is high school educators, so SMU Engineering developed Educators Day, a 3-hour workshop that provides high school math teachers, science teachers, and guidance counselors with information on engineering. The workshop covers four major content areas including: (1) basics of engineering and the need for more female engineers, (2) how to identify future engineers, (3) tips for writing better letters of recommendation, and (4) career opportunities in engineering and information on SMU Engineering. To date, three workshops have been held with a total of twenty five educators attending who represented sixteen area high schools. Workshops were promoted through SMU Engineerings databases and website. The workshops were free to participants, but registration was required. Participants earned three Continuing Education Units for attending. Post workshop evaluations were conducted to determine the effectiveness of the workshop and areas for future improvement. An overwhelming 92% of participants reported their interest in attending attributed to a desire to learn more about engineering. Participants were also asked to rate how strongly they agreed with statements pertaining to the content of the workshop on a scale of 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). All statements received ratings greater than 4.0, indicating that the participants gained new information from the workshop. In the coming year, four Educators Days will be offered throughout Texas.
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