Engineering a Place for Women
Attracting and retaining female engineers is everyone’s responsibility—from kindergarten teachers to employers.
BY FRANK JOSSI
Betty Shanahan is on a mission. As executive director and chief executive officer of the Chicago-based Society of Women Engineers (SWE), Shanahan travels the country speaking at engineering schools and at corporations about the importance of recruiting and retaining female engineers.
The 20,000-member SWE has 100 local professional sections, including a Minnesota section with more than 200 members. Shanahan became the first engineer to serve as SWE’s CEO in 2002 after a decorated career in the field. She started as an engineer on a mini-computer design project for Data General Corp. that formed the basis of Tracy Kidder’s 1980s classic science book, “The Soul of a New Machine.” Shanahan then moved on to Alliant Computer Systems Corp. in Littleton, Mass., and then to Stellent, Inc., an Eden Prairie firm acquired in 2006 by Redwood City, Calif.-based Oracle. Minnesota Technology magazine spoke to Shanahan about the challenges of getting women interested and involved in engineering.
Minnesota Technology magazine: How are we doing as a country in recruiting women engineers into educational establishments and into firms?
Shanahan: I would say we haven’t moved much in the last 20 years. We made good progress into the mid-1980s and since then it’s been pretty flat in terms of recruitment and retention.
MT: How does the U.S. stack up internationally?
S: I’ve had two chances to go overseas and it was amazing how quickly we [female engineers] bonded. It seemed that most speakers had a very similar story about the challenges of recruiting and retaining women in engineering. I joked you could almost take the slides from the U.S., change the percentages a little, change the accent of the speaker [and] you would hear practically the same talk anywhere in the world. I got to go to Nigeria in November and I gave the same presentation I give in the States and the women there totally identified with it. There are some exceptions — Eastern Europe, India and China tend to graduate women in slightly bigger percentages than other countries.
MT: Why are we failing to engage girls?
S: A lot is tied to their adult influences. We have to look at what messages we give girls versus what are they looking for in careers. We don’t give good messages in terms of what it is they’re going to be doing [as an engineer], what their lifestyle will be, what difference they’ll make. There’s a lot of focus on [engineering] being hard, that you have to focus a lot on math and science, as opposed to what we as engineers really like about the field — it’s taking projects through a process where you’re able to make a difference. And it’s financially a very comfortable lifestyle you’re offered.
MT: Is this generation of women different in some regard?
S: The current generation is looking to make a difference. Too often the profession is promoted through an expression of technology for technology’s sake instead of leveraging technology for making a difference. This will be important for tracking students of both genders.
MT: How does the attitude of educators and parents play into this?
S: Many teachers and adults don’t know what engineers are and what engineers do. Unless you’re in a community with engineers or know an engineer there is not a readily available image — engineers don’t appear on TV shows much, you don’t deal with an engineer typically in daily life. There’s not a lot of information there. A lot of teachers and counselors have a positive view of engineering, but they don’t see it as something their kids will succeed in, especially women and minorities.
MT: Is the engineering profession to blame?
S: Yes, we in the engineering profession reinforce those images as opposed to telling [future engineers] what we like about the profession. We stress loving math and science but not many teenage girls — or teenagers [in general] — love either subject. They might enjoy those courses, they may be competent, but love is a strong word. When you get down to it, engineers are not mathematicians and scientists, we’re innovators — if you like design, if you like innovation, you should find engineering appealing.
MT: What things do potential female engineers tend to study?
S: When you look at advanced placement test takers, girls are at parity with boys inmost fields — they’re at 48 percent in calculus, they’re 59 percent of biology. The problem is they are not taking [tests in] computer science or physics — they’re 15 percent of computer science, 31 percent of physics test takers.
MT: Are certain engineering careers more attractive to women?
S: You don’t see women in mechanical engineering, you see them in the environmental area or biomedical jobs. Women earned 42 percent of bachelor’s [degrees] in biomedical engineering in 2004-2005. Some of those fields tend to be small fields in absolute numbers — there aren’t a lot of men or women in those areas. You see a large percentage [of women] in chemical engineering, too. My field, electrical engineering, has only 13 percent of degrees going to women.
MT: Why do women go into environmental and biomedical engineering more than other disciplines?
S: You can make the argument that it’s easier to see the connection between what you want out of your career and making a difference in the world being a biomedical engineer versus being an electrical engineer, where it’s harder to see the impact.
MT: Do women fare well once they get into college?
S: No, women in engineering drop out at higher rates than men, and they also drop out with higher average grades than men. That’s one of the challenges. There is some research looking into why that is, and it shows that women look inward first when they face challenges with classes. Men are quicker to say, “I failed, I’ll take it again.” When women struggle they say, “Oh, there’s something wrong with me,” as opposed to understanding that calculus and physics are hard and it’s OK to struggle. It is connected also to the fact that there is no role model, it’s a very male environment, it’s very isolating when it’s an all-male environment.
MT: How do you, an electrical engineer, make the case for your discipline?
S: I worked on developing a mini-computer more than 20 years ago. When the National Center for Atmospheric Research started using the computer I helped develop to detect wind shear, an employee there called us up and said, “We just saved a plane, thanks to your computer.” That’s a really long trail to explain to a high school student. When you turn around and say, “I make an artificial hip,” or, “I work on environmental cleanups,” it’s easier to understand how an engineer makes a difference.
MT: What is the engineering establishment doing about the problem?
S: The National Academy of Engineering has completed some market research to identify messages with which we can communicate more effectively with the public, and that report is due out this year. What we have is a very traditional marketing problem. As a profession we’ve sent out lots of messages, many of them wrong or not consistent. One important thing is engineers should put aside our own individual messages and approaches and really unify around what the national academy is doing.
MT: Did you find any encouraging programs in Minnesota?
S: I saw great examples from Minnesota. One was at the Bakken Library and Museum — they were showing me projects they do with Girl Scouts where they take technology and they blend it with a presentation. Often, such activities are held as competitions and a lot of girls get turned off by competition for competition’s sake. Instead, the Bakken was having girls create bracelets that lit up and little containers with magnets. That’s showing girls how to use technology on projects they’ll like.
MT: Do you have an example from an elementary school?
S: I visited Farnsworth Aerospace Elementary School in St. Paul, a very diverse public school. They start with 4-year-olds and go through sixth grade. What’s amazing is the attitude of faculty toward students. The principal stood up at an assembly and said, “Good morning, future engineers and scientists.” These kids are being told they’re going to be engineers and scientists. And in classes, kindergarten kids learn A is for astronaut as opposed to A is for apple.
MT: Anything you found in the state’s high schools?
S: Mahtomedi High School has a new engineering school. Their teachers show how engineering is integrated into everything in life — in the school’s history classes, English classes and art classes. I think that’s a great example, not just for girls but for all kids. To really understand the importance of what we do in the field, you have to show it as a multidiscipline profession. This school’s program shows young people how integrated all of this is, that engineering does not sit over there all by itself.
MT: What issues face women engineers in the work force?
S: The vast majority of the time, the majority — white men — want to be inclusive but the model they live with every day, the way they communicate and interact, the assumptions that get made, can be exclusive without them realizing it. There are a lot of issues in the engineering profession and in the workplace that say to women and other minorities, “You don’t fit in with us.”
MT: What should employers be doing?
S: You need the ear of executives and management. The commitment to inclusion starts at the top. You have to realize women have different communication styles than men, as do other minority groups. Women tend to wait to be invited to take on a role in a company or for projects at school rather than asking for it. The prime spots [often] get taken by men because the manager figures the people who ask are the ones who are interested. I also encourage companies to create networks for women and other underrepresented groups because it shows they value women or African-Americans by setting up those networks rather than waiting for employees to do it on their own.
MT: What about on a more interpersonal basis?
S: Managers and executives need to stop making assumptions such as some women should be in customer support because they have good communication skills when in that company the only way to get to the top is to be in manufacturing or research and development. If women need an international assignment to move ahead in the company, sometimes bosses say, “I’m concerned because she has young kids, and it probably would be hard for her to travel,” without asking her. Companies have to understand this behavior can be limiting.
MT: Should non-engineers still be familiar with engineering?
S: We need technically literate people to participate in so many of the discussions we’re going to have as citizens. The I-35W [bridge collapse] shows how policy decisions — such as how much to invest in transportation infrastructure — require a technical understanding. You want to raise the level of technical knowledge in communities so that even though people never get into technology in their careers they feel comfortable discussing it intelligently as citizens.