- 著者
-
Bogue Barbara
- 出版者
- 一般社団法人電子情報通信学会
- 雑誌
- 電子情報通信学会誌 (ISSN:09135693)
- 巻号頁・発行日
- vol.88, no.11, pp.861-867, 2005-11-01
While the demand for engineers in the United States remains high, large population groups remain outside of the engineering workforce. Women graduation rates hover around 20 percent at all levels (B.S., 20.1 percent; M.S., 21.8 percent; Ph.D. 22.3 percent). During the past 30 years, the U.S. government and industry leaders have come to identify the recruitment and retention of women and other groups underrepresented in engineering (African Americans, Hispanic/Latino Americans, Native American Indians, Asia Americans, and Pacific Islanders) into engineering careers as the key to addressing predicted shortfalls. The drive to increase the number of engineers and scientists in the U.S. began as a Cold War strategy in the U.S. after the launching of the Russian satellite Sputnik in 1957 but has since been re-defined as necessary to national competitiveness. Initial efforts to increase the science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) pool were aimed at increasing traditional candidates, white males. As educational opportunities opened for women, and policy makers, advocacy groups and industry identified diversity as a competitive advantage, major efforts were launched to attract women into STEM careers, particularly engineering where they were severely underrepresented. A key tool in this effort has been the creation of Women in Engineering Programs (WEP) in major engineering schools throughout the country, a movement supported by government, primarily through the National Science Foundation (NSF), non-profit foundations, and private industry. The WEP movement was and is a major player in the increase of numbers of women, in Engineering, rising from four percent of students enrolled at the undergraduate level in 1965 to approximately 20 percent today. However, the increase has not only reached a plateau but appears to be decreasing, raising questions about why the upward growth has ceased and how to continue to increase the numbers of women entering and completing engineering education.