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WiE Newsletter -October 2022 - ISSUE 31
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Front and Center News from the Director
It’s familiar and new at the same time to be back in the academic rhythm. Our year started off with the familiar, annual ( interrupted by Covid) new graduate students reception but with new timing (a tea) and programming connecting the new students with Dean Lach, Associate Dean Riffat and the department chairs. The major message for our students was we are a community and we have programs and tools in place so that every member can rise to their potential. Student reviews gave high marks to the chance to get to know folks, to see AND hear from leadership in person (though with some masks) and to the
food!
With Warm Regards for a safe and healthy fall!
Dr. Shelly Heller
WiE Center Director
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Professor Murray Loew (BME) at the New Graduate Students Welcome Tea.
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WiE are broadening our tent!
In many discussions with our advisory board, we have searched for ways of making sure that while we are called The Center for Women in Engineering, our wide tent has programs and resources for the entire community in SEAS. The three BIG events planned for October are examples of the broad audience opportunities supported by the Center.
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WiE October 2022 Events
Do you remember your first days in college? The excitement, the panic? Happily many of us had family members to turn to ask such questions as “How should I talk to my Professor?” or “I’m not sure when to buy my textbooks” or other questions about the coming months. But what if no one in your family has had the experience of college?
On October 6th, we held our first ever “Lunch and Learn” event will host members of our class of 2026 and 2025, no matter the gender, who are the first in their respective families to go to college. The series is designed to be intimate meetings to introduce students to each other, to juniors and seniors who had experiences to share and to answer questions that family members might have asked. If you, or someone you know, should be invited to our Lunch and Learn series, please contact Dawn Ginnetti at pmscwie@email.gwu.edu
The following week, on Thursday October 13 at noon we will host our webinar “The Imposter in Your head”. I am sure you have heard even the most accomplished leaders note that they experienced a sinking or even intimidating feeling that I don’t quite belong here. Even though I grew up in a town known for ‘moxie’, I too have felt this way. If questions such as who’s got Imposter Syndrome, what is it, where does one feel it, when does it appear, why do we have it, grab your lunch and join us for this online session as your register for the session here.
And, on Tuesday, October 25 at 5pm in SEH we will host the software company Palantir Technologies and a panel of women from various levels of leadership for a lively presentation about the opportunities and challenges in working in a high-tech, active company. The meeting will feature 4 women who will provide a look into their recruitment by Palantir and their journey in the company. We will host a short presentation and then we will open it up to your questions. The recruiters from Palantir will be here by 4:30, so bring your resume. Join us, too, for a short reception. Don’t miss this great opportunity especially if you are a computer science, electrical and computer engineering or engineering management and systems engineering student. RSVP here
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WiE Fall Updates
Our dear friend and colleague, Durriyyah Jackson has joined as Director of Development at the Planned Giving Office at GW . It’s exciting for Durriyyah and a chance for her to bring her talents to a new group of GWers, but we will miss her terribly. Please join me in wishing her well.
It’s cybersecurity awareness month. I urge you all to follow Cybersecurity Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) lead by encouraging others and reminding ourselves to have #MoreThanAPassword. Adversaries are increasingly harvesting credentials through phishing emails or by identifying passwords reused from other systems. MFA increases security because even if one credential is compromised, unauthorized users will be challenged to meet the second authentication requirement, largely thwarting their ability to access the targeted device, network, or database. Check out their website.
And, finally answers to questions on “when the mentoring system will be launched”? Soon, watch for news in the next newsletter or in a separate email. And what’s the advisory board up to? We are now contacting all current board members to schedule a date for mid-November and should be able to report back in our December newsletter.
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What WiE Are Reading
By chance there has been an interesting set of articles related to who, how and why folks become faculty members. A few ‘factoids’ from Higher Ed Dives( August 31, 2002) notes that “tenure-track faculty are up to 25 times more likely to have a parent with a doctorate than the rest of the population. ” That rate nearly doubles at prestigious universities. Just over half of “surveyed tenure-track faculty, 51.8%, reported having at least one parent with a master’s degree or Ph.D., researchers found.” Almost one in four, 22.2%, “had a parent with a Ph.D., and 3.7% came from a household where both parents hold doctorates.” By comparison, “less than 1% of U.S. adults come from Ph.D. households, and 7.4% have parents with a graduate degree of any kind.”
The September 22 issue of the Chronicle of Higher Education noted that “Just five universities have produced one-eighth of the U.S. professoriate, and 80 percent of tenure-track professors at doctoral institutions earned their Ph.D.s from 20 percent of the nation’s universities and the University of California at Berkeley, Harvard University, the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, the University of Wisconsin at Madison, and Stanford University produce nearly 14 percent of the nation’s tenure-track faculty members.” And, to make matters worse, it is likely that the move toward parity in the numbers of male and female faculty is related not to hiring of women, but to the retirement of male faculty members.
In his webinar on September 28 and in the paper published in Nature (21 September 2022), Professor Daniel Larremore from University of Colorado, Boulder used big data analysis to provide additional insights about all the faculty in higher education in the US.. One note struck me as related to these other papers – 19% for Natural Sciences professors have non-US doctorates from 123 countries around the world. While nearly a third of all non US doctorates are from Canada & the UK more troubling is that only 5.4% from Africa and the Americas (except U.S. and Canada ) combined.
Why is this important? Because each news item underscores the lack of diversity in the faculty ranks. And, as we strive for a community that understands and respects all of its members we need to be cognizant and purposeful as to how we recruit faculty.
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Join WiE in celebrating National Hispanic Heritage Month
Each year, Americans observe National Hispanic Heritage Month from September 15 to October 15, by celebrating the histories, cultures and contributions of American citizens whose ancestors came from Spain, Mexico, the Caribbean and Central and South America.
WiE would like to highlight one of the student organizations within SEAS that is making a postive impact in students' lives. The GWU chapter of the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers (SHPE) empowers students, of all races and majors, to develop professionally and academically in addition to maintaining the social element of Latinx/Hispanic culture. If you want to learn more and/or you want to support their efforts, you can reach out to them at shpe@gwu.edu
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