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The NSF Grant

Introduction

The NSF grant was funded in August 2003 for a period of three years. The main activities outlined in the grant include holding Leadership Conferences, Advanced Leadership Conferences, a Leadership Summit and establishing an e-community for women engineering faculty. This report details the activities and outcomes of our efforts to date.

Events

Two Leadership Conferences, one Advanced Leadership Conference and a Leadership Summit have been held. In addition, there have been two WELI workshops held in conjunction with the Society of Women Engineers (SWE) National Conferences (see Table 1).

Table 1: Events

There were three main groups of activities at each leadership conference: interaction with current women engineering administrators, networking activities, and leadership training. The Leadership Summit was a different type of event where leaders from various organizations met to discuss what actions were necessary to increase the number of women in engineering, especially academia.

WELI Workshop (2003 SWE Conference, Alabama)

This two-hour workshop was organized by Judy Vance, Iowa State University, Bonnie Melhart, Texas Christian University, and Pat Nava, University of Texas, El Paso. The purpose of the workshop was to explore leadership issues in academia for women engineering faculty. The program consisted of an introduction to WELI, a presentation on statistics about women in academic leadership and a group activity centered on discussing case studies in academic leadership. The eighteen participants included women engineering faculty, graduate and undergraduate students and professionals.

Leadership Conference (2003 Utah)

This conference was hosted by the University of Utah. JoAnn Lighty, University of Utah, Pat Nava, University of Texas, El Paso, and Alison Flatau, University of Maryland, College Park were the conference organizers. The 30 participants included 8 full professors, 18 associate professors, and 4 assistant professors representing 19 states. Presentations included data on women engineering department chairs at AAU institutions, media training, department chairs panel, women engineering deans’ panel, university president keynote speech, academic leadership training, legal issues in academic leadership, the uses of body language, the role of fund raising and development in academic leadership, and electronic mentoring.

Leadership Summit (2004 Connecticut)

The purpose of this summit was to bring together leaders from various engineering organizations and industry to develop an action plan to increase the number of women engineering leaders in both industry and academia. Seventy-five people representing engineering organizations, industry, diversity program directors and NSF ADVANCE grant awardees attended. Presentations included three key note speeches, an academic panel, an industry executive panel, and an engineering association’s panel. A large part of the summit consisted of working sessions where groups identified nine blueprints for action including Cultural Change, Networking, Training, Mentoring, Incentives to Leadership, External Support, Recruiting, External Marketing, and Rewards and Awards.

Advanced Leadership Conference (2004 Syracuse)

This conference was sponsored by Syracuse University and Louisiana State University. The conference organizers were Shobha Bhatia, Syracuse University, Kelly Rusch, Louisiana State University, and Valerie Davidson, Guelph University, Canada. The purpose of this conference was to provide networking and advanced leadership training for women engineering academic leaders. A total of 33 participants attended the conference. The program consisted of three keynote speeches, leadership training, panels of deans and center directors, presentation on leadership and diversity, diversity facilitated case studies, institutional transformation panel, and fundraising presentation.

Leadership Conference (2005 Florida)

The conference organizers were Parveen Wahid, University of Central Florida, Susan Margulies, University of Pennsylvania and Sara Wadia-Fascetti, Northeastern University.  This conference was sponsored by the University of Central Florida, University of Pennsylvania and Northeastern University.  The purpose of this conference was to provide networking and leadership training to women engineering faculty.  The 44 participants included 10 full professors, 34 associate professors, and 0 assistant professors representing 29 states plus Canada. Presentations included media training, department chairs panel, women engineering deans’ panel, academic leadership training, legal issues in academic leadership, business protocol, social issues, the role of fund raising and development in academic leadership, alternate leadership opportunities and negotiation skills.

WELI Workshop (2005 SWE Conference, Anaheim)

This two day workshop was sponsored by the Society of Women Engineers and the Henry Luce Foundation. The conference organizers were Betsy Homsher, Kettering University, Parveen Wahid, University of Central Florida, Mary Anderson-Rowland, Arizona State University, Judy Raper, University of Missouri, Rolla, Judy Vance, Iowa State University and JoAnn Lighty, University of Utah. The 38 participants included 13 full professors and 25 associate professors.  The workshop program included a deans’ panel and luncheon, media training, negotiation skills, legal issues, and an executive panel.

Conference Participants

The three conferences, Summit and the SWE 2005 Workshop have involved faculty and administrators from 124 institutions representing 39 states, Washington D.C., Puerto Rico, New Zealand and Canada. (see Figure 1). The events (except the Summit) were targeted toward senior women engineering faculty. Table 2 presents a breakdown of the ranks of the conference participants showing that most of the participants were associate and full professors.

Figure 1: States represented by participants

Table 2: Participants

Conference Speakers and Presenters

Conference speakers and presenters came from two groups: existing women engineering academic administrators and leadership training experts. They included one university president, one senior vice president, 3 associate provosts, 2 assistant vice chancellors, 11 deans, 7 department chairs and several directors and executive directors. Appendix C presents a listing of all of the conference speakers and presenters.

Outcomes

Detailed assessment reports for the Utah Leadership Conference, the Summit and the New York Advanced Leadership Conference have been prepared by Professor Deb Niemeier from the University of California, Davis. (The assessment report for the New York Conference is included, but is still in draft form.) Observations listed in these reports are based on pre- and post-conference surveys completed by the participants. It is difficult to draw overall conclusions based on these assessment reports because these particular conferences had different goals; however, there are some strong outcomes from each conference that can be identified.

The participants, who completed the post-conference surveys (24 out of a possible 30 attendees) from the Utah Leadership Conference, unanimously responded that they would encourage others to attend a similar conference (Table 3). They were also in strong agreement that as a result of the conference they felt part of a stronger network of women engineering faculty and had a better understanding of academic leadership. They were neutral about being more interested in an administrative position but positive about their interest in pursuing a leadership position such as center director or program director. Only one person indicated that she was definitely less interested in a leadership position after the conference.

Table 3. Evaluation of Utah Leadership Conference Outcomes (N)[1]

(Key: 1 – Strongly Agree; 5 – Strongly Disagree)

The results from the New York Advanced Leadership Conference were very similar (Table 4). Participants felt part of a stronger network and had a better understanding of academic leadership but were more polarized about whether they were less interested in senior administrative positions. Once again, however, they were enthusiastic about the conference and strongly supported holding additional conferences.

Table 4. Evaluation of New York Advanced Leadership Conference Outcomes (N)[2]

(Key: 1 – Strongly Agree; 5 – Strongly Disagree)

Summit participants also felt part of a stronger network as a result of attending the conference (Table 5). The participants also felt that collaborative leadership is important for increasing women leaders. Conference participants indicated that the development of an action plan (i.e., the blueprints) was one of the most helpful aspects of the summit.

Table 5: Evaluation of Summit Conference Outcomes (N)[3]

(Key: 1 – Strongly Agree; 5 – Strongly Disagree)

E-Community

There are two aspects of the e-community which have been established. A WELI webpage has been developed and can be found at www.weli.eng.iastate.edu. This page provides links to past events, upcoming events, news of women in academia, resources on data, climate and reading lists, as well as job postings for academic administration positions.

A listserve has also been established. All past participants, speakers and presenters are members of this listserve. Members pass along interesting developments related to women engineering faculty and administration including work-life balance and Title IX issues. It is a common place to share job announcements for academic administration positions. Both the listserve and the website are managed at Iowa State University.

Reports

Two Conference Evaluation Reports have been completed and a Summit Report. The proposal PIs are planning on writing journal articles in this final year of the grant.

The Summit Report contains a detailed account of the Summit Conference. The working groups at the conference produced ten action blueprints aimed at increasing the number of women in engineering leadership positions within industry, academia and government. These action blueprints addressed the following topics:

·        Culture Change

·        Incentives to Increase the Attractiveness of Leadership Positions

·        Family Leave Incentives

·        External Support

·        External Marketing

·        Recruiting Faculty to Leadership Positions

·        Mentoring for Academic Leaders

·        Networking

·        Rewards and Awards

·        Leadership Training

Goals, target groups, allies for success, resources needed, specific steps to achieve each goal, barriers to success, measures of success and evaluation, and timeline necessary to achieve the goals were developed for each blueprint topic and reported in the summary report. Two hundred copies of the Summit report were distributed to engineering deans, various technical associations, NSF, the ADVANCE Institutional Transformation awardees, and Summit participants.

Follow-Up Assessment

In October, 2005, an email was sent to all past WELI participants asking four follow up assessment questions. Approximately 50%  of those surveyed responded.

When asked “what are the most important benefits you received from attending the conference”, over 70% of the respondents identified networking with other women. Others common responses included learning leadership skills and interacting with existing women administrators. Two issues which appeared in multiple responses are worth noting: women faculty feel isolated and are not aware of the opportunities available in leadership positions. One woman stated that “The biggest benefit was the networking aspect, as I have been the only female in my department my entire career”. Another one noted that the biggest benefit was that “Comparing notes with a group of women in the field mitigates the isolation of the highly masculinized environment in which I work”. Many stated that meeting other ambitious talented women was the biggest benefit.

The second question asked what leadership activities participants performed as a result of attending a WELI conference and how much did the conference enter into the decision to pursue increased leadership positions. Several mentioned leading ADVANCE grant proposals, chairing committees, applying for leadership positions and becoming department chairs. Others have taken on leadership roles in chairing diversity committees, search committees at their universities. Most of the respondents said that WELI had increased their confidence in their ability to take on leadership roles. “Participation in WELI was a strong influence in developing proposals in 2002 and initiating a program in 2003.” “The WELI conference helped clarify that I did want to take on the permanent position (department head).”

The third question asked, “what was the value of networking with others at the conference”. The responses can be put into two broad categories: participants felt they knew more people all across the country and that their issues were similar to others. “I felt very supported after the meeting”. Many respondents felt the networking was very valuable. However, they haven’t taken advantage of their new networks after the conference but they know these people are there when needed. The listserve was mentioned several times as a means to stay connected and keep abreast of current academic leadership opportunities.

Question 4 was entirely open ended and provided a means for general comments. All of the comments were very positive. “The information you receive at a conference like this is extremely difficult or impossible to get elsewhere”. “The WELI conferences remain the most valuable conferences I have ever attended”. “Workshops such as these ought to be continued indefinitely”. “These are important and invigorating events to continue”. “WELI was an exceptional experience for me”.

Summary

The three conferences and the Summit have involved faculty and administrators from 112 institutions representing 40 states, Washington D.C., Puerto Rico and Canada. The participants of all of the conferences indicated that the activities and networking opportunities were very valuable. These conferences have created new networks of senior women engineering faculty, exposed them to the challenges and opportunities of academic leadership, and provided skill training to better equip them to take on these roles. Many have gone on to assume leadership positions after attending one of these conferences. The Leadership Summit served as a brainstorming activity for members of several influential engineering organizations. These combined efforts have focused a group of women engineering faculty on professional development and the opportunities present for them in academic leadership.

Conference Reports

Report: Niemeier, D. A., “Conference Evaluation: Summary of Findings: Pre-Conference and Post-Conference Surveys, NSF Women’s Engineering Leadership Development Conference, Salt Lake City, Utah”, March 2004, http://www.weli.eng.iastate.edu/pdf/Utah/Utah%20Report%20Final5.pdf.

Report: Niemeier, D. A., “Conference Evaluation: Summary of Findings: Pre-Conference and Post-Conference Surveys, NSF Women in Engineering Leadership Summit, Storrs, Connecticut”, June 2004, http://www.weli.eng.iastate.edu/Documents/Leadership%20Summit_Conn/Summit%20Eval%20Report_final.pdf.

Report: Holmen, Britt, Aultman-Hall, Lisa, “Women in Engineering Leadership Summit: Conference Overview and Summary, May 3-5, 2004, Storrs, Connecticut”, February 2005, http://www.weli.eng.iastate.edu/Documents/Leadership%20Summit_Conn/Summit%20White%20Paper%20Publication_w_Covers.pdf.

Presentations

Davidson, Valerie, "Women in Engineering Leadership Institute (WELI)", Second Annual MacKay-Lassonde Memorial Forum, Professional Engineers Ontario - Women in Engineering Advisory Committee, October 19, 2001.

Davidson, Valerie, Vance, Judy, Niemeier, Deb, "Women in Engineering Leadership Institute (WELI)", Women in a Knowledge-Based Society, 12th International Conference of Women Engineers and Scientists (ICWES), 27-31 July 2002, Ottawa, ON Canada. 

Davidson, Valerie, Vance, Judy, Niemeier, Deb, "Women in Engineering Leadership Institute: Academic Leadership Development Plans", Women in a Knowledge-Based Society, 12th International Conference of Women Engineers and Scientists (ICWES), 27-31 July 2002, Ottawa, ON Canada, paper #215. 

Vance, Judy, Nava, Pat, "Women in Engineering Leadership Institute Academic Workshop", 2003 Society of Women Engineers National Conference, October 9-11, 2003, Birmingham, Alabama.

Vance, Judy, "Women in Engineering Leadership Institute", 2003 WELI Leadership Conference, November 5-8, 2003, Snowbird, Utah.

Vance, Judy, Lighty, JoAnn, "Women in Engineering Leadership Institute", NSF ADVANCE Engineering Workshop, December 13-14, 2004, Hyatt Arlington, 1325 Wilson Boulevard, Arlington VA.

Articles

Layne, Peggy, "Women in Engineering Leadership Summit," Society of Women Engineers, Fall 2004, pp 34-36.

Cooper, Nan R., "UConn Engineering Hosts Women in Engineering Leadership Summit," Frontiers, University of Connecticut, Summer 2004, pp 12-13.

Perusek, Anne, "Fostering Leaders," Society of Women Engineers, Summer 2004, pp 9.

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