UNM's School of Engineering was one of 27 colleges to participate in a recent gender-equity conference at the National Academy of Engineering that was designed to highlight cutting edge research and accelerate gender equity in university settings.
The conference, "Leveraging Experience to Accelerate Progress: Moving Towards Gender Equity in Engineering Education," in Washington, D.C., focused on faculty, undergraduate and graduate recruitment and retention and institutional change.
"The conference looked at different aspects involved in the search for increasing diversity in the engineering field," said Joe Cecchi, dean of UNM's School of Engineering. "Embracing diversity and monitoring progress are key in our program at UNM and instituting the necessary changes in gender equity in engineering education will require a collaborative effort."
Cecchi led a team of four from UNM; which included Julia Fulghum, chairwoman of the Chemical and Nuclear Engineering Department; Chuck Fleddermann, the School of Engineering's associate dean; and Nancy Uscher, associate provost for Academic Affairs.
Among the 27 universities attending the conference included Arizona State University, Carnegie Mellon University, Duke University, John Hopkins, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Stanford University, Princeton University and the University of Michigan.
Tufts University organized the conference in collaboration with Intel, Inc.
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Fulghum said one of the most important aspects of the conference was that representatives from UNM attended it. By participating in the roundtable discussions with engineering faculty from across the country, the UNM representatives we are able to inform them about the successful programs at the School of Engineering.
"I think we all came away from the conference not only with some new ideas and contacts, but feeling like the School of Engineering is heading in the right direction," Fulghum said in a UNM news release. "Many of the ideas being discussed as 'best practices" are things we currently do, either formally or informally, and we were able to let a lot of engineering schools, funding agencies and industrial representatives know that."
