Page 21 - College Planning & Management, October 2018
P. 21

WOMEN AT WORK. A unique project underway on the campus of Wentworth Institute of Technology (WIT) is WIT’s first new academic facility in more than 40 years. More than just a new structure, the project is designed as a strategic oppor- tunity to help develop the next generation of construction professionals. Partnering with Gilbane, WIT is using the project to create a significant hand-on learning experience for its construction management students, including Shannon Sturtz.
it is. You can help people. You build something that lasts for so long.”
Sturtz benefited from having a win- dow inside an industry that may seem unwelcoming to women.
“If I didn’t have my mom, I don’t think I would have even known it was a possi- bility,” Sturtz says. “Just because you’re in construction management doesn’t mean you’re swinging a hammer.”
It is a perception that Scott Sumner, chair of the Construction Management Department at Wentworth, is con- stantly battling.
Five years ago, only five percent of the construction management de- partment was comprised of women, prompting Sumner to set out to con- vince prospective students that the construction industry was an accepting profession that would treat them well, and that a rewarding, lucrative career awaited those who persisted.
“It is true. Construction as a pro- fession has been dominated by males, mainly white males,” he says. “We’re changing that.”
But good messaging is nothing
without follow-through, Sumner says. The school offered no scholarships for women and had no way to get them through the door. The school worked with industry partners to establish scholarships specifically aimed at wom- en in construction management that increase each year of attendance. The structured approach has led to results.
The school more than doubled the number of women in their program from five percent in 2013 to 12 percent today. Each graduate has an exponential effect on recruitment. “We have our women graduates talk to the incoming students; it makes it a better entry to this world for them so that they don’t feel quite as concerned,” Summer explains.
There is still much work to be done, as decades of a skewed perception lingers on. “We absolutely have to dispel of the notion that construction is unwel- coming to women,” he says. “Maybe it was, but it’s not true any longer. Things
change.” CPM
Stephen Ceasar is a freelance journalist residing in Los Angeles, CA.
WOMEN IN THE STEM WORKFORCE
The National Girls Collaborative Project (NGCP, www.ngcproject.org) offers many resources to strengthen networks and advance science, technology, engineer- ing, and mathematics (STEM) education for girls and women at all levels of education. The NGCP provides statistics on the role of women and girls in STEM careers and education pathways.
According to their statistics, women remain underrepresented in the science and engineering workforce, although to a lesser degree than in the past, with the greatest disparities occurring in engineering, computer science, and the physical sciences.
• Women make up half of the total U.S. college-educated workforce, but only 29 percent of the science and engineering workforce.
• Female scientists and engineers are concentrated in different occupations than are men, with relatively high shares of women in the social sciences (62 percent) and biological, agricul- tural, and environmental life sciences (48 percent), and relatively low shares in engineering (15 percent) and com- puter and mathematical sciences
(25 percent). For example:
- 35.2 percent of chemists are women;
- 11.1 percent of physicists and
astronomers are women;
- 33.8 percent of environmental
engineers are women;
- 22.7 percent of chemical engineers are women;
- 17.5 percent of civil, architectural, and sanitary engineers are women;
- 17.1 percent of industrial engineers are women;
- 10.7 percent of electrical or computer hardware engineers are women; and
- 7.9 percent of mechanical engineers are women.
OCTOBER 2018 / WEBCPM.COM 21
PHOTO © WENTWORTH INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY


































































































   19   20   21   22   23