Women's Manufacturing Workshop Series that Supports Inclusiveness and Skill Building in Undergraduate Engineering Education

摘要

During the past six years, pre-semester assessments of student skills have revealed a lack of hands-on experience by women students in the First-Year Engineering Projects course at the University of Colorado at Boulder. Moreover, instructors in this course have observed a pattern of female students choosing other activities within their teams rather than engaging in the hands-on construction aspect of product development. To address these concerns, a Women's Manufacturing Workshop (WMW) series was piloted during the 2002-03 academic year through a partnership between the Women in Engineering Program (WIEP) and the Integrated Teaching and Learning Laboratory (ITLL). Another aim was to provide women students a context for pursuing engineering through acquisition of knowledge and skills applicable to the design-build process in a low-risk setting. This paper discusses the effects of the WMW on the students, including an increase for women in their comfort with machining and other hands-on skills, and an increased likelihood that these women will remain in engineering.