Nationally, the percentage of women earning degrees in engineering remains low despite continued efforts to attract and retain women. In 2016, however, more than 50% of the undergraduate degrees in engineering awarded at the Thayer School of Engineering at Dartmouth (Thayer) went to women, and well over 40% of the current engineering students are women, a level more than twice the national average. What is our campus doing differently to successfully attract and retain women in engineering? Several things set the engineering school at Dartmouth apart from other campuses. Key differences include the fact that the engineering school is part of a liberal arts campus, is fairly small, and has no separate departments within engineering. As with many liberal arts universities, students are admitted to the campus but do not declare a major until they are sophomores, giving them time to explore different courses and departments before declaring a major. Dartmouth is a private institution. Students are admitted to Dartmouth by the Admissions Office; the engineering school does not participate in the admissions process nor do they influence selections. In order to better understand why our campus has been successful at attracting and retaining women in engineering, we examined our program and enrollment trends, conducted interviews, and surveyed faculty, students and alumni. Based on this data, key aspects of the curriculum that seem to effectively attract and retain women include the flexibility of the curriculum, a focus on design and innovation, a collaborative and friendly atmosphere, the presence of female peer mentors, an emphasis on the liberal arts, and a focus on real-world projects. Data from surveys, interviews and courses are shared so that faculty and administrators at other campuses may learn about different strategies that could be adapted at their own campuses to increase gender diversity.
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