Senate Mega Issue M106

1. Senate Mega Issue M106 Ankita Kaul and Haley Carney Senate FY11 Mega Issues Chair

2. MI 106 Topic How can we empower women engineers to be successful on their own terms?

3. Steps Taken • Collegiate Members • Professional Members • CPC Members

4. Desired by Collegiate members: Mentoring: We recommend that a task force or committee be developed to select a software/program for a mentoring program. Unwritten Rules of Corporations: Provide a reading list of sources such as They Don’t Teach Corporate in College and Women Don’t Ask with reviews by members who have read/recommended them for the list. There should also be a way for members to add reviews when they have completed the books. A task force could be convened to generate the reading list. Consider negotiating discounts for SWE members to purchase books or a way for members to share/sell their books. MI 106 Recommendations

5. MI 106 Recommendations • Desired by Professional members: • Mentoring: We recommend that SWE offer a webinar/workshops for professional members which discusses mentor/mentee relationships and how to develop them in the corporate world. • Formal or informal relationships • How do you get a mentor even if the person you want to be your mentor is not necessarily ‘on board’…i.e. stealth mentoring. • Awards/Recognition: We recommend that SWE continue to increase professional members awareness of awards both internal to SWE and external to SWE (i.e. professional recognition) and publicize efforts to SWE members. • Defining Success: We recommend that SWE develop a self assessment tool to help professional members to define success for themselves. The tool should be able to be used alone or with a mentor. A workshop at the annual Conference is also recommended. The tool can also be in the form a webinar to be used by sections as a meeting topic. • The SWE message: We recommend that SWE develop a program for sections / regions to present to companies to introduce SWE and mission and request funding for a section event, and introduce corporate membership and CPC.

6. MI 106 Recommendations • Desired of Corporate members: • SWE should advocate for: • Cultural differences training in the workplace • Generational differences training in the workplace • For employers creating inclusive workplaces • Help support flexibility and diverse schedules of our members to change social norms in the work place • Help employers know it’s okay to work flex schedule to balance work/life • Help employers value and recognize some people are more efficient at different times of the day.

7. Next Steps • Survey • SWE should provide guidance to corporations for: • Awareness training on differences between men and women as a competitive benefit • Getting more influential company leaders involved in SWE • Enhancing the relationship between the company and SWE • SWE’s value to corporation and members • Thank you letter • Skills Developed • Knowledge of SWE • Booklet • Website • Webinars: need some way to make the information and activity of the webinars reusable. This way corporations can reuse them for their women engineers.

8. MI 106 Recommendations • Desired of High School Programs • Parents and Counselors impact on how success is defined • Statistics • Survey

9. Questions?