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 Concept
Paper — Page 1 of 2
by
Suzanne G. Brainard, Ph.D.
Globally Diversifying the Workforce in Science and Engineering
Abstract
To remain competitive in this global and technological world,
academic institutions and corporations worldwide need to
take serious steps to create a diverse, well-trained and
multicultural workforce. To this end, the Global Alliance
in Science and Engineering for Diversifying the Workforce
was created to offer an opportunity to share best practices
in education, industry, government and professional associations
from different countries and provide technical assistance
to groups looking for successful models. It also offers
an opportunity for industry to continue influencing academic
institutions to produce a diverse group of graduates. Further,
it will create opportunities for new ways of thinking and
new perspectives about science and engineering professions
by the voices of people not traditionally targeted for science
and engineering careers.
Introduction
Faced with a decrease of general interest in engineering
careers and an increase in demand for engineers and scientists
worldwide, companies and academic institutions from many
countries are looking beyond the traditional pool of talent
(largely men) and targeting the other half of the population
-- women. Several countries have mobilized their efforts
to establish initiatives to increase the participation of
women in science and engineering careers. Although some
progress has been made, it is slow. In addition, few efforts
have been made to exchange successful practices and strategies
used in both the academic institutions and corporations
among countries.
If we are going to continue to make progress in creating
a more diverse workforce and recruiting the best and the
brightest from diverse groups, we need to move beyond traditional
approaches. To do this, we need to build upon the successes
that recruitment and retention programs have brought us
in the last couple of decades. At the same time, we need
to identify incentives for academic institutions and corporations
to effect change, and to create new ways of thinking about
science and engineering (S&E) professions in terms of the
value added by the talents and skills of people from underrepresented
groups.
Participation Rates in S&E, Demographic Shifts
and Workforce Demand
Traditionally women have been underrepresented in engineering
careers worldwide. In 1997 women were only 9% of all working
engineers in the US. Despite this low figure, much progress
has been made due to a national movement funded by the federal
government, corporations and private foundations. Organizations
such as WEPAN (Women in Engineering Programs & Advocates
Network), AAAS (American Association for the Advancement
of Science), and AWIS (Association of Women in Science)
have been funded to develop and implement recruitment and
retention programs for increasing the participation of women
in science and engineering professions in the US. The results
of these organizations' efforts have born fruit. According
to a study conducted by the Engineering Workforce Commission
(1995) of the American Association of Engineering Societies
(AAES), the year of WEPAN's inception marked the start of
an upward trend of women in engineering. Since that time,
there has been a one-half percent increase annually. By
contrast, in the eight years prior to the creation of WEPAN,
the number of women in engineering stagnated and some decline
was evident.
The US enrollment of women students in engineering curricula
grew from less than 2% of engineering enrollments in the
1960s to more than 20% in 1997 (Engineering Manpower Commission,
1998). Similarly, baccalaureate engineering degrees conferred
on women grew from less than 1% to more than 16% in the
same time period (Engineering Manpower Commission, 1998).
In 1997, women received 18.7% of the bachelor's degrees,
19% of the master's degrees and 12.2% of the doctorate degrees
in engineering (Engineering Workforce Commission, 1998).
There are also several areas of the related sciences where
women are underrepresented. For example, in 1995 (most current
figures available) women received 17.6% of the physics bachelor's
degrees, 16% of the physics master's degrees and 13% of
the physics doctorate degrees (Science Indicators, 1998).
At the same time it appears female participation in engineering
is increasing, the total enrollment in engineering has been
declining steadily at about 9% a year since the mid-1980's
with a peak of 73,000 students in the mid-1980's to fewer
than 60,000 in recent years. More significantly, the proportion
of bachelor's degrees that go to engineering majors declined
among all American students. In the mid-1980's more than
eight percent of the total BS degrees in the US were in
engineering. Currently, engineers make up just over five
percent of the graduates (Campbell, 1997).
As overall enrollments and degrees granted are decreasing
in the US as well as abroad, the demand for engineers and
computer scientists is growing. During the past four years,
actual engineering employment increased from 1,717,000 to
2,051,000, a growth of almost twenty percent (Campbell,
1997, pg. 7). Coupled with decreasing enrollments, demographic
trends indicate that by the year 2000 sixty-eight percent
of the new entrants into the US (Changing America, 1989)
labor force will be women and minorities. For the US to
remain competitive in a global technological society, it
must take serious steps to create a diverse, well-trained
and multicultural labor force.
Other countries are facing the same issues. Most European
countries have fewer females in the engineering workforce
than the US; for example, Denmark (6.4% female engineers),
Ireland (2% female engineers), and France (5% female engineers).
However, it is very difficult to gather these figures because
most countries do not collect or maintain this data by gender
(Williams, 1998). A recent report (Come & Grosjean,
1996) published by the European Society of Engineering Educators
(SEFI) assesses the low representation of female engineers
in all European countries, as well as the decreasing interest
in engineering careers in general, and makes a plea for
a national mobilization of effort to change this trend.
The most active organization that is fostering the participation
of women scientists and engineers in the international arena
is the United Nations (UN) Commission on Science and Technology
for Development (UNCSTD) Gender Advisory Board. This Board,
supported by United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM),
was established in 1994 to advise the UN organizations on
gender, science, and technology issues including developing
programs to encourage and support the participation of school-age
girls in S&E and the recruitment of women in S&E into high
level UN positions.
A 1997 survey indicated that at least 24 UN organizations
are involved in gender, science and technology activities.
Among them are included: the Food and Agricultural Organization;
International Atomic Agency; UN Conference on Trade and
Development; Economic and Social Commission for Western
Asia; UN Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization
(UNESCO); United Nations Industrial Development Organization;
World Bank; and the World Intellectual Property Organization.
Although individual countries have taken initiative to increase
the participation of women in the engineering professions,
there has not been a cohesive effort to share these strategies
or offer technical assistance and training to other countries.
Most notably, Great Britain, Denmark, Ireland, The Netherlands,
Australia and Sweden demonstrated success with initiatives
to increase the participation of women in the engineering
professions in their own countries. There are examples of
best practices and strategies worldwide that have been successful
in diversifying the workforce; however, only a few efforts
have been made to share these practices worldwide.
"Diversity
assumes not only that people are different-we know
that-but that their difference is value-added. If
you know how to harness that difference, you'll
be more competitive as a corporation than those
firms that don't-in the domestic marketplace and
certainly in the global marketplace. "
Santiago Rodriguez
Director of Diversity
Microsoft Corporation
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The
Business Case for Diversifying the Workforce
Most companies
have concluded that the key levers to productivity in the
future are effective management of technology, organizational
competence and intellectual capital. Kathy Sendall, Vice
President of Engineering and Technology at Petro-Canada,
contends that the attributes and skill sets for this era
will come from a new cohort of engineers and leaders with
markedly different skills and experience from those of the
past. She says, "We need to look beyond our traditional
pool of talent (largely men) in order to capture these new
perspectives and build a stronger, more diverse, but nonetheless,
synergistic workforce. As business and industry, we can
no longer by-pass the talent available to us in 50% of our
population" (Sendall, 1999).
Edgar S. Woolard, Jr. (Babco, 1995), past CEO of DuPont,
believes that diversity is good for business, citing three
major reasons:
- "Fierce
global competition - people of various cultures and
nationalities are customers, competitors, employees
and other stakeholders.
- Enriched
business decisions, new markets - teams with a mixture
of gender, racial and ethnic backgrounds produce multidimensional
and innovative decisions.
- Recruiting
advantage and talent - competition for the most qualified
employees, including women and minorities, is stiff.
Diversity is an effective recruiting tool since the
comfortable and supportive environment that can be developed
attracts and retains talented people."
Gene
Tucker (Babco, 1995, Pg. 16), Director of Equal Employment
Opportunity and Workforce Diversity in Schering-Plough's
Pharmaceutical Division, said, "In order to ensure that
we are competitive with anyone in the global marketplace,
we have to be sure that we're getting the best help we can.
If you exclude any particular group, by gender, race, or
religion, you would be excluding the person who's going
to discover the next blockbuster product or someone who
can contribute in another meaningful way in marketing, engineering,
or elsewhere."
Yet, a recent Harris Poll shows that engineering remains
a "stealth profession" among women and minorities (Harris
Poll Shows, 1998). According to AAES Chair Martha Sloan,
"As our nation's workforce continues to transition from
one which is predominately male and Caucasian to one which
will be majority female and African-American, Asian, and
Hispanic, the price we pay in our society for engineers
having worked in such obscurity may not be known for another
generation." She also noted that "although women comprise
53.7% of the undergraduate student population, only 19.4%
of the students enrolled in undergraduate engineering programs
are female." Joseph Bordogna, Deputy Director of the National
Science Foundation, responded, "Greater diversification
of the engineering workforce and increased technological
literacy must be achieved if our nation is to maintain its
global leadership in engineering."
"Workforce
diversity is the bridge between the workplace and
the marketplace... If any group feels that people
like them are not welcomed and valued, the most
powerful way to execute that opinion is to not spend
their money with us. We don't want anyone here to
feel that people like them aren't working here and
doing well."
Ted Childs
Vice President, Global Workforce Diversity
IBM
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The
Global Alliance for Diversifying the Science and Engineering
Workforce
The Global Alliance for Diversifying the Science and Engineering
Workforce is an association of organizations in partnership
to diversify the global science and engineering workforce.
Its purpose is to create a viable structure for collaboration
among industry, higher education, government and professional
associations worldwide. More than 30 countries, including
members of the European Union, Africa, China, Australia,
and Canada have indicated an interest in becoming partners.
In recognition of the need to diversify the workforce globally,
the AT&T Foundation and the Dow Chemical Company have contributed
to the first phases of the Global Alliance development.
The Global Alliance is particularly committed to increasing
the participation of women worldwide and considers other
areas of diversity, such as social groups, ethnicity, age,
discipline, languages, and cultures. Membership is based
on organizational units or entities and dedication to diversifying
the workforce. The goals of the Global Alliance are to:
- Establish
worldwide collaborations with higher-education institutions,
corporations and governments for the purposes of diversifying
the workforce globally.
- Facilitate
the development of long-term, sustainable infrastructures
in science and engineering with a diversified workforce
globally.
The
Global Alliance is a collaborative subsidiary of AAAS, the
American Association for the Advancement of Science. Both
WEPAN -- Women in Engineering Programs & Advocates Network
-- and AWIS, Association for Women in Science are partners.
In its initial development stages, the Secretariat is located
at two sites: the University of Washington in Seattle, Washington
and the AAAS offices in Washington, DC. In the future, the
Secretariat will have several international and regional
offices. In addition, it will have a virtual location with
a virtual address and global linkages with higher education,
corporations and government worldwide.
Continued
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