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U of M tries to engineer gender-balance fix

Faculty still sees more men than women

By: Nick Martin

Posted: 07/21/2012 1:00 AM | Comments: 0

Female students are the majority on Manitoba university campuses -- so why is only one in six at the University of Manitoba faculty of engineering a woman?

"Why is it low in engineering is the $64,000 question," said engineering dean Jonathan Beddoes.

Beddoes said the low numbers of women at the U of M are pretty much the same across North America. Schools have set a goal of 30-by-30, he said: 30 per cent women in engineering by 2030.

"This is a quite aggressive target," he said.

Last month, Beddoes presented the new Dr. Lotfallah Shafai Bursary in Electrical and Computer Engineering to the U of M senate. The bursary gives preference to women and would cover most of a year's tuition.

In 2010, six per cent of computer engineering and five per cent of electrical engineering student graduates were women -- two of 32 and two of 37.

Yet in 2001, 30 per cent of electrical engineering students and 14 per cent of computer engineering students were women.

Those were graduates, said Beddoes. This past year, women made up 17 per cent of first-year students in electrical engineering and 10.1 per cent in computer engineering, both on par with national averages.

Overall, 17.5 per cent of engineering students were women this past year, including near-equity in biosystems engineering.

U of M's website says 54.9 per cent of students are women. Programs launched years ago to get more high school girls interested in math and science appear to have succeeded, yet they choose programs other than engineering. Female U of M engineering students have mentored over 30,000 schoolchildren in recent years, encouraging them to pursue engineering.

"There's no built-in barriers," Beddoes said. "It's difficult for me to look into the minds of teenage girls and figure out why they're not entering engineering."

However, Beddoes rejected suggestions men dominate engineering. "I wouldn't say engineering is still dominated by males -- we're up to 17 per cent female," he said.

Beddoes said more women are in engineering overseas than in North America, and schools should try to find out what works elsewhere. "It would seem there are some inherent cultural features here."

Two years ago, a controversy swept campus over engineering's Red Lion magazine -- some professors in other faculties accused the magazine of perpetuating negative male and female stereotypes.

In 2010, U of M sociology Prof. Susan Prentice said Red Lion "reflects a culture in the engineering faculty that helps us understand why engineering is a male-dominated profession."

Beddoes was at Carleton University in 2010 and declined to discuss the magazine.

"It is very disheartening, although not surprising, to witness such a low participation rate of women students," said U of M Students Union president Bilan Arte.

"Higher fees coupled with the social stigma of women's involvement in the sciences and engineering have played a determining factor in the very low participation rate of women in computer engineering at the U of M," she said.

U of M Faculty Association president Prof. Sharon Alward noted women's enrolment in engineering is on par with the national norm and is slowly increasing.

UMFA is more concerned only 11 per cent of engineering professors are women -- also the national norm -- and that no women hold senior administrative positions within engineering. There are only two women among 31 electrical and computer engineering professors, said Alward.

"We believe that there should be a gender balance in all fields of study and hope that the University of Manitoba administration will be developing a plan to increase the enrolment of women students in these fields," Alward said.

"We also believe our administration should be developing a plan to increase the number of women in leadership roles."

nick.martin@freepress.mb.ca

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition July 21, 2012 A17

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