Celebrating 10 successful years in encouraging young girls to consider future careers in engineering and science, Cal State Long Beach’s (CSULB) College of Engineering (COE) will host the “Women Engineers@the Beach” conference on Friday, March 19 from 9 a.m. - 2:30 p.m. in the campus’ Vivian Engineering Center (VEC).
More than 380 girls from 19 middle and high schools in California will attend the biannual conference to learn about the variety of disciplines involved in engineering and related sciences.
Lily Gossage, director of engineering recruitment and retention for the COE, has organized “Women Engineers@the Beach” since 2001. She believes that aside from introducing young girls to engineering, the event also focuses on encouraging school counselors and teachers to promote engineering at their school sites.
“Ten years is an important milestone for the College of Engineering, the conference and all its partners. We have come so far in the past decade, but there still is a lot to do because the socio-cultural issues that set male and female expectations of career roles still exist,” said Gossage. “These gender roles go against the research that tells us that girls are just as capable as boys at succeeding in math- and science-based careers. This is one reason the opportunities for young girls to explore the mathematical-logical part of cognitive thought are limited.”
The COE’s long-term goal with the conference it to help increase the number of women engineers in both academia and the industry. Currently, women comprise less than 10 percent of the engineering workforce and represent less than 15 percent of the engineering student population.
Gossage also believes it is important to promote the social acceptance of engineering in young girls during the formative years when there is plenty of time for academic preparation. “It is important for parents, teachers and counselors to enforce the belief that engineering is also a woman’s world,” she said.
From 10 a.m. to 12:10 p.m. at the conference, students will be involved in hands-on activities during 20 45-minute workshops designed to teach them about such areas as measuring concrete strength, robotics designing, structural engineering, hydraulics and the engineering involved in medicine.
To celebrate the 10th anniversary, a cake-cutting ceremony will take place during lunch at 12:30 p.m.
A number of other innovative and fun activities such as building bridges, designing 3D worlds, Web site design and the “human factors” related to product safety will enrich the students’ critical reasoning skills.
CSULB student projects will also be on display, such as a race car, a concrete canoe and a steel bridge.
Other displays will include an off-road vehicle built by CSULB’s chapter of the Society of Automotive Engineers for the Mini Baja Project as well as an entry for the Intercollegiate MicroMouse Competition, which challenges students to build an autonomous robot designed to solve and run a maze in the shortest time.
The students who will attend the conference this year were chosen for performing at grade-level or higher in mathematics. The vast majority (93 percent) will come from the schools’ Gifted and Talented Education (GATE) programs.
The high school girls are enrolled in advanced placement calculus and/or physics at their schools, while the majority of the elementary and middle school girls have scored in the upper 10 percent in the California Standards Test for math and science.
The keynote speaker will be Jennifer Harris, an industrial engineering transportation manager at United Parcel Service and the Sonora regional governor for the Society of Women Engineers.
Sponsors include the Fluor Corporation and the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME). The co-sponsor is the Society of Women Engineers.
Last year, the National Society of Women Engineers awarded Women Engineers@the Beach the prestigious Kimberly-Clark Outreach Event Award.
Like Gossage, Pannada Marayong, a faculty adviser from the Society of Women Engineers, also believes that programs like “Women Engineers @ The Beach” are essential in attracting young women to engineering who may otherwise feel the industry is not suited for them. She also recognizes the importance of such programs in enabling girls to develop supportive relationships with working women engineers.
“It is immensely important for universities to provide outreach opportunities to attract more women into science and engineering,” said Marayong. “This should start as early as the middle school and continue all the way through high school. This is when kids start to explore their interests and their career paths. Unfortunately, many girls are discouraged about engineering because they perceive it as being ‘too technical’ and ‘unexciting.’”
-- Paul Browning
Showing posts with label CSULB Engineering. Show all posts
Showing posts with label CSULB Engineering. Show all posts
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
Monday, March 8, 2010
Cal State Long Beach Dean Honored as ‘Distinguished Dean of Engineering’ By Los Angeles Council of Engineers and Scientists
Forouzan Golshani, dean of the College of Engineering (COE) at Cal State Long Beach (CSULB), was recently honored with the prestigious “Distinguished Dean of Engineering” award from the Los Angeles Council of Engineers and Scientists (LACES) during National Engineers Week (E-Week) 2010.
National Engineers Week and the National Engineers Week Foundation work to nurture the future work force of innovative engineers through education outreach initiatives to expand the pool of skilled, creative engineering talent.
Golshani received the award Feb. 18 during LACES’ E-Week business mixer at the LAX Flight Path Museum. The event’s theme was “Engineering, Making a World of Difference,” and its focus this year was “Introducing a Girl to Engineering,” which reflects the work done through CSULB’s renowned Women Engineers @ the Beach conferences and programs.
“This was an unexpected award and its news came as a complete surprise,” said Golshani, who has overseen the COE’s 12 engineering programs, five departments and more than 3,500 students since 2007. “With over a dozen other engineering deans in close vicinity, many with a vast portfolio of accomplishments, I was pleased that our efforts in expanding the engineering pipeline received this recognition.”
Hallmarks of Golshani’s tenure at CSULB have been to expand the academic advising and first-year student experience, which had resulted in a 40 percent increase in graduating classes, from 500 in 2007 to more than 700 in 2009. He has been credited with the overhaul of technology infrastructure for research and teaching within the COE and for enhancing support for faculty and student research, scholarship and creative activity.
Golshani and his staff at the College of Engineering also spearheaded Women Engineers @ the Beach, a biannual conference at CSULB designed to attract young girls to engineering. Last year, the conference (now in its 10th year) was awarded the prestigious “Kimberly-Clark Outreach Event Award” by the National Society of Women Engineers (SWE).
At the conference, students are involved in hands-on activities in a variety of workshops designed to teach them about engineering technology and related disciplines, such as human behavior-based product design, mechanical/robotics design, structural engineering and several others.
“For this nation to continue its innovative edge, it is incumbent upon education leaders at all levels to emphasize to America’s youth, particularly young women and persons in underrepresented groups, that studying science and engineering can prepare them as leaders,” said Golshani.
Before CSULB, Golshani served as the NCR Distinguished Professor and the chairman of the Computer Science and Engineering Department at Wright University in Ohio. He held the positions of center director and professor at Arizona State University, as well as research fellow at Imperial College in London.
Golshani has registered 10 inventions and is the author and co-author of more than 200 articles. He has served on the editorial board of IEEE Multimedia journal since 1994 and was its editor in chief for two terms. He has founded several successful company start ups, including the Corporate Enhancement Group, Roz Software Systems, Inc. and RFID Integrated Solutions, Inc.
His senior management and technical consulting experience includes working for such companies as Motorola, Intel, Honeywell, McDonnell Douglas Helicopter, Bull Worldwide Systems and Sperry. He is also a fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.
Golshani received a bachelor’s of science degree from Arya Mehr University of Technology in Tehran, Iran, and a Ph.D from the University of Warwick in England.
-- Paul Browning
National Engineers Week and the National Engineers Week Foundation work to nurture the future work force of innovative engineers through education outreach initiatives to expand the pool of skilled, creative engineering talent.
Golshani received the award Feb. 18 during LACES’ E-Week business mixer at the LAX Flight Path Museum. The event’s theme was “Engineering, Making a World of Difference,” and its focus this year was “Introducing a Girl to Engineering,” which reflects the work done through CSULB’s renowned Women Engineers @ the Beach conferences and programs.
“This was an unexpected award and its news came as a complete surprise,” said Golshani, who has overseen the COE’s 12 engineering programs, five departments and more than 3,500 students since 2007. “With over a dozen other engineering deans in close vicinity, many with a vast portfolio of accomplishments, I was pleased that our efforts in expanding the engineering pipeline received this recognition.”
Hallmarks of Golshani’s tenure at CSULB have been to expand the academic advising and first-year student experience, which had resulted in a 40 percent increase in graduating classes, from 500 in 2007 to more than 700 in 2009. He has been credited with the overhaul of technology infrastructure for research and teaching within the COE and for enhancing support for faculty and student research, scholarship and creative activity.
Golshani and his staff at the College of Engineering also spearheaded Women Engineers @ the Beach, a biannual conference at CSULB designed to attract young girls to engineering. Last year, the conference (now in its 10th year) was awarded the prestigious “Kimberly-Clark Outreach Event Award” by the National Society of Women Engineers (SWE).
At the conference, students are involved in hands-on activities in a variety of workshops designed to teach them about engineering technology and related disciplines, such as human behavior-based product design, mechanical/robotics design, structural engineering and several others.
“For this nation to continue its innovative edge, it is incumbent upon education leaders at all levels to emphasize to America’s youth, particularly young women and persons in underrepresented groups, that studying science and engineering can prepare them as leaders,” said Golshani.
Before CSULB, Golshani served as the NCR Distinguished Professor and the chairman of the Computer Science and Engineering Department at Wright University in Ohio. He held the positions of center director and professor at Arizona State University, as well as research fellow at Imperial College in London.
Golshani has registered 10 inventions and is the author and co-author of more than 200 articles. He has served on the editorial board of IEEE Multimedia journal since 1994 and was its editor in chief for two terms. He has founded several successful company start ups, including the Corporate Enhancement Group, Roz Software Systems, Inc. and RFID Integrated Solutions, Inc.
His senior management and technical consulting experience includes working for such companies as Motorola, Intel, Honeywell, McDonnell Douglas Helicopter, Bull Worldwide Systems and Sperry. He is also a fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.
Golshani received a bachelor’s of science degree from Arya Mehr University of Technology in Tehran, Iran, and a Ph.D from the University of Warwick in England.
-- Paul Browning
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