Fair recruits new engineers

Liz Nicol/Photo Editor WOMEN IN ENGINEERING: Beth Holloway, the director of the Women in Engineering Program, reviews information about incoming women freshmen engineers. Purdue's Women in Engineering Program was the first in the country.

By Laura Pelner
Special Projects Editor

About 100 young women will be on campus today to learn about Purdue's engineering program as part of the Women in Engineering Career Day.

The day is an annual event geared toward female high school juniors interested in becoming engineers. While they're on campus the girls will meet with professors, students and graduates to get information about what Purdue has to offer.

"It's a recruiting tool," said Lauren Hood, a junior in industrial engineering and chair of the Society of Women Engineers committee that hosts the daylong event. "Its goal is to inform them and try to increase the number of women engineers at Purdue."

Of Purdue's 6,436 engineering students in the fall of 2001, only 1174 — or 18 percent — were female, according to statistics from the Women in Engineering Program. While the percentage isn't high, it's similar to the national average for engineering schools.

Beth Holloway, director of the Women in Engineering Program, said Purdue is increasing its recruiting efforts for women engineers. She said having a diverse program is important because people's varied viewpoints will approach problems differently and help solve them in a better way.

"In general, Purdue has a great desire to have diversity in the engineering school," Holloway said. "There's a lot of evidence to that effect."

The evidence includes this career day, which is one of two hosted on campus every year; the other day is intended for high school seniors. Holloway said the events get a positive response and most prospective students are impressed with Purdue.

She said the school keeps statistics about what people attend career days and what people come to school in the fall and about 30 percent of the new freshman class usually participate.

Hood said the number of girls attending the career days is declining, which is another reason why the school wants to increase recruitment activities.

"I don't know how else we can get more high school girls to attend," she said.

Even though the numbers are declining, Purdue graduates more female engineers than any school in the country, which is something Hood said is worthy of respect.

"When I came to Purdue and when I visited other schools, I could tell there's much more of an emphasis on women (here)," Hood said.

Jennifer Sinclair, associate dean of Engineering, said the school's administration places an emphasis on women and minorities. Sinclair also said having a lot of female engineers on campus is important because it creates a support network. Overall, she said Purdue engineers have a great reputation in industry, which should entice people to come to the school.

"The Purdue engineer is known in the industry for (his or her) work ethic, dependability and perseverance. That impacts a lot of issues," Sinclair said. "If you're faced with setbacks, the Purdue engineer would be the kind of engineer that could bounce back. We have that kind of mentality. That's known in industry, that's why industry ranks the Purdue engineer so high."

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Campus editor: Kelsey VanArsdall

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