{"85151":{"#nid":"85151","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Georgia Tech Celebrates 50 Years of Women","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EWhen Elizabeth Herndon and Diane Michel strode onto the Georgia Tech campus in 1952 as the first female students, they had no idea of the events they would set in motion.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0022To think I thought I wouldn\u0027t be noticed, that I\u0027d just sneak in,\u0022 Herndon said with a laugh.  \n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003ENot only were they noticed, but their numbers quickly grew.  In just 50 years, Tech has gone from having just two women students to producing more female engineers than any other university in the country.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0022Other schools have been admitting females longer than Georgia Tech, but I don\u0027t think they\u0027ve made the concerted effort that Tech has,\u0022 said Mary Frank Fox, professor in Tech\u0027s Ivan Allen College and co-director of the Center for the Study of Women, Science and Technology.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EFor the 2002-03 fall semester, 2,045 women were enrolled as engineering majors at Tech.  That\u0027s compared to 1,773 at the University of Michigan and 1,285 at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EMIT began admitting female students in 1883, five years before Tech, opened its doors as the Georgia School of Technology.  Despite years of lobbying by Ella Van Leer, her husband, Georgia Tech President Blake Van Leer, and longtime Tech Librarian Dorothy Crosland, the Board of Regents didn\u0027t allow Tech to admit female students until the 1952-53 academic year, and even then, women could only major in those programs not offered at other university system schools. This meant women could enroll in the engineering programs, architecture programs and the master\u0027s degree in applied mathematics.  It wasn\u0027t until 1968 that the Regents voted to allow women to enroll in all programs at Tech.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0022We didn\u0027t go there to change Georgia Tech. We went there for an education,\u0022 explained Shirley Mewborn, one of two first women students to get a degree from Tech and the first female president of the Alumni Association.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EBut whether they meant to or not, these first women students did change Tech and subsequently, engineering.  Their presence set in motion a complete overhaul of science and technology education in Georgia and opened the doors for more women to enter the traditionally male-dominated fields of science and engineering.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EThe diversity of backgrounds and ideas that women students and faculty brought have been extremely important to the quality of education at Tech, said Sue Rosser, dean of the Ivan Allen College and Tech\u0027s first female academic dean.  \u0022Women faculty and students often have a different perspective on problems.  They often are much more interested in the social applications that a particular technology will have.  Given all the amazing technological problems that need to be solved, we need to have people with as much creativity, with as many different backgrounds, as possible, working on these solutions,\u0022 said Rosser.  \n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EIn addition, female students at Tech have higher GPA\u0027s and better retention and graduation rates than their male counterparts.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EWomen in Engineering\u003C\/strong\u003E\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EPart of Tech\u0027s success in recruiting women into engineering can be chalked up to its Women in Engineering program (WIE), currently run by civil and environmental engineering professor Mimi Philobos.  WIE seeks to recruit female engineers and provide them opportunities for professional growth and development.  One program within WIE, the Technology, Engineering and Computing Camp, targets girls as early as middle school.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0022Some might argue that women don\u0027t pursue careers in math and science because they aren\u0027t interested, but studies indicate that girls are more interested in math and science in elementary school.  Something happens when they go to middle school,\u0022 said Philobos.  \n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EAt the camp, the girls get an introduction to computer science.  They also get to design and program a robot and design aerospace projects like rockets and hot air balloons.  \n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0022We have a technological society, and we have a shortage of women in the tech professions.  If we want to be competitive, we cannot afford to overlook the talents of half of our population,\u0022 said Philobos.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003ETech\u0027s Center for the Study of Women in Science and Technology is another way the Institute is meeting the needs of women both on and off campus.  The center offers a minor in gender studies as well as programs aimed at female students who are entering fields in science and technology.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EADVANCE-ing Toward the Future\u003C\/strong\u003E\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EA university also has to meet the needs of the female faculty.  Through the ADVANCE program, sponsored by a grant from the National Science Foundation, Tech is working to increase the representation of women both in academia and in industry.  Jane Ammons is one of four ADVANCE professors and has been at Tech since she came here as a student in 1976.  As one of Tech\u0027s first female professors of engineering, she\u0027s seen firsthand how the Institute has changed through the years from a place that merely tolerated female faculty to a university that actively seeks to recruit and advance them.  One of her fondest memories, she said, is fighting to get a woman\u0027s restroom put in her academic building in the late 1970\u0027s.  \n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003E \u0022I jumped into the fray with an industrial engineering study based on the numbers of males and females in the building.  Making my logical engineering arguments, I approached key administrators at Tech, with no luck,\u0022 she said.  \n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EKnowing a complaint to the U.S. Department of Justice could withhold all federal funding to Tech, she made one last stop at the vice president\u0027s office.  \n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0022Instead of simply changing the sign on the door, which was my request, he found the money to renovate the building and add a larger women\u0027s restroom.  For the remainder of our time in that building, the women secretaries and students threatened to put up a plaque in the bathroom that said, \u0027When using this room, think of Jane Ammons.\u0027\u0022\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EAs an ADVANCE professor, Ammons is still working to make the campus more accommodating to female faculty and students.  So far, ADVANCE has been instrumental in convincing the administration to extend the tenure clock for faculty who have a new baby, adopt a child or take leave to care for a sick relative. Ammons and the other ADVANCE professors also mentor younger faculty members and actively seek out ways to promote opportunities for women.   \n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0022It\u0027s important for students, faculty and staff as well as the administration to see women in leadership positions,\u0022 explained Rosser.  \u0022And given that Georgia Tech students are always leaders when they get out into the workplace, I expect that women who have graduated from Tech will assume leadership positions and make an impact on the world.\u0022\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EThe Next 50 Years\u003C\/strong\u003E\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EAs a result of Tech\u0027s commitment to women, Ammons said, \u0022I don\u0027t think that female students today spend as much time worrying about the culture of Tech affecting women as much as they just have worries that regular students have.\u0022\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EBut Tech still has much to do, said Rosser.  \u0022We\u0027re working to attract more women to enroll.  Overall, we\u0027ve had about 28-29 percent women for about a decade.  We\u0027re looking at subtle changes in the curriculum because research shows that women are attracted to science and engineering when they can see its social usefulness.  A Ph.D. program in the College of Computing on human-computer interaction is one of the changes Tech is looking at,\u0022 she said.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EWhatever changes Tech makes over the next 50 years, Rosser said, they will all meet the same high standards the women of the past 50 years have worked so hard to meet.  \u0022The women of today owe the women of the past 50 years a tremendous debt, not only to the women students but to the women faculty.\u0022\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0022We were just students.  We weren\u0027t looking behind or ahead.  We were just looking to get out, if you will,\u0022 explained Mewborn.  Today, I see the accomplishments of so many of our women students and what they have meant to science and technology.  I\u0027m just so happy to see the contributions that women have made.  I guess had we not started this, then it wouldn\u0027t have happened.  So, that makes me very proud.\u0022\n\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"In just 50 years, Tech has gone from having just two women students to producing more female engineers than any other university in the country.  This year, the Institute celelbrates the generations of women who have helped make Tech a center for excellence.","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":"","uid":"27304","created_gmt":"2003-03-21 01:00:00","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:02:10","author":"Matthew Nagel","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2003-03-21T00:00:00-05:00","iso_date":"2003-03-21T00:00:00-05:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"85161":{"id":"85161","type":"image","title":"50 Years of Women at Georgia Tech","body":null,"created":"1449178110","gmt_created":"2015-12-03 21:28:30","changed":"1475894706","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:45:06"},"85171":{"id":"85171","type":"image","title":"Graph of the Number of Enrolled Women at Georgia T","body":null,"created":"1449178110","gmt_created":"2015-12-03 21:28:30","changed":"1475894706","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:45:06"}},"media_ids":["85161","85171"],"related_links":[{"url":"http:\/\/www.gatech.edu\/50yearsofwomen\/","title":"50 Years of Women at Tech Website"}],"groups":[{"id":"1214","name":"News Room"}],"categories":[],"keywords":[],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EGeorgia Tech Media Relations\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ELaura Diamond\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:laura.diamond@comm.gatech.edu\u0022\u003Elaura.diamond@comm.gatech.edu\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E404-894-6016\u003Cbr \/\u003EJason Maderer\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:maderer@gatech.edu\u0022\u003Emaderer@gatech.edu\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E404-660-2926\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["david.terraso@comm.gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}