ISA Insights

February 2008

Praise for Engineers Week and Introduce a Girl to Engineering Day

ISA is dedicated to workforce development, and we want to congratulate the National Society of Professional Engineers for their efforts to make engineering more appealing to our children through Engineers Week, and to young women through Introduce a Girl to Engineering Day.

Founded in 1951, Engineers Week is celebrated annually by thousands of engineers, engineering students, teachers, and leaders in government and business. In 1988, the National Engineers Week consortium expanded its scope and now includes more than 100 engineering, scientific, and education societies and major corporations dedicated to enhancing the public understanding of the engineering profession and to promoting pre-college interest in math, science, and engineering as a career option. Engineers Week 2008 will be celebrated 17-23 February and is co-chaired by the Chinese Institute of Engineers (CIE)–USA and IBM Corporation.

Across the United States and around the world, several organizations, societies, companies, and others are admirably hosting various events in celebration of Engineers Week. Several notable events include the 10th Annual SWE Engineering Expo, co-sponsored by the College of Engineering at Wichita State University, Kansas, 23 February at the Hughes Metroplex; Discover Engineering Family Day at The Clay Center for the Arts and Sciences in Charleston, West Virginia, 23 February and at the National Building Museum in Washington, D.C., 16 February; and Super Saturdays for Future City Competitions, currently underway.

Texas will host several events, including the Society of Petroleum Engineers Permian Basin Young Professionals Board in Midland hosting "Girl Day" on 21 February at the local college; ASHRAE in Tyler taking part in a joint engineering society banquet at a local college where MATHCOUNTS kids will be honored; the El Paso Independent School District hosting a set of conferences, competitions, and exhibits along with their partners in education to expose and promote engineering and technology fields on 24-29 February; and Clear Creek Independent School District in Friendswood working on strategies to introduce more young women into its “Project Lead the Way” program.

One of the best and most praiseworthy events of Engineers Week is Introduce a Girl to Engineering Day 2008, celebrated Thursday, 21 February. During this event, thousands of engineers, both women and men, directly mentor more than one million girls and young women in grades K-12, giving them first-hand experiences in engineering. This initiative is vital to workforce development and to breaking the stereotype that only men can be engineers. ISA encourages anyone interested in taking part in Introduce a Girl to Engineering Day to visit www.eweek.org/site/News/Eweek/2008_nationalpledgeroster.shtml to learn more about the events scheduled nationwide for 2008.

To coincide with National Engineers Week and Introduce a Girl to Engineering Day, American Public Television aired Bold Visions: Women in Science & Technology on 1 February. This program aims to dispel the myths commonly associated with female professionals in the fields of science and technology as it profiles three talented women: Anne Carpenter, a research scientist for Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard searching for genetic causes of diseases; Joan Higginbotham, a former NASA astronaut who applies her engineering expertise in space; and Duy-Loan Le who is balancing her leadership roles at work as a senior fellow at Texas Instruments and at home as a mother.

Also on Bold Visions, Emmy Award-winning executive producer Helene Lerner will host Hispanic high school girls who, together with other students, have built a wind turbine to generate electricity for lights at a community center. DVDs of the program and accompanying discussion guides are being distributed nationwide.

Engineers Week is vital to workforce development, and should be praised, supported, funded, and grown to establish our nation’s and the world’s future generations of engineers and automation professionals. Anything ISA Members and society units can do to encourage students to learn more about engineering and technical careers in the automation community is a step forward.

To read more about the events mentioned above and the many other praiseworthy events scheduled for Engineers Week, or for more information about National Engineers Week, visit www.eweek.org.