An Overnight Visitation Program For Incoming Female Engineering Students

The United States continues to lag far behind other developed nations in producing professional engineers, including starkly low numbers of female engineers. This employment shortage is a national problem that must be addressed in a more strategically focused manner (Chubin, May, & Babco, 2005). Exposing more young women to educational opportunities and assisting their integration into the college environment is a vital step to recruiting more females into this field. This paper presents a program that invites incoming female engineering students to campus for an overnight visitation program before fall classes begin. The session provides information about how this lowcost activity has been embraced by the students and has served to recruit and retain young women for the engineering programs at the University of Louisville J.B. Speed School of Engineering.