Encouraging Young Women to Pursue Engineering: 25 Years of Summer Camp Successes and Challenges

Twenty-five years ago, the University of Evansville, a small, private liberal arts institution in the Midwest, initiated a hands-on summer camp to encourage high school girls to pursue engineering. UE’s OPTIONS in Engineering camp has evolved into separate week-long residential experiences for high school and middle school girls, as well as a week-long day camp for middle school boys. The engineering camp for high school girls has included an international experience on two occasions. University students act as counselors and mentors, allowing the camp to impact young women at multiple educational stages. Testaments from past participants and counselors depict the experience as inspirational and positively transforming perceptions of STEM. Participants have pursued STEM degrees, including graduate degrees, and worked professionally as engineers after attending the camp. This paper presents the best practices, challenges, and successes of the camp as it has adapted to new generations of participants and advances in engineering and technology. Originally created to increase the representation of women in engineering, the camp exposes participants to likeminded peers, female college students, faculty, and practicing engineers in order to provide a critical mass of role models and begin developing a professional support network both of which have been shown to improve retention and self-efficacy of women in STEM fields. The university assesses learning outcomes via a pre-test and post-test covering topics within various engineering disciplines. Participants are asked to provide both qualitative and quantitative feedback regarding the camp experience in an exit survey on the final day of camp. All assessment is completed anonymously; however, archival data are not available for each year. This paper highlights qualitative and quantitative findings from the past decade. Introduction and Background In 1992, several faculty members from the University of Evansville (UE), a small, private, master's-granting institution in the Midwest, were discussing methods to increase enrollment. The lack of female representation in engineering and computer science programs was a primary concern, prompting the idea of offering a summer program targeting women in engineering. 25 years later, the summer program has evolved from a single week-long residential camp for high school girls to include a separate 3-5 day residential camp for middle school girls, and a 5-day day camp for middle school boys. The program addresses the critical need to help young women overcome cultural stereotypes and prepare for careers in engineering and computer science. The National Center for Education Statistics reported in 2015, 31% of all STEM degrees and certificates awarded at all levels were earned by women; STEM was defined to include biological and biomedical sciences, computer and information sciences, engineering and engineering technologies, mathematics and statistics, and physical sciences and science technologies [1]. The percentage of women earning engineering and computer science degrees was significantly lower. Numerous studies have been conducted to determine why more women do not enter and remain in a STEM field when the interest is clearly present. Lack of female representation in STEM is often described as a leaky pipeline, where of the few women that begin in a STEM field, even fewer persist and remain in STEM. Biological, social, structural, psychological, behavioral, and theoretical explanations have all been presented as causes for limited female representation, but it is difficult to separate the effect of these often-overlapping factors [2]. A 2005 literature review debunked claims that biological differences can sufficiently explain the gender gap in STEM [3]. According to an assessment of national-level data, claims that the gender gap in STEM is due to deficits in prior achievement disagree with findings that STEM fields are universalistic, noting socioeconomic backgrounds may limit preparedness in higher levels of math and science [4]. Studies suggest that structural barriers and stereotypes can be overcome with interventions aimed at making the STEM environment more welcoming, which produce greater implicit STEM identification and fewer stereotype concerns for women [5, 6]. Gendered stereotypes and institutional barriers undermine female interest and performance in STEM, and stereotypical thinking patterns are apparent in young women by middle school [7-9], which further emphasizes the need for interventions such as summer programs for middle school women. Lack of female role models is commonly cited having a negative impact on female interest and persistence in STEM [3, 6, 10, 11]. Data suggests that female experts act as a buffer to societal stereotypes, which can help young women overcome gender sensitivity and self-efficacy barriers [12, 13]. Numerous professional societies, educational institutions, and organizations have worked to increase visibility of women in STEM and provide a critical mass of female role models. The Million Women Mentors® organization highlights the movements to develop and provide a network of support for young women in STEM [14]. Mentorship is a key contributor to retaining women in STEM, according to the National Science Foundation [15]. Female professionals and college students act as mentors for the OPTIONS summer camps, building a critical mass of female representation and support for participants. While the OPTIONS program predates many of these studies, components of the program include many of the research-supported recommendations for decreasing the gender gap in STEM. Anecdotal best practices from the summer program are echoed by best practices in the literature for recruiting and retaining women in STEM. A 2012 report compiled by the Girl Scouts of America summarizes research-based methods for improving female representation in 10 main points [16]. These points support the goals and implementation of the OPTIONS