Women Advancing in Technology

The Recruit-Support-Connect program is an initiative that brought several diversity programs together at The School of Technology (SoT) of North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University (NC A&T State University) to successfully support female recruitment into technology majors. NC A&T State University is a Historically Black College and University with a STEM Early College High School located on campus. NC A&T State University as a whole has a 54 percent female undergraduate student body, but in the School of Technology only 25 percent of our students were female. This past challenge gave us a unique position to capitalize on the opportunity to make a paradigm shift to be more reflective of the nation’s population. Although the focus of this program was originally to advance the participation of underrepresented populations in the STEM fields, the RSC program had its greatest impact on female students. This initial difference in the impact allowed us to increase targeted mentoring and role-modelling programs for even greater female-centered recruitment. Since 2011, the female enrollment rate in the School of Technology has increased 22 percent. The first to second year retention rate for all SoT students increased 10 percent. The preliminary data suggest that if these numbers continue to increase, the SoT should see an increase in graduation rates for the 2015 graduation class. We have already seen modest increase in graduation rates, 9 percent since the inception of the RSC program. As the program moves forward we have increased the number of female-focused elements in this program, and found mentoring, peer communities, awareness-building, and sense of connection to be key factors for female student support.