Mission
The mission of the SEAS Center for Women in Engineering (WiE) is one of "Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging." WiE seeks to empower GW faculty, staff, students and alumni to become the best engineers they can be. We work to build confidence and knowledge about technology, expand leadership and tech skills, and fully leverage technology in support of academic and professional excellence.
WiE is uniquely positioned to leverage the resources of SEAS and of the federal research institutes, national policymakers, and technology innovators in and around the nation’s capital to increase our reach and efficacy, and thus ensure that women reach their fullest potential as engineers.
In order to serve our mission and reach our goals, the Center will:
- Build on a foundation of positive change, leveraging existing programs and activities that have dramatically increased the enrollment of undergraduate women in SEAS
- Gather statistics and information about the climate for women in engineering in SEAS.
- Inform our faculty, students, staff and alumni stakeholders of existing research and evaluated programs pertinent to the success of women at SEAS and in engineering overall.
- Adopt or adapt evaluated and published research on programming and activities for the success of SEAS students, faculty, and other stakeholders. The Center will, for example, use these to create SEAS-centric programming (e.g., new inclusive pedagogy for engineering classes, pre-matriculation programs to increase student confidence in their preparation for engineering courses, re-entry initiatives to support women returning to the engineering workforce, or robust activities on diversity for faculty search and promotion committees)
- Leverage the university’s unique urban location in the nation’s capital, partnering with leaders in government, industry, and other educational institutions to foster collaboration and provide expanded opportunities for internships and mentorships.
- Sponsor women in engineering networking events, seminars, scholarships, volunteer opportunities, mentorships, internships, and “returnships”.
- Identify strategic research initiatives for interdisciplinary teams to meet, create, and review scholarly work that may impact SEAS directly and be available to share with external stakeholders.
The Center will use multiple measures of success to monitor our progress:
- Total participation in Center events
- Increased numbers of women who graduate from SEAS at the undergraduate and graduate level
- Increased numbers of female faculty in all departments with fewer than 25% female faculty
- Sustained (or increased) numbers of female faculty in all departments with 25% or higher proportion of female faculty
- Increased numbers of female alumni engaged with the Center
- Positive responses concerning the climate for women in SEAS
- Increased numbers of undergraduate female students participating in summer research
- Greater engagement of the entire faculty in changing the culture in SEAS for a broader participation