Engineering remains one of the undergraduate majors with the smallest percentage of women in the United States. The percentage of women engineers in the workplace is even smaller. Researchers have tried to understand why women are less likely to become engineers and what social norms and institutional biases have kept girls and women away from engineering. Understanding the context of the current situation for women in engineering education and for women engineers requires an understanding of issues faced by women engineers in the past. This project, led by historian Dr. Laura Ettinger, focuses on oral history interviews with pioneering women engineering alumnae and staff who studied or worked at Clarkson University, a small, private technological university in northern New York, shortly after it reintroduced coeducation in 1964. It is worth noting that the people who participated in the interviews were white. The goals of this project are 1) to produce new information about the history of women and gender in engineering and to explore the choices Clarkson engineering alumnae have made, the experiences they had in college and beyond, and the challenges they have faced, and 2) to inspire young people who are considering or currently in careers in the STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) fields by highlighting the careers of women pioneers in these fields.
History of Clarkson Women Engineers