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| Dr. Glen Ellis has been recognized for his research involving teaching techniques. joanne ciccarello – staff |
How to reengineer an engineering major at a women's college
A Smith College professor's program may provide a pattern for how to attract and keep women engineers.
from the February 14, 2008 edition
Page 3 of 3
Smith students serve as his research assistants. "I have zero chance of relating to a middle-school girl," Ellis says, perhaps too modestly.
His "creative team" of students brought in a bunch of teen-girl magazines. "We're trying to take all the evil ways of luring girls into these idiotic things, and lure them into engineering," he says with a subversive grin.
The power of community
If they end up being lured into a place that's as supportive as Smith seems to be, they are more likely to stay with it.
Ellis recalls many conversations in a student lounge adjacent to his previous office. That's how he learned to stop giving tests where the average was expected to be a 40 (a time-honored tradition in engineering), because students who scored way above the average would nevertheless cry because they felt they did poorly. That's also where he witnessed the power of community.
"They were so tight," Ellis says. "If a student was considering leaving the program, her classmates would be like, 'Hey, we need you; we love you; you can't go!' "
Four cheers for science
In 2007, all four U.S. Professors of the Year represented the STEM fields: science, technology, engineering, and math. (One winner is chosen from each of four categories: community colleges; baccalaureate colleges; master's universities and colleges; and doctoral/research universities.)
The STEM sweep wasn't intentional, but it may reflect a widespread effort to improve teaching in those fields, says Mary Taylor Huber, a senior scholar who convenes the final judging panel at The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching in Stanford, Calif.
"The sciences have been known to lose many of the young people who come into college interested in the sciences.... Many women drop out, [and] minorities," she says. "So the NSF [National Science Foundation] has put a great deal of effort into funding innovative work in curriculum and pedagogy in all of the STEM fields."
To learn more about Smith College engineering professor Glenn Ellis and the other three winners, and to watch videos of their acceptance speeches, see www.usprofessorsoftheyear.org and click on "2007 winners."
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