Recruiting young women

Charlotte Behm (behm@4j.lane.edu)
Thu, 04 Jun 1998 09:01:17 -0700


Hi. I saw your announcement on the list serve. I cannot come to your
workshop, but would like to get information about it, especially what you
recommend for retaining young women into the male dominated classroom.

Last month, I was involved with a project at Lane Community College (here
in Eugene, Oregon) that had hundreds of girls come to a Saturday workshop
at Lane Community College. I did a parent's workshop, and would have liked
to have more and different things to offer the parents, which they asked
for.

I did a presentation on my project, which is called Connections Across
Cultures. You may be interested in what I have found too as it really
relates to your work.

In February, we visited the STW office and talked to Gayle Schwartz, and
also to Peggy Zelindo from the Office of Vacational and Adult Education.
You may have heard of our project as Gayle told us that she was going to
distribute information.

Well, anyway, I'm going to put in a litte bit about our project below, and
if you are interested in more information, please let me know. Again, I'd
really like to get some information from you too.

Charlotte

Project:

Students who are African-American, American Indian, Alaska Native, Latino,
and/or female together comprise 65 percent of our national student
population. Despite their large population, these four groups continue to
be underrepresented in math, science, technology, and engineering, even
though we have made significant efforts to recruit, train, and retain these
students.

The Connections Across Cultures Project, based at Mission College in Santa
Clara, California, with an additional site in Eugene, Oregon has been
studying this issue for the last four years. Approximately fifty classroom
teachers (from first grade through university) in California, Oregon, and
Arizona, Alaska have worked on the Connections Across Cultures project.
They found answers to questions such
as:

How can we make our classrooms and curriculum more comfortable and
stimulating for students from groups which are underrepresented in science
and technological fields?

What new perspectives do women, African-Americans, Latinos, American
Indians, and Native Alaskans have to offer - unique ideas and skills which
can benefit math, science, engineering, and technology?

The Connections Across Cultures project has developed simple, user-friendly
teaching strategies which can easily be applied to any curriculum and
program. The project is funded by the National Science Foundation, the
Advanced Technological Education Program.

For free information, contact Charlotte Behm at NSF Pac-TEC Project,
Mission College, MS-18, 3000 Mission College Blvd., Santa Clara, CA 95054,
or email: charlotte_behm@wvmccd.cc.ca.us, or call (408) 748-2764.

Charlotte Behm
Pac-TEC Project, Connections Across Cultures
Frances Willard Neighborhood School
2855 Lincoln Street
Eugene, Oregon 97405-2798
(541) 687-3375
behm@4j.lane.edu


new message to this message