UConn Joins National Research Initiative Involving Women Of Color In STEM

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UConn Joins National Research Initiative on Women and Girls of Color - UConn Today

This semester, UConn has become one of the pioneering U.S. universities to spearhead a national research initiative focused on issues of women and girls of color in the United States.

As part of a national consortium of more than 50 universities and institutions, called The Collaborative to Advance Equity Through Research on Women and Girls of Color, the University has committed more than $200,000 toward research on issues related to women and girls of color in STEM fields and in public health.

The national initiative is led by the Anna Julia Cooper Center at Wake Forest University, under the direction of director and professor Melissa Harris-Perry; and was launched at a conference that the Center hosted in collaboration with the White House Council on Women and Girls.

The Collaborative at UConn is placing its focus on intersectionality research: studies that examine different interacting and overlapping social identities.

 

[Drew]

UConn right to take lead in a new Collaborative with the White House Council on Women

'UConn Right To Take Lead In A New Collaborative With White House Council On Women'

This fall, UConn has become one of over 50 universities and organizations across the United States participating in The Collaborative to Advance Equity Through Research on Women and Girls of Color by committing more than $200,000 to the cause. The initiative was designed to address a critical void in research, and is an exciting opportunity for UConn to be on the front lines, working together with a national community of thinkers and leaders. The Collaborative was launched jointly by the White House Council on Women and Girls and the Anna Julia Cooper Center at Wake Forest University, an “interdisciplinary center… with a mission of advancing justice through intersectional scholarship,” according to the center’s website. Other partners include the American Association of University Women, Brown University and Duke University, as listed on the Collaborative’s website.

The university’s financial commitment has funded the research projects of 15 UConn faculty, graduate and undergraduate students this semester. They are specifically related either to lack of women and girls of color in STEM fields, or environmental, public health and intersectional issues. Projects range from Ph.D. student Danielle Kloster studying barriers to participation in the environmental movement, to Professor John Settlage studying hurdles to quality STEM education.

 

[Drew]

New Program Immerses Teens in STEM Challenges - UConn Today

The Wolff-Zackin Natatorium at UConn is a hive of activity. Girls from junior high through high school sit at the pool’s edge, some dangling their feet in the water, all focused intently on operating underwater robots using the remote controls in their hands.

They are participants in the Engineering Diversity and Outreach Center’s new SPARK engineering camp for girls, and they built the robots themselves.

“At first I was like ‘I’m going to make that robot?’ But I did it and I’m proud of myself,” says Monica Robinson, a student from Glastonbury who was poolside. “It was overwhelming at first, but I didn’t give up.”

The camp, launched this summer, comprises three, week-long sessions where teens are challenged by creative STEM experiments. It is the outreach center’s mission to develop efforts such as this, that are aimed at increasing student diversity within engineering and other STEM fields.

Programs like these strive to help close the gender gaps that exists in some STEM disciplines, such as engineering and computer science. According to the camp’s website, the presence of women in computer science is now half of what it was in the mid-1980s. The site also notes that the world benefits from a diverse workforce, and cites women’s accomplishments in STEM fields, including practical innovations such as safer airbags in cars.

The SPARK camp also capitalizes on the fact that research has shown girls learn better if they are taught by women. That’s why the participants are taught and mentored by female undergraduate students. And there is evidence that building these skills early, ideally as early as junior high, is important for keeping girls in STEM fields.

“This is our new initiative to reach out to younger female students and promote engineering topics and introduce them to different engineering disciplines,” says Callie Robinson ’19 (ENG), a UConn junior in computer science and engineering, who began the camp with classmate Ashley Leung ’19 (ENG), and Kevin McLaughlin, director of the Engineering Diversity and Outreach Center.