The Urban Institute is studying the productivity of engineering departments - their ability to attract and retain engineering students, particularly female students, and the approaches, strategies and interventions that underlie their effectiveness. A severe gender imbalance exists within the engineering field as women currently earn about 20.1% of the bachelor's degrees in engineering. The graduation rates of female engineering majors vary across programs.
UI researchers will compile a national database of the approximately 344 schools with accredited undergraduate engineering programs within the United States and classify them into one of four categories based on the "productivity" criteria of enrollment of women and graduation of women. UI researchers will analyze institutional or departmental characteristics to identify any patterns that exist among the nation's undergraduate engineering programs, and with regard to each of the productivity categories. The institutional and departmental characteristics examined in this analysis will include such variables as institutional and program selectivity, institutional type (Carnegie classification, public/private, MSI), size of engineering program (in absolute terms and relative to home institution), graduate program offering, overall graduation rate (men and women combined), percent of female engineering faculty, and percent of female engineering students.
UI researchers will also carry out six to eight case studies of exemplary programs that are "highly productive" in terms of graduating female engineering majors. UI researchers will purposefully sample four engineering programs under the category of "high enrollment and high graduation," and four under the category of "low enrollment and high graduation" as a comparative analysis will yield a better understanding of the relationship between enrollment and productivity. In carrying out the case studies, UI researchers will travel to selected campuses to interview departmental chairpersons, top administrators, and engineering faculty, and to conduct sex-segregated focus groups of engineering students. UI researchers will also collect information on departmental program histories and the presence of effective interventions and strategies within the program to achieve a more equitable and inviting educational environment.
The intellectual merit of the proposed activity is supported by the breath and depth of the project. The multi-institutional analyses will allow researchers to assess the productivity status of the country's undergraduate engineering programs on the dimensions of female enrollment and graduation. Concomitantly, the case studies enable the researchers to examine components and characteristics of effective organizational models.
The proposal activity will result in the broader impact of advancing the existing knowledge base about the current status of U.S. undergraduate engineering programs; approaches that result in high recruitment and retention of female engineering majors; and, organizational models of effective engineering programs for women.
