Mentoring
| background | history |
become or find a mentor | references |
In 1991 women earned 44% of the science and engineering undergraduate degrees, 36% of the science and engineering masters degrees, 28% of the science and engineering doctoral degrees, and represented 19% of the science and engineering workforce (S&E Indicators-1993). These numbers briefly demonstrate the well- documented trend of women dropping out of the science and engineering at all levels of the academic pipeline. Equally disturbing is the lack of professional advancement for women scientists and engineers once they are in the labor force. It has been shown that after ten years, women earn 25-35% less than their male colleagues, and that women’s earnings peak at age 50 while men’s continue to rise until they retire (Angier, 1991). From an early age, parents, teachers, peers, mass media, and society discourage girls from becoming scientists. Growing up with these influences means that at the undergraduate and graduate level, potential female scientists are more strongly affected by the lack of positive reinforcement from their professors than their male counterparts (Matyas & Dix, 1992). Poor teaching is one of the major reasons that women leave science, but loss of self-esteem, lack of encouragement, and misperceptions about the lifestyle of a scientist rank higher (Seymour, 1992). The inability to reconcile the role of ‘woman,’ as defined by society, with the role of ‘scientist’ leads to the attrition of women from the sciences. Minority women frequently face additional stereotypes that clash with those of ‘woman’ and ‘scientist,’ making the possibility of a career in science more unlikely. There is no doubt that mentors are useful to both male and female students; however, there is evidence that mentoring is a vital part of career development for women and minorities (Grant & Ward, 1992). Research shows that students and mentors feel most comfortable with mentors and students like themselves -- i.e. same gender and ethnicity (Kantor, 1977). Unfortunately, the numbers of female and minority faculty rarely matches the number of students of similar backgrounds looking to be mentored and study suggests that women have more difficulty finding mentors than men (Committee on the Education and Employment of Women in Science and Engineering, 1983). History of The AWIS Mentoring Project In 1990, the AWIS Mentoring Project, with funding from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, was launched with the ultimate goal of increasing the number of women who attain bachelor's and advanced degrees in science and engineering, and who go on to successful careers as science and engineering professionals. The National Science Foundation continued to fund the project in 1994 as it evolved to better meet the needs of the local scientific communities, institutions, and associations across the country. More specifically, the purpose of the AWIS Mentoring Project was to attract and retain women undergraduate and graduate students in the sciences. It was designed to integrate female students into the scientific community by helping them identify and overcome the obstacles that prevent them from continuing in science. Since young women generally are not encouraged to pursue careers in science, AWIS members worked to counteract negative messages students receive from society at large. The AWIS Mentoring Project was established as a multi-disciplinary, chapter-based program in order to best meet the diverse needs of the various communities the project encompassed. Over the past six years, the project has evolved to include the local sections and representatives of other national and local scientific organizations. Most recently AWIS local chapters have collaborated with a minimum of two local representatives of other national scientific organizations, such as Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Society or the American Chemical Society, to help implement the program. This is the optimal combination --community based programs within national organizations. The community based orientation ensures the program's ability to be responsive to local needs while the encompassing national structures encourage institutionalization and replication of the mentoring program within a larger framework. With the collaboration of others, AWIS hoped to establish a wider base of support for the mentoring and tention of young women in science. In the context of the AWIS Mentoring Project, mentoring was construed in the broadest sense to encompass the sharing of a wide range of experience and expertise. Toward that end, activities are designed to foster supportive relationships among women who are undergraduate and graduate students in the sciences -- with more senior women science professionals and with peers, individually and in groups -- at both the national and local levels. Chapters used one-on- one mentoring, small group mentoring, and large group activities to meet the needs of the project participants and the institutions. While one-on-one mentoring pairs do offer a very personal and
individual experience, these matches require considerable time and
effort. Small group interactions can offer the comfort of individual
mentor-student interactions, as well as facilitate peer interactions.
Large group activities allow students and mentors to network
effectively and sample a broad range of advice and backgrounds among
their peers, as well as more experienced scientists. AWIS mentoring
activities have taken many forms:
Likewise, the AWIS Mentoring Project has addressed a variety of
topics. An evaluation in 1993 led to the focus on the top six topics
selected by undergraduate and graduate students in past programs as
being the most important:
Resource packets have been compiled for all of the topics for use by chapters. The evaluation in 1993 also demonstrated the effectiveness of the mentoring project and showed AWIS other ways to adjust the mentoring program to serve the participants better. For example, 70% of students indicated that small group mentoring was ‘useful’ or ‘very useful.’ This type of ‘several students with one mentor’ approach is particularly helpful because students benefit from interaction with their peers, as well as exposure to the advice and experience of the mentor. The AWIS Mentoring Project currently focuses on small-group mentoring. The survey responses indicated that the majority of students (80%) recognized that they faced barriers as female scientists. After three years, the 62% students felt that the AWIS Mentoring Project helped them handle those barriers. In addition, at the start of the project 21% of the students described their commitment to science as tentative as compared to 13% at the end of the project.
The AWIS Mentoring Project played a key role in helping participants resolve the ‘women/scientist dilemma.’ Frequently women cannot see themselves pursuing science because they think the roles of woman -- traditionally the wife and mother -- and scientist conflict. Almost all (94%) of the students reported that they planned to get married, 77% with children. It was important that these students meet women who were managing and transforming those roles to meet their needs.
On many issues, minority women and white women felt the same (e.g. barriers faced and overcome). In other respects, the picture was different for women of color than for white women. More ethnic minority students than white students were majoring in the life sciences (66% versus 54%) and slightly fewer in the physical sciences (15% versus 19%). The increased commitment to science over the duration of the mentoring project is most telling; the percentage of women of color reporting themselves as committed to, or certain of, science careers rose from 70% to 82%, while the percentage for white women remained relatively constant, 82% to 88%. Overall, minority women seem to have been more tentative in their initial commitment to scientific career than white women, and the AWIS Mentoring Project may have been more critical to their retention. The AWIS Mentoring Project has served over 3,000 students and mentors through 40 AWIS chapters nationwide. Reflecting the dearth of minority women scientists, 8% of the project participants were minority women. For the women who are unable to participate in the AWIS Project due to geographical barriers (e.g. lack of AWIS chapter), several publications resulted from this project including Mentoring Means Future Scientists, A Hand Up: Women Mentoring Women in Science, and Grants at a Glance. Mentoring Means Future Scientists presents and analyzes the results of this mentoring program. A Hand Up contains advice and reflections from accomplished women scientists designed to dispel many of the myths about mentoring and to encourage scientists to become mentors to young women seeking advice and guidance. Grants at a Glance is a compilation of over 400 different grant, scholarship, and financial aid opportunities for women at all levels in the sciences. The 5,000 copies of A Hand Up were gone within the first year of publication and the book is now in its second edition due to the overwhelming demand for this type of ‘paper mentor.’ The AWIS Mentoring Project has demonstrated that mentoring can make a difference in the retention of women in the sciences. Although the original project was aimed at undergraduate and graduate students, a number of the local AWIS chapters have found outside funding to maintain mentoring programs established six years ago and aimed those programs at the pre-college and post graduate levels as well. AWIS’ Palo Alto chapter has been particularly successful in raising funds to continue mentoring from the local community. The AWIS Palo Alto chapter brought together many components of that community including Stanford University, representatives from the area’s biotechnology industry, government agency involvement via Edwards Air Force Base and the US Geological Survey, as well as local sections of the American Chemical Society, the Society of Women Engineers, the American Physical Society, and the American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists. Another chapter, AWIS West Virginia, implemented a successful e-mail mentoring system as a way to surmount the geographical barriers between participants. The model was so successful that the chapter has been asked by the state of West Virginia to help implement their program in all universities across the state. In addition, increased communication has led to sharing of equipment and materials between women faculty at different institutions. The benefits of mentoring are not only for the students involved in the program. The project mentors reported that the large group events helped them to break out of their isolation and brought more senior scientists together. Mentors are often one of few women in their departments and simply being with other women who share their concerns and dilemmas is helpful. The project also demonstrated that large group activities often created situations where younger mentors received mentoring from senior scientists. The mentors have ample opportunity to exchange resources and information with each other. One mentor even became an adjunct professor at another university as a result of AWIS Mentoring Project events. AWIS has responded to numerous requests for information on mentoring from individuals and organizations (e.g. American Society of Plant Physiologists, Crop Science Society of America, Ecological Society of America, and many others), since the inception of its program. It has quickly become a model for other societies to base their programs on, and AWIS has had queries from as far away as Kenya and Ethiopia. The ultimate goal of the AWIS Mentoring Project is to set in motion an ongoing process. Women who are mentored through the AWIS Mentoring Project will know how to look for support systems and mentors in the future, enabling them to remain in the science pipeline. Additionally, women scientists who have themselves been mentored will be willing and able to mentor others as they progress through different career levels. AWIS and other organizations which initiate mentoring programs of their own will create a generation of new scientists who value mentoring and see mentoring as an essential part of being a scientist. As a result, we will build a stronger, more diverse scientific community that will make a greater contribution to society as a whole. The AWIS Mentoring Project was a catalyst that helped create a wide range of support mechanisms for aspiring women in science that are now being integrated into the structure of the academic institutions involved in the project. Local AWIS chapter activities are now being matched and enhanced by local institutional support. The project is being replicated in many organizations. How to Become or Find a Mentor
References
Angier, Natalie. (1991, May 21). Women swell ranks of science, but remain invisible at the top. The New York Times, pp. C1, C12.
Committee on the Education and Employment of Women in Science and Engineering. (1983). Climbing the ladder: An update on the status of doctoral women scientists and engineers. Washington, DC: National Academy Press.
Grant, Linda, and Ward, Kathryn B. (1992). Mentoring, gender and publication among social, natural, and physical scientists [Grant #R117E0090]. Washington DC: U.S. Department of Education, Office of Educational Research and Improvement.
Kantor, Rosabeth Moss. (1977). Men and women of the corporation New York: Basic Books.
Maytas, Marsha Lakes, & Dix, Linda Skidmore (Eds.). (1992). Science and engineering programs: On target for women? Washington D.C: National Academy Press.
Seymour, Elaine. (1992, March/April). Undergraduate problems with teaching and advising in SME majors--Explaining gender differences in attrition rates. Journal of College Science Teaching, 21(5). pp. 284-292.
For more information on mentoring, check out Mentoring Means Future Scientists on our publications page.
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