It’s a well-known trope among college students: Women don’t study engineering. But at most universities, the lack of females in engineering extends beyond the student body into the faculty itself.
According to the University’s College of Engineering website, a mere 23 of the 183, or about 13 percent, of the undergraduate engineering faculty are women. Petroleum engineering and electrical and computer engineering boast one female faculty member each, and the other departments aren’t much better.
The University is well-aware of the gender gap in its engineering program — a gap that you don’t see in other departments. In fact, according to the LSU Office of Budget and Planning, women actually outnumbered men in every discipline except engineering, business and coast and environment as of fall 2014.
Even in the College of Business and the School of the Coast and Environment, women made up between 40 and 50 percent of undergraduate students. In the College of Engineering, however, only about 19 percent of undergraduates were female.
To its credit, the University is working to attract more women to study engineering. According to the College of Engineering website, the department has a number of programs specifically focused on recruiting and helping female engineering students.
The Women Impacting Style in Engineering program, for example, provides current students networking opportunities and tips on dressing appropriately for a professional setting. The University also runs the XCITE program, a summer camp designed specifically to introduce female high schoolers to engineering at the University.
But students aside, it’s not clear anything is being done to improve the number of female faculty in the engineering department.
Attracting and hiring more female engineering professors has obvious benefits. According to the College of Engineering itself, “fostering a culture of diversity adds more points of view, yields a more diverse workforce, and ultimately increases the overall strength of our College.” Furthermore, by placing more women in positions of authority, the University can give its female engineering students more professional role models.
But there are less obvious benefits, as well.
There is a well-documented lack of women in the STEM fields — science, technology, engineering, and mathematics — due in part to the culture of many professional environments. The University is making efforts to attract more women to engineering, but they cannot make much of an impact if women feel unwelcome in the engineering field and choose not to pursue engineering careers after graduating.
But the University and other schools have a real opportunity to help shape the culture of STEM fields and make them more welcoming to women.
By exposing male engineering students — the bulk of future professional engineers for the time being — to more women in positions of authority, the University would help legitimize women in the workplace.
It goes without saying there is no reason men should not accept female engineers in the first place. At the same time, it would be unfair to suggest all male engineers are incapable of accepting women in the workplace. But the numbers do not lie when it comes to the lack of women in professional engineering roles.
The College of Engineering certainly appears committed to diversity — in the student body, at least. But it owes its students, both male and female, the benefits of a more gender-balanced faculty.
And by helping to foster a more welcoming professional environment for women in the STEM fields, the University can show female students, both current and prospective, the respect they deserve.
Alex Mendoza is a 22-year-old political science and international studies senior from Baton Rouge. You can reach him on Twitter @alexmendoza_TDR.
Governor Bobby Jindal speaks to LSU Engineering students after he discussed expanding LSU’s engineering college February 3, 2014 in Patrick F. Taylor Hall.
