As part of the requirements for FOR496/797, students share responsibility of reporting the Women in Scientific and Environmental Professions Speaker Series. This was prepared by Brianna Reed
Dr.
Marie Garland, Executive Director for the NSF-ADVANCE initiative and Ms. Sharon
W. Alestalo, Program Manager for SU ADVANCE and WISE, presented their
experience on Advance: Transforming
Workplace Culture at ESF on Tuesday, February 7, 2012 as part of SUNY-ESF’s
Women in the Scientific and Environmental Professions Spring Seminar Series.
Dr. Garland
discussed recent headlines from news articles that focused on the need for more
women to enter careers in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM)
fields. There are many theories as to
why women have not gained gender equality in the STEM fields such as
institutional barriers and common stereotypes.
She used graphs to show the fact that women consistently choose not to
develop careers in engineering, mathematics and computer sciences, although
these amounts have been gradually increasing.
Sharon
Alestalo discussed the NSF-ADVANCE program that went into effect one year ago
at Syracuse University. This a program
funded to ensure women have a greater presence in STEM fields in the
university. She presented the current
statistics of the lack of women faculty in departments such as physics and
mathematics and showed that our values are low in comparison to national
figures. Alestalo discussed the four
main parts of the plan: Recruitment, Connect, Extend and Transform. Within these tactics, women will be connected
with mentors, have access to workshops and the males in each department will
also be engaged in the discussions and programs.
Alestalo
and Garland defined the success of the NSF-ADVANCE program to be flexible and
dependent on each department. An
external evaluator has been asked to oversee the progress of the program. Both Alestalo and Garland are excited to be a
part of the program and have high expectations that it will result in a large
achievement for the university culture.
Dr. Garland received her education
at the University of New Hampshire and Ohio State University. She has previously been a professor at Ithaca
College and was the Director of Faculty and Staff Diversity at Cornell
University. Sharon Alestalo received her
education at Chapman College and University of Albany. She has been the Executive Director at Girls
Incorporated of CNY, Director of Student Enrollment at OCC, Program manager of
the federal Health and Human Services Project at SU.
