HERFF COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING
WOMEN IN ENGINEERING
LETTER FROM THE DEAN A prospective student once asked me,
“WHAT DOES AN ENGINEER DO?” My response,
“ENGINEERS SOLVE PROBLEMS.”
All sorts of problems, in fact. Dr. Richard J. Sweigard Dean, Herff College of Engineering
At the Herff College of Engineering, we train our students to define problems to be solved, analyze those problems, draw upon their knowledge to determine possible solutions, test those ideas and implement the chosen solution. We teach them to work collaboratively and to recognize failure as an opportunity for growth. In 2013, in an effort to “practice what we preach,” the Herff College of Engineering began the rigorous process of creating a strategic plan to help move us forward over the next 10 years. Facilitated by executives from FedEx, key stakeholders – academic leaders, alumni and employers – came together to create a plan that includes clearly defined objectives with specific and measurable goals.
200%
Engineering Living and Learning Community growth over past three years
140.5%
Enrollment increase for first time full time freshmen over past three years
Over the past three years, this laser-focused approach has resulted in a 140.5 percent increase in our freshman enrollment – great progress toward our goal of doubling our undergraduate degree production by 2023. Additionally, we have seen a 200 percent growth in our Engineering Living Learning Community and, in the same time frame, our private funding has grown from an average of $385,000 annually to more than $1 million.
1,040
Student Visits to Free Tutoring Fall 2016
22:1
Undergraduate Student-to-Faculty Ratio
405
First Generation Students (undergrad and grad)
261
Female Students (undergrad and grad)
I’m excited to see the successes we have experienced in a relatively short amount of time, but we are only getting started. Last year, we launched a strategic task force focused on increasing the number of women in our engineering program. Fewer than 20 percent of engineering students across the country are female. At Herff, our numbers are very similar. The Women in Engineering (WiE) task force is helping determine how we can best educate girls about the many fields of engineering, recruit young women into our engineering program and help them to be successful while at Herff and as they enter the workforce. One obvious way to help women succeed at Herff is to provide access to the best teachers and top researchers in their fields of study. It is even better for female students when those faculty are women. Dr. Stephanie Ivey, recently named Associate Dean for Research, has a strong track record of research in transportation planning/policy and K-20 STEM education. Dr. Ivey is committed to seeing our female students thrive and inspiring young girls to be excited about STEM subjects instead of being intimidated. As a director of the Girls Experiencing Engineering summer program, she has introduced hundreds of girls to the field of engineering.
Computational Imaging Research Laboratory, where students work on interdisciplinary projects that span engineering, physics, mathematics, computer science and biology. She cares deeply about mentoring women and helping them realize the connection between technical research and its impact on humankind. For Dr. Preza, the real reward is in mentoring graduate and undergraduate research assistants and inspiring another generation of thinkers to seek knowledge that creates possibilities with no limits. I hope you enjoy reading about some of Herff’s outstanding women who are shaping the future of engineering.
Dr. Richard J. Sweigard Dean, Herff College of Engineering
Dr. Chrysanthe Preza leads the research in the
Dr. Stephanie Ivey, Associate Dean of Research, serves as Director of the West Tennessee STEM Hub, Intermodal Freight Transportation Institute, and Southeast Transportation Workforce Center. She was recently appointed to the Federal Reserve Board’s Transportation Industry Council.
Dr. Chrysanthe Preza, Associate Department Chair and Associate Professor & Graduate Coordinator for Electrical & Computer Engineering. She is featured in the Optical Society of America’s 2017 Women in Optics Monthly Planner.
“BEGIN AT THE BEGINNING AND GO ON TILL YOU COME TO THE END…” These words from Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland may seem to state the obvious, but surprisingly many engineering colleges overlook the beginning – outreach to K-12 students. Before engineering students were college students, they were children with big dreams and big ideas. Someone along the way encouraged their curiosity and supported their interests in science and math. At the Herff College we believe that outreach is an important part of our mission. We are home to the West Tennessee STEM Hub, which places undergraduate engineering students into Memphis-area K-12 classrooms to introduce younger students to the world of creative development and engineering. Christ Methodist Day School is the first independent school to participate in this program and where we met Sarah Ann, a 5th grader, who recently described why she wants to pursue engineering “for the rest of her life”:
“The reason I want to pursue engineering is because it challenges you, and I love a good challenge. It makes your mind work and grow, and I absolutely love the feeling you get when you finally get what you worked for and it feels like a million dollars. I can definitely see myself making an iPhone 30 or a rocket ship that allows people to go to the solar system … or a teleporter, or an easier way to get home without going through a bagillion cars in a line of traffic. But really by the time I grow up, I bet it’ll already be invented. I love to design houses and crafts. When I have an idea, I either jot it down or get to it immediately. One reason I’d like to be an engineer is because of boys. Boys these days think they are better and more powerful than girls, and I want to prove them wrong. Then when they see girls can invent or create or engineer anything we want, it will amaze and astound them. All in all, engineering is something I want to do for the rest of my life.”
Other outreach efforts at the Herff College include summer day camps such as Girls Experiencing Engineering (GEE) where middle- and high-school girls spend a week in the college learning about all areas of engineering. They hear from female engineering students and women who are engineers within local industry. GEE provides hands-on experiences where girls can “get their hands dirty” and learn what it’s like to be in a lab and design and test their ideas. Outreach is a great beginning, but with all good stories, it’s what happens in the middle that makes it come to life. Providing an academic environment where engineering students learn by doing is important to the Herff College. Our faculty pride themselves on our excellent classroom education, but that’s only part of the equation. Undergraduate research,
small faculty-to-student ratios, hands-on learning, student organizations and close ties to local industry all contribute to the excellent education our students receive. In 2014, as a response to our newly-minted strategic plan, the Herff College began an aggressive strategy to double our enrollment by 2023. As a part of that plan, a new focus was placed on retention and student success. A new Engineering Living and Learning Community (ELLC), housing 48 students, was created to offer students not only a place to live, but a group of peer mentors whose job is to help one another navigate the rigors of an engineering education. An early warning system was implemented to alert advising staff to potential problems that engineering students may be facing, allowing intervention services such as academic coaching,
time management training and tutoring to help students get back on track. An engineering problemsolving course was created to help students connect the relevance of mathematics to engineering, teach problem solving skills and introduce the concept of collaboration within an active learning environment. Aaliyah Jatta, a sophomore civil engineering student, has a great appreciation of Herff’s student success efforts. Aaliyah is an active member of many on-campus organizations including the National Society of Black Engineers and is a part of our ELLC. “It’s a tight community. We all have similar academic goals and common interests, so it makes for a great environment to study and share ideas,” says Aaliyah. “It really makes me feel like a part of the Herff family!” Aaliyah also takes advantage of free peer tutoring which is available to all Herff students. Tutors from each of our five academic departments collectively held 1,022 tutoring sessions in the 2016 fall semester! As our Herff story continues, there are many twists and turns. When Alice fell through the rabbit hole in Lewis Carroll’s story, she wasn’t sure where her path would lead. An engineering education can be much the same way. Take, for example, Herff alumna Holly Kirby. Holly received her undergraduate degree in mechanical engineering in 1979. One would expect that she would have followed a career that would lead her into the world of manufacturing or R&D. Not the case with Holly. Shortly after completing her undergraduate degree, she was accepted into the UofM School of Law where she received her J.D. in 1982. Since that time, she has served the legal community in many capacities, including being the first female appointee to the Tennessee Court of Appeals. In 2014, Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam appointed her as an associate justice on the Tennessee Supreme Court. It’s not often you see a mechanical engineer serving on a State Supreme Court, but the progression from engineering to law was a very logical one to Holly. “Herff College laid the foundation for my problem solving abilities,” she says. “Law and engineering are both about solving problems with lots of unknowns and utilizing a methodological approach to finding solutions.”
When asked what advice she would give young women in the engineering program today, she says “to be FEARLESS! Take more risks and expand your horizons. Do the hard stuff! Look at your engineering education as training your mind just as an athlete might train her body for the Olympics. Push your mind. Take the hard courses. You will reap the rewards in the end.” When asked of her greatest professional accomplishment, she responded, “I’m living it! It is the honor of my life to serve on the highest court in the state of Tennessee.” When asked about her personal accomplishments, she spoke of her family. “I am proud of my children and who they have become. Don’t be fooled, there was no work-life balance along the way, just a series of juggling all the balls and dropping as few as possible.” When questioned on what excites or fascinates her most about what she does, Justice Kirby answered, “I hear cases of people who are enmeshed in the worst situations of their lives. Most have been in the midst of these situations for years before they get to me. My job is to resolve the situation in a fair and judicial way. No matter if the outcome is what they want or expect, I want them to know they have been heard and a fair decision was made. There is a great sense of responsibility in my work.” There is a great sense of responsibility in the work of educating our future engineers as well. We take great care to provide the environment and tools to help our students succeed. Each student’s story is different, but our job is to help them write those stories and create happy endings that are as unique as the students we serve.
SCHOLARSHIP | SMITH & NEPHEW Smith & Nephew has been an invaluable partner to the Herff College for more than 25 years. For 10 of those years, the company has been supporting Herff students through scholarships. Most recently, it began funding five merit-based scholarships, helping the college to recruit the best and brightest future engineers. Through this support, Smith & Nephew hopes to engage high-potential engineering students and create a pipeline of top candidates for employment. More importantly, however, they hope to raise the caliber of engineering graduates in the Memphis area, a goal in line with Herff’s strategic plan. In 2007, Herff alumna and Smith & Nephew employee Laura Whitsitt saw an opportunity to leverage her personal investment with the Smith & Nephew corporate matching program, and the Smith & Nephew Excellence in Engineering Scholarship was established. For many, the establishment of such a scholarship would be an end unto itself, but Laura had a bigger vision. She developed a mentorship component to the scholarship and continues to serve as a personal mentor to the young women who receive the scholarship. “As a mentor, you offer advice and tools to help a student assess his or her strengths and interests, and then seek out educational and career opportunities that are a good match,” says Laura. “Students are eager to learn about my career, talk about challenges and learn how to direct
their education to best prepare them for their future careers. All of this will contribute to a rich learning experience during college and beyond.” “The mentor-mentee relationship is an important component of the scholarship,” says Herff Dean Richard Sweigard. “Students are in the early stages of their leadership development and are enthusiastic about having an experienced mentor committed to their growth.” The first Smith & Nephew Excellence in Engineering recipient, Kaitlynn Shughart (BSBE’15), received an internship with Smith & Nephew while a student at Herff and ultimately earned a full-time job upon graduation. She knows first-hand the impact such a scholarship can have. She currently works as a product development engineer at Smith & Nephew and has been instrumental in “paying it forward” by re-connecting Herff alumni employed at Smith & Nephew to the college. In addition, Kaitlynn is excited to fill the role of mentor. “Becoming a mentor for a young engineer feels like I am completing the circle. I am excited to mentor my student as Laura mentored me,” she says. Only in its second year of operation, the merit scholarship program has grown to include a mentor for each recipient and offers opportunities for students to connect with young professionals and perform community service through the Smith & Nephew Young Professionals group.
Laura Whitsitt (BSME ’87, MSME ’88), Sr. Vice President for Research & Emerging Technologies, was encouraged at an early age to pursue engineering. In partnership with Smith & Nephew, she endowed a scholarship to encourage young women to pursue a field often overlooked as a career path for females.
Smith & Nephew has partnered with the Herff College for more than 25 years through internships, projects, financial support and innumerable hours of employee volunteer time.
EDUCATION ISN’T SOMETHING YOU GET.
IT’S SOMETHING YOU DO. At the Herff College of Engineering, doing isn’t limited to the classroom. Here, we roll up our sleeves. We get our hands dirty. We get right in the middle of things. We look problems in the face, and we figure out how to solve them. Ask most Herff grads and they’ll agree. Time spent here is a transformative experience. There’s no way to describe it. We are a tight-knit community. Collaboration is a part of our DNA, and we provide a truly hands-on experience. Undergraduates work shoulder-to-shoulder with our worldrenowned faculty, along with outstanding engineers and mentors, and they participate in groundbreaking research that is actually changing the world. Success is the name of the game at Herff. Our small size offers students a more personalized experience. We know our students and their needs. We work hard to not only meet those needs but to help them thrive.
“I didn’t realize the faculty would care this much. We are not just faces in a classroom. They invest in each of us and make sure we are equipped with the tools we need to achieve our goals.” Allison Fetz, Biomedical Engineering 2016 National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow
YOUR INVESTMENT IN HERFF IS AN INVESTMENT IN THE FUTURE OF ENGINEERING.
Make your gift online at memphis.edu/givetoherff. By mail: Herff College of Engineering 201 Engineering Administration Building Memphis, TN 38152 If you would like to learn more about our Strategic Plan and how you can be part of our future success, contact us at engineeringdevelopment@memphis.edu.
Herff College of Engineering 201 Engineering Administration Building Memphis, TN 38152
The University of Memphis, a Tennessee Board of Regents institution, is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action University. It is committed to education of a non-racially identifiable student body.