Institutional Transformation program, which sought to increase women's recruitment, retention and... more Institutional Transformation program, which sought to increase women's recruitment, retention and advancement in academic science and engineering. She has consulted with numerous colleges and universities on gender equity issues. More recently, Frehill has worked with the Society of Women Engineers on a study of retention in the engineering workforce and the annual review of literature on women in engineering. She was the lead author of the Motorola Foundation-funded study released by NACME in 2008 titled "Confronting the 'New' American Dilemma: Underrepresented Minorities in Engineering: A Data-Based Look at Diversity" and the NACME databook. Research in progress includes projects funded by the National Science Foundation on women's international participation and collaboration in science and engineering and on career outcomes of engineering bachelor's degree recipients. In addition, she is working on analyses of supply and demand for engineers and scientists.
Journal of Women and Minorities in Science and Engineering, 2002
... Feminism in Twentieth-Century Science, Technology, and Medicine is carefully researched and w... more ... Feminism in Twentieth-Century Science, Technology, and Medicine is carefully researched and written, but it should engender in its readers a sense of wonder about the achieve-ments of a great intellectual and social movement, and even more broadly, it should renew readers ...
This paper uses qualitative information from two interview sources. First, 48 men and women facul... more This paper uses qualitative information from two interview sources. First, 48 men and women faculty members in science and engineering at a large public university were asked retrospective questions about their experiences with mentoring during their dissertations. Second, ongoing in-depth interviews and focus groups with graduate student participants in a special program provide additional information about students' experiences of mentoring. In this paper, we explore how gender and ethnicity play out in the mentoring process but also how contextual factors impact this process as well. We find tha t there is a wide variation in experiences, that women report less satisfaction with mentoring and men are more likely to report a relationship with their graduate advisor as more "family like". In addition, programs with high student:faculty ratios tend to be viewed by students post-hoc as less satisfactory in terms of mentoring. Overview The numbers of students pursuing graduate education at the master's level has increased nearly four-fold since 1966. In engineering, the number climbed from 13,705 master's degrees and 2,301 doctoral degrees awarded in 1966 to 33,872 master's and 5,776 doctoral degrees awarded in 2004 (Commission on Professionals in Science and Technology 2006a). While temporary residents' share of doctoral degrees in engineering has increased dramatically (in 2004 temporary residents accounted for 57% of engineering Ph.D.s), women and under-represented minorities' (URM) share of engineering doctoral degrees also increased: women earned 17.6% while URMs earned 3.2% of engineering Ph.Ds. Data showing the increasing diversity of U.S. master's and doctoral recipients of engineering degrees are shown in Table 1.
Women in Engineering ProActive Network, Dec 6, 2007
This descriptive paper makes use of national-level data from the National Survey of College Gradu... more This descriptive paper makes use of national-level data from the National Survey of College Graduates, 2003. These data, collected by the U.S. Census Bureau for the National Science Foundation, provide insights into the current and previous work experiences and career outcomes for people who work in science and engineering fields or who possess science or engineering masters or bachelors degrees. These are ideal data to examine the extent to which women with engineering degrees stay in the field, go to graduate school, or leave from the field and to what extent their experiences differ from those of their male peers. This paper analyzes outcomes for respondents who earned a first bachelors degree in engineering between 1980-2002. The analyses here represent a potential starting point for more detailed research about the career outcomes for women engineers.
Why are women more likely than men to leave the U.S. engineering workforce? This article analyses... more Why are women more likely than men to leave the U.S. engineering workforce? This article analyses existing, nationally-representative data about engineers in the United States to answer this question. Two types of factors are considered: factors associated with balancing work/family; and those associated with the relative success of moving into managerial work away from technical tracks, a common engineering career path. The data are the U.S. National Science Foundation's Science and Engineering Statistical Data System for 2006 and provide the most comprehensive data about the U.S. science and engineering workforce. While U.S. engineering women are more likely than their male peers to indicate that familyrelated reasons were part of the reason for not being in the field, this reason was less important than were "changes in career or professional interests." Consistent with previous research, men are more likely than women to move into managerial careers and to indicate that they have left engineering for "pay or promotion opportunities."
Public reporting burden for the collection of information is estimated to average 1 hour per resp... more Public reporting burden for the collection of information is estimated to average 1 hour per response, including the time for reviewing instructions, searching existing data sources, gathering and maintaining the data needed, and completing and reviewing the collection of information. Send comments regarding this burden estimate or any other aspect of this collection of information, including suggestions for reducing this burden, to Washington Headquarters Services, Directorate for Information Operations and Reports, 1215 Jefferson Davis Highway, Suite 1204, Arlington VA 22202-4302. Respondents should be aware that notwithstanding any other provision of law, no person shall be subject to a penalty for failing to comply with a collection of information if it does not display a currently valid OMB control number.
Recruitment and retention of women engineering faculty has become an increasingly important issue... more Recruitment and retention of women engineering faculty has become an increasingly important issue as baby boomers hired in the 1970s and early 1980s have begun to retire. In general, higher education has difficulty competing with the lucrative salaries, benefits, and working conditions offered by industry, which is especially the case with engineering. Concern for the professorate has led to a number of programmatic efforts at the National Science Foundation (NSF) to improve access to the professorate by minorities such as the Alliance for Graduate Education and the Professorate program and the Bridges to the Doctorate program that is an addon to the highly successful Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation Program. To increase women's participation in the professorate, the NSF developed the ADVANCE: Institutional Transformation Program, which intends to increase the recruitment, retention, and advancement of women within academia. Women engineering faculty like women faculty in other science areas are more likely than their male counterparts to have feelings of isolation , to experience a negative professional climate 3, 9 and to face the conundrum of being part of a dual career couple 9. To complicate matters, women are generally less likely than men to negotiate on important issues such as start-up packages 2 , which means that they may be subsequently less likely to have the resources and supports necessary as a new faculty member to establish the research agenda required for promotion and tenure. As graduate students and early career faculty members, women are less likely to receive the kind of mentoring that is essential to provide a firm foundation on which to base a faculty career 12. Finally, lifecourse issues (i.e., marriage and childbearing) pose constraints upon women faculty while simultaneously conveying advantages to their male peers 4. The NMSU ADVANCE Program, funded by the National Science Foundation in 2002, has initiated a number of steps to increase the recruitment and retention of women engineering faculty. At New Mexico State University (NMSU) a mentoring program, advancement training for department heads, and awards to travel to conferences help to reduce the sense of isolation and improve the climate for women. In addition, careful work with search committees, targeted, active recruitment strategies, and enhanced start-up packages provide concrete support for engineering departments' recruitment of women. Within the context of the literature about recruitment and retention practices that increase faculty diversity, this paper will provide an overview of the steps that the NMSU ADVANCE Program has taken to date to increase the recruitment and retention of women engineering faculty. Shortterm indicators of success will be presented but the early "failures" will also be discussed as instructive for others seeking to implement the strategies that are outlined in this paper. The
The numbers of students pursuing graduate education at the master's level has increased nearly fo... more The numbers of students pursuing graduate education at the master's level has increased nearly four-fold since 1966. In engineering, the number climbed from 13,705 masters degrees and 2,301 doctoral degrees awarded in 1966 to 33,872 masters and 5,776 doctoral degrees awarded in 2004 [2]. Women and under-represented minorities' (URM) share of engineering doctoral degrees have increased but members of these groups are still underrepresented at the doctoral level. This paper uses draw evidence about 24 faculty members' retrospective views of mentoring experiences from semi-structured qualitative interviews. Case study analysis of data about 24 URM student participants in a targeted program that seeks to increase the number of minorities who receive Ph.D.s in engineering provide information about recent graduates' mentoring experiences. The paper discusses findings and suggestions for how engineering faculty can provide high-quality mentoring to students within the larger social context of demographic change in graduate-level engineering education.
This article discusses the results of a survey conducted to understand reasons why people give up... more This article discusses the results of a survey conducted to understand reasons why people give up engineering. The survey looked at engineers’ experiences in the workforce after they have graduated from college, including whether they have remained in engineering or not. The survey data show that there is not much difference in women’s and men’s retention in engineering when looking at new graduates. The results from the survey show that more than one in five of all engineers said that they are very satisfied with their job. The data show a complicated picture of job satisfaction that depends on gender, discipline, and whether they are still doing engineering work. The most satisfied men are chemical or electrical and computer engineers who are now in non-engineering jobs. The issue of equity in engineering is an important one for the Society of Women Engineers as an organization and for engineering as a discipline. There are larger differences in attrition across engineering disciplines. In addition, the data show that those who leave the job are not necessarily less satisfied with their jobs than those who stay.
Index of Association (A), and the representation ratio are computed and compared. Although there ... more Index of Association (A), and the representation ratio are computed and compared. Although there are limits associated with D, the sparseness of women's participation in academic science and engineering in 1973 posed computational problems with A. Key findings are: (1) levels of vertical segregation were higher than horizontal segregation and (2) levels of segregation (horizontal and vertical) have not declined substantially over the past 28 years. The same procedures are applied to data available for six of the nine ''first round'' ADVANCE institutions in an exploratory analysis for data from 2001 to 2003/04. Policy implications of these findings are discussed.
Institutional Transformation program, which sought to increase women's recruitment, retention and... more Institutional Transformation program, which sought to increase women's recruitment, retention and advancement in academic science and engineering. She has consulted with numerous colleges and universities on gender equity issues. More recently, Frehill has worked with the Society of Women Engineers on a study of retention in the engineering workforce and the annual review of literature on women in engineering. She was the lead author of the Motorola Foundation-funded study released by NACME in 2008 titled "Confronting the 'New' American Dilemma: Underrepresented Minorities in Engineering: A Data-Based Look at Diversity" and the NACME databook. Research in progress includes projects funded by the National Science Foundation on women's international participation and collaboration in science and engineering and on career outcomes of engineering bachelor's degree recipients. In addition, she is working on analyses of supply and demand for engineers and scientists.
Journal of Women and Minorities in Science and Engineering, 2002
... Feminism in Twentieth-Century Science, Technology, and Medicine is carefully researched and w... more ... Feminism in Twentieth-Century Science, Technology, and Medicine is carefully researched and written, but it should engender in its readers a sense of wonder about the achieve-ments of a great intellectual and social movement, and even more broadly, it should renew readers ...
This paper uses qualitative information from two interview sources. First, 48 men and women facul... more This paper uses qualitative information from two interview sources. First, 48 men and women faculty members in science and engineering at a large public university were asked retrospective questions about their experiences with mentoring during their dissertations. Second, ongoing in-depth interviews and focus groups with graduate student participants in a special program provide additional information about students' experiences of mentoring. In this paper, we explore how gender and ethnicity play out in the mentoring process but also how contextual factors impact this process as well. We find tha t there is a wide variation in experiences, that women report less satisfaction with mentoring and men are more likely to report a relationship with their graduate advisor as more "family like". In addition, programs with high student:faculty ratios tend to be viewed by students post-hoc as less satisfactory in terms of mentoring. Overview The numbers of students pursuing graduate education at the master's level has increased nearly four-fold since 1966. In engineering, the number climbed from 13,705 master's degrees and 2,301 doctoral degrees awarded in 1966 to 33,872 master's and 5,776 doctoral degrees awarded in 2004 (Commission on Professionals in Science and Technology 2006a). While temporary residents' share of doctoral degrees in engineering has increased dramatically (in 2004 temporary residents accounted for 57% of engineering Ph.D.s), women and under-represented minorities' (URM) share of engineering doctoral degrees also increased: women earned 17.6% while URMs earned 3.2% of engineering Ph.Ds. Data showing the increasing diversity of U.S. master's and doctoral recipients of engineering degrees are shown in Table 1.
Women in Engineering ProActive Network, Dec 6, 2007
This descriptive paper makes use of national-level data from the National Survey of College Gradu... more This descriptive paper makes use of national-level data from the National Survey of College Graduates, 2003. These data, collected by the U.S. Census Bureau for the National Science Foundation, provide insights into the current and previous work experiences and career outcomes for people who work in science and engineering fields or who possess science or engineering masters or bachelors degrees. These are ideal data to examine the extent to which women with engineering degrees stay in the field, go to graduate school, or leave from the field and to what extent their experiences differ from those of their male peers. This paper analyzes outcomes for respondents who earned a first bachelors degree in engineering between 1980-2002. The analyses here represent a potential starting point for more detailed research about the career outcomes for women engineers.
Why are women more likely than men to leave the U.S. engineering workforce? This article analyses... more Why are women more likely than men to leave the U.S. engineering workforce? This article analyses existing, nationally-representative data about engineers in the United States to answer this question. Two types of factors are considered: factors associated with balancing work/family; and those associated with the relative success of moving into managerial work away from technical tracks, a common engineering career path. The data are the U.S. National Science Foundation's Science and Engineering Statistical Data System for 2006 and provide the most comprehensive data about the U.S. science and engineering workforce. While U.S. engineering women are more likely than their male peers to indicate that familyrelated reasons were part of the reason for not being in the field, this reason was less important than were "changes in career or professional interests." Consistent with previous research, men are more likely than women to move into managerial careers and to indicate that they have left engineering for "pay or promotion opportunities."
Public reporting burden for the collection of information is estimated to average 1 hour per resp... more Public reporting burden for the collection of information is estimated to average 1 hour per response, including the time for reviewing instructions, searching existing data sources, gathering and maintaining the data needed, and completing and reviewing the collection of information. Send comments regarding this burden estimate or any other aspect of this collection of information, including suggestions for reducing this burden, to Washington Headquarters Services, Directorate for Information Operations and Reports, 1215 Jefferson Davis Highway, Suite 1204, Arlington VA 22202-4302. Respondents should be aware that notwithstanding any other provision of law, no person shall be subject to a penalty for failing to comply with a collection of information if it does not display a currently valid OMB control number.
Recruitment and retention of women engineering faculty has become an increasingly important issue... more Recruitment and retention of women engineering faculty has become an increasingly important issue as baby boomers hired in the 1970s and early 1980s have begun to retire. In general, higher education has difficulty competing with the lucrative salaries, benefits, and working conditions offered by industry, which is especially the case with engineering. Concern for the professorate has led to a number of programmatic efforts at the National Science Foundation (NSF) to improve access to the professorate by minorities such as the Alliance for Graduate Education and the Professorate program and the Bridges to the Doctorate program that is an addon to the highly successful Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation Program. To increase women's participation in the professorate, the NSF developed the ADVANCE: Institutional Transformation Program, which intends to increase the recruitment, retention, and advancement of women within academia. Women engineering faculty like women faculty in other science areas are more likely than their male counterparts to have feelings of isolation , to experience a negative professional climate 3, 9 and to face the conundrum of being part of a dual career couple 9. To complicate matters, women are generally less likely than men to negotiate on important issues such as start-up packages 2 , which means that they may be subsequently less likely to have the resources and supports necessary as a new faculty member to establish the research agenda required for promotion and tenure. As graduate students and early career faculty members, women are less likely to receive the kind of mentoring that is essential to provide a firm foundation on which to base a faculty career 12. Finally, lifecourse issues (i.e., marriage and childbearing) pose constraints upon women faculty while simultaneously conveying advantages to their male peers 4. The NMSU ADVANCE Program, funded by the National Science Foundation in 2002, has initiated a number of steps to increase the recruitment and retention of women engineering faculty. At New Mexico State University (NMSU) a mentoring program, advancement training for department heads, and awards to travel to conferences help to reduce the sense of isolation and improve the climate for women. In addition, careful work with search committees, targeted, active recruitment strategies, and enhanced start-up packages provide concrete support for engineering departments' recruitment of women. Within the context of the literature about recruitment and retention practices that increase faculty diversity, this paper will provide an overview of the steps that the NMSU ADVANCE Program has taken to date to increase the recruitment and retention of women engineering faculty. Shortterm indicators of success will be presented but the early "failures" will also be discussed as instructive for others seeking to implement the strategies that are outlined in this paper. The
The numbers of students pursuing graduate education at the master's level has increased nearly fo... more The numbers of students pursuing graduate education at the master's level has increased nearly four-fold since 1966. In engineering, the number climbed from 13,705 masters degrees and 2,301 doctoral degrees awarded in 1966 to 33,872 masters and 5,776 doctoral degrees awarded in 2004 [2]. Women and under-represented minorities' (URM) share of engineering doctoral degrees have increased but members of these groups are still underrepresented at the doctoral level. This paper uses draw evidence about 24 faculty members' retrospective views of mentoring experiences from semi-structured qualitative interviews. Case study analysis of data about 24 URM student participants in a targeted program that seeks to increase the number of minorities who receive Ph.D.s in engineering provide information about recent graduates' mentoring experiences. The paper discusses findings and suggestions for how engineering faculty can provide high-quality mentoring to students within the larger social context of demographic change in graduate-level engineering education.
This article discusses the results of a survey conducted to understand reasons why people give up... more This article discusses the results of a survey conducted to understand reasons why people give up engineering. The survey looked at engineers’ experiences in the workforce after they have graduated from college, including whether they have remained in engineering or not. The survey data show that there is not much difference in women’s and men’s retention in engineering when looking at new graduates. The results from the survey show that more than one in five of all engineers said that they are very satisfied with their job. The data show a complicated picture of job satisfaction that depends on gender, discipline, and whether they are still doing engineering work. The most satisfied men are chemical or electrical and computer engineers who are now in non-engineering jobs. The issue of equity in engineering is an important one for the Society of Women Engineers as an organization and for engineering as a discipline. There are larger differences in attrition across engineering disciplines. In addition, the data show that those who leave the job are not necessarily less satisfied with their jobs than those who stay.
Index of Association (A), and the representation ratio are computed and compared. Although there ... more Index of Association (A), and the representation ratio are computed and compared. Although there are limits associated with D, the sparseness of women's participation in academic science and engineering in 1973 posed computational problems with A. Key findings are: (1) levels of vertical segregation were higher than horizontal segregation and (2) levels of segregation (horizontal and vertical) have not declined substantially over the past 28 years. The same procedures are applied to data available for six of the nine ''first round'' ADVANCE institutions in an exploratory analysis for data from 2001 to 2003/04. Policy implications of these findings are discussed.
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Papers by Lisa Frehill