But before this, Smithees like Todman and Khamjani were able only to minor in engineering, forced to drive to the nearby University of Massachusetts, or Dartmouth College in Hanover, N.H., for their courses. Now Smith women will be able to earn a BS in engineering, with the first class to do so graduating in 2004. Despite an oversupply of engineering schools, Smith is diving into the field in response to growing interest by women - and a national shortage of engineers in many hot fields like computer and electrical engineering. Undergraduate engineering enrollment has declined nationwide, yet women and minority enrollment grew in the 1990s, the National Science Foundation reports. Nevertheless, only 9 percent of the engineering workforce are women, compared with 50 percent of the college population - something that's got to change, says Ruth Simmons, Smith College's new president.
Engineers design and build much of the human environment.
Women must not accept so marginal a role in so important a field. She recalls a student who transferred to Smith from a co-ed liberal arts college on the West Coast. She was interested in physics and couldn't believe the difference. Watching closely as Smith's new project gets under way is the National Academy of Engineering in Washington, a branch of the National Research Council, a nonprofit organization that advises government on policy. Women today are switching out of engineering at higher rates than men even though their grades are higher.