Graphic by Shery Teachout
By Katrina Metty
Assistant Editor
As President Wharton so proudly stated last year, the School of Mines has set a goal to increase the number of students enrolled full time for 2015. In addition, the number of female attendees is also expected to grow- a fact that is already taking place. The ratio of male to females on campus is balancing and staff members are happy to share that, but just where are these girls?
Theories suggest that many of these so-called females are hiding amongst the interdisciplinary sciences (IS) majors that are still new to the School of Mines. The pre-professional health students IS major is garnering many of these women who take classes separate from the engineering fields on campus. If you’re lucky and leaving Solids II, you just may catch a glimpse of these girls as they head to classes of their own.
There are 604 females out of 2159 total attending the School of Mines this semester. “It’s more across the board that the females are coming in – the ME’s brought in a lot of girls, and traditionally, chemical engineering brings in the girls too,” said Dean Mahon.
“What we’re most excited about at the moment is the women’s focus group we’re going to get started soon,” said Julie Ohlsen, Special Projects Coordinator.
The idea is to start small and get a few women together to find out what they’re that would make them more comfortable here at the School of Mines and help retain women in the future. From there, the special correspondence will begin to attract more females. Next, there will be events held for women only on campus such as movie and nails night, a book club, concerts, volunteer work, etc.
“We’re hoping this will entice more females to come to campus in general in the future,” said Ohlsen.
There already appears to be more student involvement by women on campus – the Society of Women Engineers is soon to be recognized by the school as a campus group again after having disbanded for several years.
“The student voice makes the right thing happen,” said Dean Mahon, which is why she promotes sororities as a strong female group.
While more females are appearing on campus, they’re not usually seen. They will remain amongst the IS majors, but hopefully will at least stay on campus with the pro-female groups now in place aimed at increasing their retention rates.
