LAUSR

Workplace and classroom culture, persistent stereotypes, and gender-specific pressures have all been suggested as reasons for the gender discrepancy in engineering. This article shares some of the behind-the-scenes observations and strategies that have proven successful to recruit, engage, retain, and propel women on their engineering career trajectories. Though the HESE program is small when compared to the engineering student body, our study of the motivations is significant because these observations have been consistently apparent over the past decade of the program's operation, and during that time period participation of women stayed above 50% of the total. The observations detailed here have implications for engineering and entrepreneurship education systems as well as large corporations, governmental agencies, and other societal actors that want to attract and retain women in their organizations.