Summer1999

Bottomley Helps Women Succeed in Engineering

Bottomley (center) uses two audience volunteers and a fluorescent bulb to demonstrate energy fields to a group of middle school students.

Dr. Laura Bottomley can fill a room with enthusiasm. In front of a classroom, she piques students' curiosity. Corks pop, foamy liquids spew, propellers whiz through the air, fluorescent bulbs glow in midair, and students wave their hands to volunteer and ask questions. Bottomley has created this scenario numerous times during her visits to grade schools, middle schools and high schools in an effort to interest students in engineering and the sciences.

Bottomley is the coordinator for the Women in Engineering Program in the College of Engineering, a program created in 1997 to organize efforts to support women engineering students. When she introduces herself to a crowd of students, she says, "My job is to help young women become interested in and achieve a career in engineering, but I like boys, too." During her presentation, she includes all of the students in the demonstrations.

"I want to excite young students about engineering and the sciences," says Bottomley. "I want them to understand that this can be fun work. I want them to get involved in the sciences."

Bottomley wants her colleagues and engineering students to get involved, too. She routinely takes students and engineering faculty to her presentations.

"I try to take women and minority engineers with me to the presentations so that they can be role models for the students," says Bottomley. "I can stand up and tell a group of students that they can be engineers, but if all they see are white male engineers then they grow up thinking that all engineers look like that. When I take women engineering students or women and minority faculty members with me, the students see that engineers look just like them. It sets an example for them to follow."

The presentations she makes to primary, elementary and high school students are just one part of her job in the College of Engineering. In addition to her K-12 recruiting presentations, conducted in conjunction with the college recruiting program directed by Kay Leager, Bottomley serves as an adviser to women students, a coordinator of women's programs and an adviser to the NC State chapter of the Society of Women Engineers.

Since joining the college in August 1997, she has held focus groups to find out the differences in how women engineering students learn, how they perceive themselves in engineering classes, and how to help them overcome some of the difficulties encountered because of cultural or perceived differences. She spends time with women engineering students and counsels them on how to cope with classes and pressures.

Most importantly, Bottomley is a constant role model for the students, an example that women can succeed in engineering classes and obtain an engineering degree. She holds a PhD in electrical and computer engineering from NC State, and she worked for Bell Labs after receiving her master's degree from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. She also has consulted for the Environmental Protection Agency, Ericcson, IBM and Martin Marietta. She has used her own experiences and her connections with other professional women engineers to develop the Women in Engineering Program.

"When I'm working with the women students, I draw on my own experiences as a woman student in engineering," says Bottomley. "A lot of things have changed since I was a student, but a lot of what women students experience has not.

"The biggest challenge I face in my job is resistance from the women students. They tend to discount their experiences and try not to identify themselves as different from their male counterparts. I don't think they recognize that some of the difficulties they face might have to do with gender. Those of us who are female faculty members can look back over the years and know for a fact that many of their experiences are gender based. So to avoid having the women students feel that they are being treated differently from the men, I have had to learn how to help without appearing to help."

With that mandate in mind, Bottomley has initiated several programs for women students in the past year. Some programs, like the peer mentoring program, shadow programs already in progress in the minority programs office. Others, like Bottomley's e-mail mentoring program with industry, are new efforts she has piloted this year.

The e-mail mentoring program allows professional engineers working in industry to interact with students via e-mail. They can answer questions, help students think through career choices and generally serve as role models for students.

"The e-mail mentoring program grew from conversations I was having with colleagues in industry who were looking for ways to support women engineering students," says Bottomley. "I originally hadn't planned on launching the program until next year, but the support and enthusiasm I received from the women in industry convinced me to begin it this year. The program has been so successful that we will open it up to all engineering students next year. We already have a number of engineers in industry who want to participate."

Bottomley credits the success of the Women in Engineering Program to cooperation and team work in the Office of Academic Affairs and to the volunteer work of Sara Washburn, a senior in electrical engineering.

"I could not have accomplished all that I have without the help of my colleagues here in the Office of Academic Affairs. They are great team members who look out for me and support this program completely," says Bottomley. "And I couldn't have had this success without Sara Washburn. She has donated countless hours to help with demonstrations, mentoring programs and general office work. She has been a lifesaver this past year."

Bottomley's plans for the next few years include expanding the peer mentoring program to include a majority of women students, offering the e-mail mentoring program to all students in the college, and continuing to recruit young students to engineering and the sciences.

"Even though I want to expand the scope of the programs, I want to keep them low impact; one of the biggest problems our students have is that they are so busy -- they have so much work to do," says Bottomley. "But I also want our upperclass women students to feel a responsibility toward their underclass peers, to get them to realize that they have much experience and knowledge they can share and to engender in them some sense of responsibility for that. This effort to instill responsibility is done quite deliberately -- not just to have a program succeed but to try to build in our students a responsibility for one another's success. I believe that is something that all students can benefit from here at the university."

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