College announces associate director of Women and Minority Engineering Programs at NC State

Kesha Entzminger has been named associate director of the Women and Minority Engineering Programs at North Carolina State University. She began her position in December.

As associate director, Entzminger will assist in the development, implementation and evaluation of programs affecting the success of women and minority engineering students, such as summer bridge programs and mentor programs. She will also teach sections of Academic and Professional Preparation for Engineering I and II.

Entzminger received a bachelor’s degree in math from the College of Charleston in 2004. She then began her career as a middle and high school math teacher in the South Carolina public school system. After three years of teaching, she enrolled at Georgia Southern University, where she received a Master of Education degree in higher education administration in 2008.

While attending Georgia Southern, Entzminger worked in the Office of Career Services and served as an academic advisor. She held similar positions at the University of South Carolina and the University of South Carolina Aiken.

Entzminger points to two different career arcs — secondary education and advising within higher education — as a strong foundation for her position at NC State.

“My experience in K-12 education helps me understand where students are coming from,” Entzminger said. “My experience in career services provides a framework for understanding where students are going.”

Entzminger’s goals for her new position include increasing student involvement in academic and professional development programs and initiatives; exploring new and innovative ways to recruit, support and retain engineering students; and continuing to strengthen and build campus and community partnerships to support underrepresented students’ involvement and retention within engineering and other STEM disciplines.

“I see my role as an opportunity to bridge the gap between college and career in an effort to help students in the College of Engineering successfully develop and navigate their own career trajectories,” she said.

The Minority Engineering Programs Office in the College of Engineering at NC State is a resource for African American, Native American and Hispanic students who want to become engineers or computer scientists. Its various programs promote student development and serve to increase the recruitment and retention of underrepresented minority students entering and successfully completing engineering and computer science degrees.

The Women in Engineering program at NC State encourages young women to consider careers in engineering, mathematics and science disciplines and, in turn, aims to increase the number of women enrolling in the College of Engineering at NC State. The program is also designed to augment the number of women graduating from the College of Engineering and continuing into graduate school or industry.