Women and Minority Engineering Programs win diversity award
Dr. Laura Bottomley, director of the Women in Engineering Program (WIE), and Angelitha Daniel, director of the College’s Minority Engineering Programs (MEP), accepted the Claire L. Felbinger Award for Diversity for the College’s Women and Minority Engineering Programs from ABET in October.
The Claire L. Felbinger Award for Diversity recognizes U.S.-based educational units, individuals, firms and associations for extraordinary success in achieving diversity and inclusiveness or for facilitating diversity and inclusiveness in the technological segments of our society. The Women and Minority Engineering Programs were one of two award recipients for 2015.
Bottomley and Daniel were recognized for their years of research in developing programs in MEP and WIE that would entice underrepresented groups to pursue engineering and to follow the programs to graduation. Since 2004, the percentage of female students in the College’s first-year class has nearly doubled. NC State ranks ninth nationally in the number of bachelor’s engineering degrees awarded to African-American students among schools that are not historically black colleges and universities.
“This award acknowledges our tireless dedication to creating an environment that makes everyone feel welcomed and appreciated for who they are and what they bring to the table,” said Daniel. “It allows our current students to know that the depth of the programmatic support here at NC State is recognized at a national level.”
MEP develops and maintains programs that assist in the recruitment, retention and graduation of African-American, Native-American and Hispanic students within the College. MEP does this with the creation and sponsoring of early intervention programs, tutorial programs and counseling with the objective of increasing the number of minority students entering and successfully completing engineering and computer science degrees.
The Women in Engineering Program’s vision is to foster an environment for female students in the College that encourages, supports and challenges them to ever-higher levels of success. WIE makes representatives of the College’s academic departments available to female students choosing a major and provides an opportunity for female engineering students to meet informally in an inclusive atmosphere.
Return to contents or download the Spring/Summer 2016 NC State Engineering magazine (PDF, 3MB).
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