Introduction
The Summit on Women in Engineering, convened on May 17-18, 1999, by the National Academy of Engineering (NAE), brought together 175 top decision makers from industry, academia, professional engineering societies, government, education and outreach organizations, and the media. The focus of discussion was the status of women in the engineering workforce, specifically how to increase the talent pool so as to increase the numbers of women engineers.
The most promising result of the Summit is the creation of a network of leaders ready to focus their energy on the engineering workforce of the future. The NAE agreed with many of the Summit participants that a neutral and national leader is required to bring together all the stakeholders in a venue that will enable sustained and expanding action and for dissemination and communication of results. Thus, the NAE is proposing to launch a Forum on Diversity in the Engineering Workforce. Specifically, the Forum will
- convene participants to follow up on the action proposals drafted at the Summit,
- encourage the direct participation at the highest levels of management of its participating organizations,
- develop an agenda that lays out specific questions in all the areas covered by the Summit,
- add discussions of underrepresented minorities to the dialogues,
- provide a means for broad dissemination of the Forum’s activities, including but not be limited to meeting proceedings, publication of particularly interesting presentations or issue papers, and internet discussion databases,
- expand the dialogue on the engineering workforce to the regional and local level to widen the range of public - and private - sector leaders engaged in improving the numbers of women in engineering, and
- create a bold but viable framework for national action.
The structure and timetable for this Forum are being developed at this time. The NAE proposes to host the Forum 3-4 times per year, to staff the activities of the Forum, and to develop specific agendas that will lead the discussions forward. Membership in the Forum will initially reflect the participation at the Summit (i.e., it will be a diverse group composed of respected national leaders from the engineering community and from the communities that support, educate, and employee engineers).
Structure and Operation
Purpose and Structure. The Forum is an industry-government-university-education-outreach partnership created to provide a unique dialogue among top leaders in the national engineering and technological enterprise. The initial purpose is to carry forward actions identified at the Summit on Women in Engineering and to facilitate personal working relationships and exchange of ideas regarding the strength and diversity of the engineering and technological workforce.
The longer term goals are to explore strategies to increase the diversity of the engineering workforce, thereby strengthening that workforce; to frame the next critical questions stemming from current debate and analysis; and to provide a mechanism to widen the circle of activity on the issue. The Forum will be designed to facilitate candid dialogue among participants, to foster self-implementing activities, and to carry awareness of strategies and programs to the wider public.
The open dialogue and informal exchange of ideas, along with the presence of federal participants, preclude making formal recommendations or offering specific advice to the federal agencies. Instead, the Forum will seek to stimulate new approaches by active dissemination of its discussions to government, university, industry, education, and outreach leaders, and by proactive contacts with colleague organizations that may want to build on the activities and ideas developed in Forum activities.
The Forum will set the agenda, address topics directly, and oversee the plans and activities of working groups that address additional topics. With the exception of federal agency officials, who serve as long as they are in office, Forum members will be appointed to staggered three-year terms.
Mode of Operations. Several features of the Forum’s structure and operation will be central to its effectiveness.
1. Neutral Setting, Balanced Views. The sponsorship of the Forum by the NAE provides a neutral setting with credibility among all of the member organizations. All points of view will be represented in Forum deliberations. The Forum will avoid becoming a proponent for the views of any one constituency.
2. Active Participation. The meetings are designed so that senior federal officials, top industry officers, and senior education and outreach leaders are full and active participants on the Forum along with academic leaders. The contributions and leadership of all the communities are essential to the accomplishments of the Forum.
3. Addressing Problems from Both Policy and Operational Levels. The combination of study and analysis by operational-level representatives in the working groups and discussion by policy-level representatives in the Forum will produce an environment leading to the introduction of new ideas and new partnerships in the engineering and outreach communities.
4. Long-term vs. Short-term Issues. The Forum will strive for a workable balance between attention to long-term structural changes within the workforce and to the search for near-term solutions to problems.
5. Special Role of the Forum. The Forum will be most effective as a mechanism to frame and incubate issues, allowing it to play two distinctive roles within The National Academies and in the engineering community as a whole. One is to initiate partnerships that will lead efforts to increase the numbers of women and underrepresented minorities in engineering. The other is to help convey the results of major analytic efforts to an active leadership group and the wider public. The second step recognizes that the national science and technology enterprise is driven by the combined efforts of diverse individuals and organizations of many sizes and types, as well as the support of the public as a whole.
6. Self-implementing Character of Forum Initiatives. The legal context in which the Forum is chartered necessarily restricts its ability to make recommendations to the government. At the same time, many issues involving all four sectors are poorly understood, and the added insight that comes from multisectoral discussion of them can lead to an improved understanding that allows participants to return to their individual sectors and take actions that are consistent with that broader understanding.
7. Flexible Financial Support. Support for the Forum will be sought from foundations, federal agencies, industry, universities, and state agencies. The majority of these funds will be sought as general support for the Forum, enabling the Forum to respond quickly to problems and opportunities as they arise and to address issues in flexible, diverse, and innovative ways.
8. Personalities. The work of the Forum is foremost a process - a process for bringing together individuals from the diverse constituencies concerned with the engineering and technological enterprise. The ability of the Forum to stimulate constructive change in the system depends on the "diplomacy" and the balance with which it is able to address issues that are typically complex, intractable, emotional, and controversial. The Forum’s effectiveness depends on the ability of the Forum Chairs, members, working groups, and staff to work constructively with the full range of relevant constituency groups and individuals.