Women at UPR's College of Engineering: Students and Faculty, Quite a Distinct Reality

For the last fifteen years, UPRM has stand out by the high percentage of women in its College of Engineering. Current enrolment statistics show that 35% of students are females, one of the highest rates in the United States. According to the American Association for Science and Engineering Education (ASEE) our engineering program is one of the largest in the nation. For the academic year 2001-02, UPRM conferred 680 degrees in engineering and forty percent of such degrees were awarded to women. UPRM rank as one of the universities with the highest number of degrees in engineering conferred to women. In this paper, we discuss two important aspects of the College of Engineering (COE) at UPRM: students and faculty. We focus our attention in engineering female students and faculty. The paper provides a profile of engineering students and through the administration of a survey we investigate the reasons for such high enrolment and retention rates. The results of the survey showed that social, economical, cultural, and educational factors influence students in their decision to purse an engineering career. The female representation within the faculty of the COE, when compared with the success achieved in recruiting and retaining female students at the undergraduate level, is way behind from where it should be. Currently, the percentage of female professors with tenure or in tenure track is a value well below the USA average. At the COE, there is a bigger pool of potential female candidates for graduate school and academia than in other higher learning systems but this is not reflected in its current faculty composition. The most significant conclusion from these results is an overwhelming need for an institutionalized support to help female face its particular needs and responsibilities.