Advanced Manufacturing: Girls Can, Too

Kentucky faces a skilled technical worker shortage that must be addressed if the state is to advance its manufacturing base. Analysis of graduation data in Advanced Manufacturing credentials by Bluegrass Community & Technical College (BCTC) faculty indicates few women graduate in these fields. BCTCs three-year Girls Can Too Project will address this problem by educating, recruiting and mentoring 80 middle and high school girls into careers relating to Industrial Maintenance Technology (IMT), a key technical field that supplies highly skilled technicians who install, maintain and repair industrial systems equipment. Project activities will develop awareness and learning activities coupled with mentoring interventions for these middle and high school girls and then recruit 10 to 12 high school girls to enroll in dual credit courses that will prepare them for transfer into the IMT program to earn certificates, diplomas or AAS degrees. Mentoring and support by professional women employed in IMT will provide women enrolled in the IMT program with leadership opportunities as near-peer mentors for the middle and high school students participating in the Girls Can Too Project. The broader impacts of this project include support for girls engagement and transition into technical fields by strengthening and expanding high school dual credit programs to include IMT preparation courses. The project also supports systemic change in the colleges systems of support, mentoring and industry connections through a female-led mentoring program and a Business and Industry Leadership Team (BILT). The intellectual merit of the project rest on its contribution to a growing field of study that assesses the value of mentoring and support interventions to address gender disparities in STEM fields. College administrators will review project successes and adapt or expand activities to grow enrollment in other technical programs with similar gender disparities so the college can build a diverse skilled technical workforce.

The overall goal of the project is to recruit and retain more women in Industrial Maintenance Technology by increasing awareness and providing learning opportunities and mentoring beginning in middle school. Girls and young women will gain access to relevant dual credit courses in high school and have high levels of contact with faculty and industry professionals who are women. Each year, project directors expect 80 students from middle and high schools to participate in program activities supported by two faculty who will lead the program of interventions and support that encompass Saturday engagements at the colleges Advanced Manufacturing campus in Georgetown Kentucky and summer learning experiences that engages them with hands-on activities related to industrial maintenance. High school students who participate in the program will have the opportunity to take four technology-related dual credit courses to prepare for enrollment in the colleges IMT program. IMT faculty will add to their pedagogical skills those strategies needed to engage a more diverse classroom by participating in BCTCs Cultural Competency course, a semester-long course developed and offered by the college to advance the goals of equity and diversity in teaching and learning. This cultural competency knowledge will be integrated into the IMT classroom to update the curriculum and better meet the needs of a more diverse student body.