Diversity Symposium Co-Chairs:

Diversity Symposium Peer Reviewers:

Presentations
9:00am-9:25am		DVR13	Making A Business Case for Change
9:30am-10:25am		DVR18	Minority Women in High Tech Fields: Panel Discussion
10:30am-10:55am		DVR14	Females Involved From Regional Schools in Technology and Engineering (FIRSTE): Reaching Out to High School Females
11:00am-11:25am		DVR17	Twenty Years Experience in Oil Industry: From Disregard to Recognition
1:30pm-1:55pm			Coffee Break - Visit the Open Technical Exchange Poster Session
2:00pm-2:25pm		DVR15	Diversity and Diversity Training: An Overview and Study
2:30pm-2:55pm		DVR16	Opportunities and Risks for Women Working Overseas
3:00pm-3:30pm		DVR20	Gender Communications Differences in the Engineering Workplace
3:30pm-3:55pm		DVR05	Round Table for the Masses: A Critical Look at Corporate America's Move Towards a Dialogue of Diversity
4:00pm-4:25pm		DVR22	What Does "Making It" Mean: A View from the Margin

Session Codes
*xxxnn		Both an oral presentation and a poster
xxxPnn		Poster Only

DVR13
Making A Business Case for Change
Patricia J. Richards, Manager, Minority and Women Business Development, Texaco, Inc., Purchasing
Friday, 9:00am–9:25am

Companies are starting to embrace and value change and its contribution to innovation and success in global competition. This presentation will explore the business case for change and challenge those present to develop processes that support expanded business partnering and economic development of diverse socio-economic groups. Business should be driven to change by basic, inescapable business realities such as: 1) Maximizing shareholder return; 2) How to participate in a global market economy; 3) How to understand and benefit from changing demographic patterns; 4) Industry's rational for business inclusion; 5) The process of providing inclusive economic opportunity; 6) The need to benchmark "best practices" of industry leaders.

DVR18
Minority Women in High Tech Fields: Panel Discussion
Diana M. Laboy-Rush, Applications Engineer, Zilog Incorporated
Friday, 9:30am-10:25am

This panel discussion will take the theme of this year's Society of Women Engineer's Conference to another dimension. Women have always faced challenges in life, especially in technical job markets. This discussion will highlight five talented and successful women at different stages of their professional careers. We will discuss "how far have we come" and the challenges we faced along the way.

The panel will present the perspectives from a recent graduate and several experienced technology leaders in different disciplines and from different ethnicities. Each panelist will give her perspective on the following topics: career choices, obstacles, support, and strategies. The panelists include: Diana Laboy-Rush, Applications Engineer, Zilog Incorporated; Annette Rodrigues, Project Manager, Quantum Services; Laura Santos, Small Business Program Manager for Sandia National Laboratories; Nora Davis, IS Manager, Divex; and Dr. Ellen Ochoa, the first Hispanic woman astronaut and a veteran of two space flights.

DVR14
Females Involved From Regional Schools in Technology and Engineering (FIRSTE): Reaching Out to High School Females
Joan A. Begolly, Director FIRSTE Program, Assistant Professor, Engineering, Penn State University, New Kensington Campus
Friday, 10:30am-10:55am

The Penn State New Kensington Campus offers an annual, two-day summer program targeted at 9th through 11th grade females from local high schools. Entitled "Females Involved From Regional Schools in Technology and Engineering (FIRSTE), this event involves "hands on" computer-based design, practical laboratory applications and technical report writing as a means of introduction to the engineering technology and engineering programs at the campus. The program serves as both a recruitment and retention tool by providing participants, in advance of their matriculation, with a variety of skills that will enhance their opportunity for success in engineering or engineering technology.

Currently in its fifth year, the FIRSTE Program is beginning to show signs of its effectiveness. Nearly two-thirds of the total participants have committed to a degree in engineering or a science-related field, with Penn State as the "university of choice" for almost one-third, including the New Kensington Campus. These results are due in part to the acquisition of select student participation as a recruitment strategy; that is, those individuals who are unsure about math and sciences, but based on their direct involvement in the FIRSTE Program, gain the confidence they need to pursue an engineering or the related sciences as a career choice.

DVR17
Twenty Years Experience in Oil Industry: From Disregard to Recognition
Zara I. Khatib, PhD, Staff Research Engineer, Shell Oil Products, Westhollow Technology Center
Friday, 11:00am–11:25am

To be a Chemical Engineer and work in a refinery was my dream since I was 10 years old. Following an MS degree in chemistry at the American University of Beirut, I pursued my engineering degrees at the University of Wales, Swansea. Being a woman, short and coming from a third world country, made the challenge to achieve my goals more of a struggle. When I graduated in 1982 with a PhD in Engineering, the real world issues facing professional woman engineers started to compete with my skills, aspiration and career path. But being assertive and never loosing sight of my goals paid off eventually and got me where I am now; an inventor, an educator and a recognized leader in industry.

In this paper, a look back at the twenty years in the oil industry will be presented. Real life experiences as: 1) Student, 2) Researcher, 3) Lecturer, 4) Inventor, 5) Offshore Platform Engineer will be shared to illustrate the various issues that were encountered and overcome. These experiences cover embarrassing, hilarious, impossible, awkward and wonderful occasions.

DVR15
Diversity and Diversity Training: An Overview and Study
Christina Eggert, Program Manager, Sikorsky Aircraft
Friday, 2:00pm-2:25pm

This research paper investigates diversity training. Pitfalls and successes will be highlighted. An overview of diversity and diversity management is also presented. The subject of diversity and managing diversity is very important for businesses today. Training must be developed that helps people understand how to manage and deal with diversity in a positive manner. Training will not be same for every organization.

Work Force Diversity is the variety of qualities and differences available to a company through its work force. People are different in many ways including: age, gender, race, disability, religion, education, ethnic background, national origin, economic status and sexual orientation.

The diversity of the work force will continue to grow in the future. Diversity of people and their ideas are what made the United States into a global leader. Current labor talent pools at all levels are made up of diverse people. These people are less likely to want to be part of a company that does not respect their individuality. To be successful, companies all over the world will have to deal with diversity positively and train their employees at all levels to do the same.

DVR16
Opportunities and Risks for Women Working Overseas
Lori Glauser, Consultant, Resource Data International, Inc., Power Consulting Group
Friday, 2:30pm-2:55pm

New technologies and global development have accelerated opportunities for technical personnel, including women, to work overseas. Many US engineering and construction firms vie for capable and flexible employees who are willing to take long-term overseas assignments in places like Southeast Asia, China, India, Latin America, and even Africa. These developing nations, faced with mind-boggling growth in infrastructure development, have a strong demand for foreign, technical skills.

Although professional women have made comparatively great strides in the US and Europe, very few executives in developing nations are women. With improper communication and preparation on the part of both the foreign client or vendor and the visiting female professional, there is a risk that the foreign host will be uncomfortable, and in some cases uncooperative, with professional, American or European women - especially engineers. One solution to effectively mitigate this risk is to clearly understand the cultural expectations in one's host country, and to attempt to maintain a balance between deferring to local cultural practices and maintaining the same level of authority as she would on any project at home. Ideally, we would like to be considered as unrestrained and "equal" as we do here in the US, however, the US leads many of the less-developed nations in its acceptance of gender-equality.

DVR20
Gender Communications Differences in the Engineering Workplace
Katharine J. Kent, PE, President, K. Kent Engineering
Friday, 3:00pm–3:25pm

Ever wonder why it becomes difficult to work with your male engineering peers? There are distinct physiological explanations as to why men and women use different communications styles. This paper will discuss the differences between the genders as it relates to the engineering workplace. Specific areas of investigation will include communications techniques, team dynamics and work relationships. The author will provide specific examples so that the reader may recognize, understand and adapt to these gender differences. The background for this paper has been gathered from current publications, AAES and SWE research AIChE research, NSF reports and personal experiences.

DVR05
Round Table for the Masses - A Critical Look at Corporate America's move towards a Dialogue of Diversity
Tesha Sengupta, Student, Senior, University of Illinois
Friday, 3:30pm–3:55pm

The issue of multicultural awareness in the form of "diversity education and training" has taken center stage in much of corporate America today. Despite a consensus on the need for this awareness, the means by which to achieve these ends remains in question. Industry's attempts by workshops, extensive questionnaires, and "sensitivity seminars" to foster understanding, acceptance and tolerance calls for a critical analysis on the effectiveness of this approach. Specifically, questioning 'how honest a forum corporations provide,' 'how well "honest" dialogue translates outside of the workshop forum' and 'is corporate America realistic in its expectations of its workers or is this a bandage on a hemorrhage,' is imperative. I hope to address not only why it is important for industry to tackle these issues, but how corporate America is failing to make choices for multicultural awareness and how it is succeeding. In what ways do current trends in diversity education polarize the workforce and in what ways is it critical to redirect these programs in order to effectively do the work that they are intended for? In addressing these issues I hope to put the past, present and future of 'diversity education and training' in a critical context where industry will transcend the need for two weeks of scheduled sensitivity and move toward an integrated environment conducive to multicultural awareness within the rigors of daily life in corporate America.

DVR22
What Does "Making It" Mean: A View from the Margin
Bette Tiago, Training and Education Advisor, Exxon Co. USA
Friday, 4:00pm–4:25pm

This paper deals with the question of what happens to identity and behavior when the marginal racial/ethnic/religious group from which we have drawn much of our sense of identity finds itself assimilated into the mainstream. The purpose is to unpack the dilemmas associated with this "making it," to see if they offer some generalizable learnings for groups still directing their efforts toward the singular end of gaining their economic place at the table. The sources are both personal observation and published literature, both about structural inequality and about the contemporary Jewish situation.

The conclusions are emergent. They include staying open to understanding the paradoxes and tensions of assimilation and passing, and the experience of what it means to have once been identified as a colored race, but suddenly redefined as white. They include suggested ways to remain a presence rather than a cipher in today's dialog around social justice, and to note whether and how our voice changes depending on our social definition. They include the shocking recognition that the greatest danger from unreflective assimilation may be that by being embedded rather than on the margin, we may no longer find ourselves in the position to make sure that the risks we take are taken on behalf of important issues. We may no longer serve as the conscience of the mainstream.