University of Alberta Edmonton, Canada 10 January 1997

Proportion of women in 33 Canadian engineering schools rising steadily; U of A figures in that trend

Above national average for undergrads

By Michael Robb

University engineering programs across the country-including the University of Alberta's-are attracting more women. According to the Canadian Council of Professional Engineers' 1996 statistics on engineering enrolment in Canadian universities, the proportion of women enrolled in 33 engineering schools has risen steadily since 1989.

Over the past five years, enrolment of women in the U of A's engineering school has paralleled the national trend. In 1992/93, there were 331 women enrolled in engineering. In 1996/97, 506 women enrolled in engineering.

"We see this is very positive data," says the Faculty of Engineering's Associate Dean (Student and Cooperative Education Services), Ken Porteous.

Engineering Students' Society president Yvonne Jahns says the increase is encouraging. She pointed out that she feels totally comfortable in the Faculty of Engineering. "It's like going to school with a lot of brothers. Over the course of my time here [she is in her last year of Civil Engineering], I have seen attitudes improve steadily."

Jahns said she knows of one female student who encountered discrimination in an aeronautics engineering program at an eastern engineering school and decided to enrol at the University of Alberta. It was very much an "old boys school". Jahns said she still hear stories [of discrimination] female students encounter in other faculties. But, she said, there are enough female students going into graduate studies to encourage female students to feel they belong here.

Preliminary enrolment figures for 1996 show that women currently make up 18 percent of undergraduate enrolment in accredited engineering programs, a seven percent increase since 1986. The number of undergraduate engineering degrees awarded to women is up eight percentage points, from 11 percent in 1986 to 19 percent in 1996. At the graduate level, figures show an increase from eight percent in 1986 to 17 percent in 1996.

Women now make up approximately 20 percent of the U of A's engineering school enrolment. Dr Porteous pointed out that the engineering employment rates are certainly attractive to both men and women.

Jahns said men and women enrolled in the Faculty are working harder and are far more competitive. Job prospects are in the back of everyone's mind, she said.

Engineering schools attracting the largest number of female students include Guelph University, McGill University and Queen's University, all with over 25 percent of the respective undergraduate student populations.

"The numbers are significant and very encouraging but we still have a long way to go before attaining the percentages reached in other professions," says National Council of Deans of Engineering and Applied Science chair Andr? Bazergui. At the end of 1995, only 5.4 percent of professional engineers were women. Historically, women have been underrepresented in the profession, Dr Porteous said, so from the profession's point of view, it's missing a significant proportion of very qualified people who would make significant contributions to the profession.

The Associate Dean said there is still a lack of role models and one of the profession's biggest challenges is to increase those numbers. "We know role models are very important to potential female students."

Dr Porteous pointed out that the Faculty of Engineering recruits students from a select group of graduating high school students, those students who have two high school mathematics courses, chemistry, physics and English. Only about 17 percent of high school students have all those courses. Within that group, the males who have those five courses are still slightly more numerous than females.

Folio front page

Office of Public Affairs

University of Alberta