"Two years ago, my daughter, Katherine, and I appeared on the cover of ASEE Prism magazine. A feature story by the American Society for Engineering Education on two generations of women engineers, perhaps? Not quite.
The cover story focused on how, at a time when the ranks of women faculty and deans in engineering have increased, the percentage of women who earn bachelor’s degrees in engineering is in decline. The lesson, supported by facts and data, is that our nation, our crumbling infrastructure and our ability to lead globally in the future are at risk because too few young people are choosing to study engineering. We will continue to lose talented would-be engineers who are female, as well as some who are male, until we change the traditional undergraduate engineering curriculum, one that is overly structured and lacks flexibility."