Recruiting: 9 Women in Auto Technology!

Last week we had the CalWomenTech Project Partner Meeting and our 8 community college sites presented their successes to each other. It was amazing, truly. What an incredibly dedicated group of educators, it’s a privilege to work with them. More on this to come.

At this meeting we also learned that one of the colleges, Evergreen Valley College (EVC) in San Jose, has 9 women in the introductory auto tech classes. EVC is a leader in auto tech with both a hybrid and Honda program and now the college is a leader on recruiting women.

Then this past Wednesday I and our Program Coordinator Daniella Severs spent 3 hours at Evergreen with the Head of the Auto Program, one of the instructorswho is a co-leader and the Dean of Workforce Development, revising the retention plan with the goal of ensuring that the women are retained.  

We used 100% of our brains for three hours to come up with some innovative strategies, as well as some standard ones. Each of these three men took responsibility for leading a piece of the plan which will involve others on the CalWomenTech leadership team.

What struck me was how deeply committed these men are to having the College’s female students succeed.  Auto technology only has 2% women nationally.  We need the men in the field to support women to ensure their success. We certainly have this at Evergreen. Personally I find it inspiring. 

We have many other committed men and women in the CalWomenTech Project, from time to time I’ll be bragging, I mean blogging on them.

One Response to “Recruiting: 9 Women in Auto Technology!”

  1. Sally Daniel  on February 9th, 2010

    I am so proud of these men! My school also has an automotive technology program–but few women enroll or complete the program. I hope that some of your specific strategies are shared with the rest of us. You are the leaders!
    Good job!


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