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The Rowan engineering females fall into three main groups: About a third (34%) belong
to both SWE and a discipline-specific organization; 39% belong to a discipline-specific
organization but not SWE; and 27% belong to neither a discipline-specific organization
nor SWE. (Almost all SWE members belong to discipline-specific organizations as well,
so there were not enough cases to analyze those belonging to SWE only.)
It should be noted that while there is some tendency for engineering majors to join
discipline-specific organizations only after their first-year (perhaps because some of them
had not chosen a discipline-specific major until then), SWE membership is distributed
evenly across all four years of the program.
Membership in discipline-specific organizations as well as SWE appears to enhance
engineering involvement. Women who are members of one or both of these types of
organizations are more likely to have engaged in enrichment activities both outside the
Rowan community and with faculty: they are more likely to have read an engineering
listserv or newsletter, heard an engineering speaker outside of class, gone on an
engineering field trip, had an engineering internship, conducted research with or worked
for pay for a faculty member) (Table IIC-15). The women who are both SWE members
and members of discipline-specific organizations were especially likely to have worked
with or done research with a faculty member. They also were more likely to have gone on
an engineering field trip. Thus, the additional SWE membership seems to have enhanced
relationships with faculty and outside exposure. Since there were hardly any females
who had joined SWE but not a discipline-specific organization, there is no evidence that
SWE isolates or marginalizes Rowan women.
IIC-125