THE STORIES

1950-2015
Early Outreach:
A Grassroots Effort
The following excerpts from Betty Lou Bailey’s 1964-1965 annual report of the
professional guidance and education committee illustrate the Society’s early outreach
efforts, all of which took place on the local level. Her report was published in the
September 1965 issue of the SWE Newsletter.
Eva Hirdler Greene
LEFT: Vocational Interest test
“From the eight sections reporting on their PG&E
[professional guidance and education] activities,
a considerable variety of activities were reported.
Many were traditional means of reaching high
school girls, college students, parents, guidance
counselors, and the general public, but several of
the more unusual efforts deserve special note:
1. The Connecticut Section (Vera Zepler)
visited the state education offices in Hartford
to talk over their guidance program with the
state consultants on science education and
guidance services.
2. The Pacific Northwest Section (Dr. Irene
Peden) held a series of biweekly seminars
for women engineering students at the
University of Washington.
3. The new Southwest Section has done a truly
outstanding job of newspaper coverage of
their members. They have obvious good
relations with a large number of newspapers
who are reporting the careers of their
members with quality journalism.
4. While practically all SWE sections
reported participation in guidance
activities in conjunction with other technical
societies, the New York and Philadelphia
Sections were outstanding in these
cooperation functions.
5. This year, New York has established a
program of three awards to be given to
graduating seniors at six selected New
York high schools. The winning girls shall
have had three years each of science
and mathematics.
...This year’s winner of the Shining Star award
was selected as the Pacific Northwest Section.
For honorable mention, the New York Section,
which also has a wide variety of guidance activities,
was chosen.
It is interesting to note that New York’s PG&E
activities tend to emphasize counseling girls and
boys together and that the Pacific Northwest tends
to work with girls by themselves—thus, a strong
PG&E program can be done either way.”
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In 1959, retired petroleum engineer and SWE
Los Angeles Section member Eva Hirdler
Greene was concerned about the state of
vocational guidance counseling at the time. She
took both the men’s and women’s vocational
interest tests written by Edward K. Strong,
professor of psychology, and published by
Stanford University.
While the results from the vocational test
for men pointed her toward engineering and
science, Greene’s results from the women’s test
placed her remarkably close to the score for
housewives, and engineering was not a listed
career option for women. In a July 1959 letter to
Strong, Greene asked him to “…please tell me
what makes so many men think women’s minds
are different (mostly on the downgrade)
from men?”
Lillian Moller Gilbreth, Ph.D., presents the Lillian Moller Gilbreth Scholarship to Valerie Petersen,
May 17, 1964. First awarded in 1958, the Gilbreth scholarship is now one of more that 230 new
and renewed scholarships distributed by SWE each year.
BACKGROUND PHOTO: Poster advertising a 1952 career information
conference for high school girls, hosted by the Pittsburgh Section of the
Society of Women Engineers.
SWE presented high school senior Patricia Vickers with a $100 bond for her exhibit at the 1962
International Science and Engineering Fair.
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Visit SWE.ORG/WEBUILTTHIS to get a closer look at the images.
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