LAunchPad: The Design and Evaluation of a STEM Recruitment Program for Women

This paper presents the design and evaluation of a university-sponsored summer STEM recruitment program for young women between their junior and senior year in high school. The College of Engineering, Computer Science, and Technology (ECST) currently has a female enrollment of only 15%, which is below the national average of 20%. The College has set a goal of increasing the percentage of women to 25% by 2025. The recruitment program described in this paper is one of the strategies the ECST will use to reach its goal. The objectives of the recruitment program, LAunchPad, were to increase the students' interest in engineering and computer science, and to achieve a 50% participant matriculation rate into the College of Engineering, Computer Science, and Technology. LAunchPad established a gender-inclusive learning environment, with scaffolded instruction and hands-on activities to reinforce the learning. The students were also introduced to two groups of female role models; the first group was early-career alumni that held technical positions with local companies, and the second group was mid- to senior-level engineers, computer scientists, and executives. A post-event survey revealed that the students' interest in pursuing an engineering or computer science career increased by 29%; seventy percent applied for admission to the University for the following Fall. Results suggest that contributing factors to the students' increased interest are an increased understanding of engineering and computer science, increased confidence, access to diverse role models, and the ability to establish peer networks.