Moerschbacher visits children of Lagunitas at the village’s one-room school.

WITHOUT BORDERS

Bringing clean water to “desperate” villagers

The American Society for Engineering Education highlights the engineering program’s supportive environment for women students, accessible faculty, and hands-on learning in its magazine, Prism.

A national organization of deans, professors, instructors, students, and industry reps, ASEE is dedicated to promoting and improving engineering and engineering technology education. In October’s Prism, devoted to the topic of women in engineering, an article entitled “Circle of Support” features undergraduate programs where women feel welcome. “As engineering programs strive to attract and retain more female students, supportive communities and service components are no longer the exception—they’re becoming the rule,” it begins.

Although she excelled at both math and science in high school [the story continues], Jenny Moerschbacher never gave much thought to becoming an engineer. “I could also write and talk to people,” she explains, which had her leaning toward a major in business or economics. It wasn’t until she learned about Lafayette College’s interdisciplinary bachelor of arts degree in engineering that she realized the field might actually suit her skills perfectly—a decision that was reinforced in her junior year when she traveled to a Central American country with a team from Lafayette’s chapter of Engineers Without Borders to work on a project bringing clean water to two villages. “I liked that I could have an effect on people’s lives,” Moerschbacher says. “That was really cool to me.”. . . Such enthusiasm for interdisciplinary studies and service projects hasn’t been lost on engineering programs as they scramble to find new ways to engage and retain more young women like Moerschbacher. Indeed, some schools have seen their numbers of women graduates inch up beyond the national average of 20 percent by shedding rigid curricula and culture in favor of more programs like these.

Moerschbacher graduated in May with an A.B. in engineering and honors in engineering policy. The article goes on to say, “Not surprisingly,
Jenny Moerschbacher ’05 and Chris Bashur ’04 perform a water test in Lagunitas, Honduras.
a few open faculty office doors can make a huge difference in whether a student sticks around or not. At Lafayette, where women make up more than 25 percent of engineering graduates, an open-door policy is de rigueur. ‘We expect faculty to be mentors, and that means that
Villagers make their concerns known to the Lafayette team. “They are so desperate for water that everyone wants to be involved,” Moerschbacher says.
the doors are open and students can come and talk to us about not just academia but anything in their extracurricular lives,’ says Director of Engineering Jim Schaffer. ‘When I came to Lafayette, I was shocked at how much time I spent talking to students and how much learning occurred in that setting.’” (Nationally only 10.4 percent of tenure-track engineering faculty are women, the magazine says. Lafayette’s percentage is double that.)

Engineers Without Borders-USA partners with developing communities to improve their quality of life through environmentally equitable and economically sustainable engineering projects, while developing responsible engineers and students. The Lafayette chapter, advised by Sharon Jones, associate professor of civil and environmental engineering, and David Brandes, assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering, received EWB’s national Education Award last fall. It is designing and constructing clean water distribution systems, as well as irrigation, in the Honduran villages of Lagunitas and La Fortuna. A U.S. Environmental Protection Agency grant to Brandes and Jones will fund work in La Fortuna, scheduled to begin in January with the help of Alternative School Break Club.


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