The following HTML text is provided to enhance online
readability. Many aspects of typography translate only awkwardly to HTML.
Please use the page image
as the authoritative form to ensure accuracy.
Science and Engineering Programs: On Target for Women?
whether to lend support to a program. Conference participants offered the following suggestions to individuals seeking external funding for their programs:
Use references such as The Foundation Directory to determine those private funding sources that are interested in science and engineering, education, women, and minorities. In preparing a proposal, reveal your knowledge of the foundation's goals and support to activities similar to those you are contemplating.
Harry Weiner, a program officer of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, suggested that communication should not be limited to submission of a formal proposal requesting program support. Instead, he encouraged informal contact, noting that telephone calls are a convenient way to determine rather quickly the extent to which your proposal would mesh with a foundation's goals. Dr. Weiner also emphasized the importance of timing when submitting a proposal: "a bad proposal is one that comes too soon in the life of a program, before the program administrator can point to a successful programmatic outcome, or one that comes up too late as a plea for help after other funding sources have dried up."
External commitment to an intervention is shown not only by financial support for the program, but also by the personal involvement of corporate and foundation employees in program activities.
Recognize that available resources are finite and limited. George Campbell, president of the National Action Council for Minorities in Engineering, advised program implementers to "use limited resources intelligently."
Elements of Effective Interventions
From both the formal presentations highlighted in Chapters 4–8 of this report and the more informal discussions among Conference participants, it became apparent that S&E interventions, independent of their level in the education/employment pipeline, shared certain common elements. Among those shared characteristics are the following:
an environment conducive to the study or practice of science and engineering, one in which equal opportunity is provided: As Suzanne
