|
|
MARCH
NEWSLETTER
Please
check out below
for what's going on in MWM!
|
|
|
2019 Leaders to Learn From Series
As Million Women Mentors embarks on our
fifth
year in operation, we are excited to build on the progress we have made and share authentic insight into the world of mentoring through our
#BeyondtheBuzzword
campaign. Part of this work is showcasing the leaders who have paved the way for women across industries and set a true example for girls and women across the globe. We know that leadership comes in many forms and that there are many avenues to success. The
2019 Million Women Mentors Leaders to Learn From
series showcases the career paths of STEM leaders who have followed unique pathways to attain their current status. Every month we will celebrate the story of a new trailblazer who beat the odds and define what it means to be a role model. These profiles will celebrate individuals who persevere against convention and remind young people and seasoned veterans alike that there is no longer a "traditional" means to career success.
We are happy to announce this month's leader
Corlis Murray
,
Senior Vice President, Quality Assurance, Regulatory and Engineering Services
, Abbott. Corlis' determination to reach future STEM talent early by starting a high school internship program and change the narrative for you women is incredibly inspiring and we are in awe of the work that she does!
Feel free to share this profile with your networks to show women across the globe that there is no longer a 'traditional' model of a successful career. To download the profile
please click here or the image below.
|
|
|
Mark your calendars for our International Women's Day Webinar!
This year's International Women's Day theme is
"Balance for Better";
we will be hearing from an international cross-sector of leaders on why gender balance is important to their industry and the economy as a whole, as well as a bit about what efforts are seeing the most impact. On the webinar you will hear from leaders all over the globe including organizations such as,
S&P Global, Wells Fargo, MEMIC, the Lieutenant Governor of Nevada and more!
The webinar will take place on
March 8th, 2019
(International Women's Day) at
11 am EST,
to
register please
click here.
The webinar is open to everyone and we hope you will join us!
|
|
|
Rural Matters: A Conversation with MWM Champion Lt. Gov. Tim Griffin, Jeff Weld & Sheila Boyington about STEM Education for Girls
Rural Matters
is a biweekly 30-minute podcast about rural education, business, and health. The podcast’s mission is to increase awareness, inform discussion, and expand the dialogue on the most important issues facing rural stakeholders every day. On this episode
Sheila Boyington,
National MWM States Chair
,
spoke about being a token woman engineer and how to make girls and women more aware of STEM career opportunities and the importance of mentoring, including virtual mentoring in rural areas.
Jeff Weld,
Executive Director for Iowa Governor's STEM Advisory Council,
noted that in Iowa there are a variety of programs, including Scale Up, promoting diversity that are data-driven and whose impact is continually being assessed. These programs include teacher externships and initiatives that connect STEM students with professionals in hospitals and other businesses in rural and other communities. Finally,
Lt. Gov. Tim Griffin
pointed out that coding is taught in every high school in Arkansas, producing a cultural and educational change in the lower grades as well. "We’re underperforming in involving girls in STEM", according to Lt. Gov. Griffin, "and there’s where the opportunities to meet national shortages in this area lie." To listen to the episode
please click here.
|
|
|
PepsiCo Bolstering Women in Its Supply Chain
In competitive times, companies need an edge. For
PepsiCo,
that edge takes the shape of the diversity of its workforce. “Evaluating manufacturing in North America and here at PepsiCo, the supply chain continues to modernize and become more complex,“ explains Jana Gessner, vice president, for EHS at PepsiCo. “ Complexity requires a workforce that views situations in a new light. Women’s experiences and thought processes are different.” One of those differences, that has been widely studied, is the collaborative style of women. “This style leads to very strong strategic partnerships,” says Gessner. Strong partnerships are part of the diverse and inclusive environment that PepsiCo. has carefully cultivated. “We have women plant managers and have brought women into management roles,” says Gessner. In fact, 29% of the company's supply chain workforce are women. Work is being done to increase that number. In addition to career development, mentoring has been shown to be a useful tool in retaining employees.
PepsiCo is a platinum sponsor of Million Women Mentors
, a movement that involves 60 corporations across 44 states, working to help young girls and women enter and persist in STEM-related pathways through mentoring relationships. PepsiCo is working to secure 1,000 associate mentors globally by the year 2020.
Thank you PepsiCo for all the work you do, keep up the good work! To read more about PepsiCo and their formula for success
please click here.
|
|
|
'Rural Mentoring' Themed Webinar
Thursday, March 21 2019, 1:00PM – 2:15PM EST
MENTOR's public webinars are back!
Access to specific resources and partnerships and travel distance between mentors and mentees are just a few of the unique challenges that rural mentoring programs face. Join us in this webinar for an informative and engaging discussion focused on strategies and best practices for mentoring in tight-knit, rural communities. Presenters from different states will share their rural mentoring program model and the specific local context in which they operate, as well as discuss different practices they have found useful for their individual programs, including leveraging community assets and implementing creative training processes.
Click here to register.
|
|
|
Girl Powered: Fueling the Fire for Girls in STEM Through Research and Mentoring
Published on the
STEMconnector blog
,
Vicki Grisanti
wrote an article about the power and confidence-instilling mantra of the
Girl Powered Initiative
. Vicki is the champion and creator of the initiative, which was launched in 2016 by The Robotics Education & Competition (REC) Foundation and VEX Robotics. She also is a VEX robotics coach and Girl Powered mentor. Vicki has dedicated more than 15 years of her career to marketing communications roles that advance STEM education. When she is not tinkering with robots, Vicki is serving as senior director of marketing and communications for The REC Foundation. The REC Foundation increases student interest and involvement in STEM by engaging students in hands-on, affordable, and sustainable robotics engineering programs. To read the article and learn more about this great work
please click here
.
|
|
|
Upcoming Girl Powered Workshop
March 16-17 at Google, Seattle
The REC Foundation has partnered with Google to present a series of workshops to engage more young women in science, technology, and robotics. This Girl Powered Workshop will provide students in grades 7-12 an opportunity to build and program a robot for competition, engage in science and technology activities, and meet other participants and female mentors in the engineering fields.
|
|
|
Iowa launches Scholarship Program at STEM Day at the Capitol
On February 13th,
MWM-Iowa
participated in STEM Day at the Capitol, connecting with legislators and showcasing MWM efforts to advance women and girls in STEM careers through mentoring. The event included the launch of the
MWM-Iowa 2019 Scholarship Program
. Jewels Academy is the first to receive a $500 MWM scholarship in support of STEM programming for underrepresented girls in the Des Moines area, through hands-on learning opportunities, Math Camp and more. Three additional organizations will receive scholarships this year, nominated by the MWM Executive Committee. “The goal of MMW-Iowa is to promote the importance of mentoring girls and women to pursue STEM careers,” said
Jana Rieker, MWM-Iowa co-chair
, “and with over 7,500 mentors pledged in our state, we support important educational and economic development initiatives across Iowa. Launching the new scholarship program to recognize STEM organizations who provide hands-on training is another way we support this important cause.” In addition to launching the new scholarship program at STEM Day at the Capitol, MWM-Iowa announced
Teri Vos
, as the new co-chair of the organization. Vos replaces Mike Ralston of ABI, who served as co-chair for three years and will remain on the executive council. "With the many opportunities for females to thrive at amazing STEM careers in Iowa, it’s a valuable privilegeto be part of Million Women Mentors,” said Teri Vos, co-chair. “From mentoring, to supporting other STEM-focused organizations and bringing visibility to the need for a local STEM-skilled workforce, every effort is beneficial to the successful future of young people and our State.”
Way to go Iowa! Keep up the good work, and to get more information about the Scholarship Program please contact us and we will put you in touch with the wonderful women in IA.
|
|
|
Million Women Mentors-Illinois Supports Manufacturing Innovation
On
Thursday February 21
, members of
MWM-IL
attended the 5th Anniversary celebration of UI Labs and the Digital Manufacturing and Design Innovation Institute in Chicago, and cheered the announcement of a $10M investment by the Department of Defense to support advances in digital manufacturing and workforce development programs. US Senator
Tammy Duckworth
, MWM-IL Honorary Chair,
Jenny Kopach
, Science Olympiad Executive Director and MWM-IL State Chair and
Dan McManus
, Grants and Community Outreach Director for Senator Duckworth, MWM-IL Steering Committee member, joined leaders from industry and higher education and politicians US Senator Dick Durbin, Illinois Governor JB Pritzker and freshman US Congresswoman Haley Stevens (MI-11), House Science, Space and Technology Committee, for the announcement. "Partnerships like these created at DMDII are crucial to building a 21st century economy," said Governor Pritzker. Jenny Kopach serves on the DMDII Workforce Development Committee and has worked with
Senator Duckworth's office
to increase opportunities for women, girls and underserved populations in STEM education and careers.
|
|
|
Introduce a Girl to Engineering Event
The Smoky Mountain Section of the Society of Women Engineers recently participated in an Introduce a Girl to Engineering event sponsored by the Y-12 National Security Complex. This is the 8th
annual event which provides local middle school and high school girls an opportunity to meet women engineers and learn about engineering as a career. This year over 400 girls attended the event. Two of the members (Ann Shih and Noelani Laney) participated on a panel discussion. Additionally, Missy Webb and Katie Schubert prepared two demonstrations for the event – a ferrofluid (magnetic liquid) and Heron’s Fountain (a type of perpetual motion machine powered by pressure). The ferrofluid is a colloidal fluid made by mixing iron oxide and vegetable oil. By passing a magnet underneath a paper plate containing the magnetic liquid, the liquid changes its appearance and “spikey” shapes are created. For more information about the organization
please click here.
|
|
|
 |
Ferrofluid Demonstration - Noelani Laney, Donna Riggs and Randi Melton
|
|
|
|
Robert Clariday, Missy Webb, Donna Riggs, Christy Drewry, Ann Shih, Lien Nguyen, Karen Lott and Randi Melton
|
|
|
|
|
WHAT'S GOING ON WITH MWM?
|
|
|
It is Time to Get Your Numbers in For ‘Be Counted!’ 2019
As we begin 2019, it is important you start thinking about our
Million Women Mentors ‘Be Counted!’ Campaign
, an effort to record all of the mentoring of girls and women in STEM that is happening already for 2019! We know companies, organizations, and individuals are working to move the needle for girls in STEM currently, and now we just need to count it!
Now you can easily record the mentoring you are doing just by clicking on the Be Counted! button after logging into the website. After logging in, just fill out the information about the mentoring you have done, and voila! You will be counted!
Please help spread the word about this campaign and get all of the mentoring counted!
If you would like the Be Counted! Campaign Cheat Sheet
click here
.
As well, the link to share out for our google form can be accessed by
clicking here.
|
|
|
Tracking Mentoring Matches on the MWM Portal
As you may know, the MWM website has allowed you to search through thousands of mentoring opportunities across the country. Businesses, organizations and individuals have also been able to tell us about any other mentoring you may already be doing using the “Be Counted” button at the top of your account’s Mentoring Relationships page.
At the request of several users, we have now added a new feature to allow you to better track when a mentor has been accepted by a mentoring opportunity found in our listings and the mentor and mentee relationship has been achieved!
Those with MWM accounts can select a mentoring opportunity in our listings by clicking on the “
Volunteer Here
” button. This adds the mentoring relationship to your “Current Mentoring” list. MWM has now added the ability to mark the relationship as “
Matched
” when the mentor and mentoring organization have contact each other and assigned the mentor a task.
- Beginning this week, the mentoring relationships will show a “Matching Status” of either “Matched” or “Unmatched.”
- The relationship may be marked as “Matched”by either the mentor or the mentoring organization by clicking on the “Mark as Matched” link in each listing. The date it was marked will be shown.
- Past “Be Counted” relationships will automatically be marked as “Matched.”
- The status will be reflected in the mentoring reports.
|
|
|
Using this new feature, companies and mentoring organizations will be able to easily track which mentors have been placed into productive mentoring relationships.
Remember we are always available to do a webinar for organizations as desired. Please send an email to
info@millionwomenmentors.com
to request this.
We hope that this will help you to make your mentoring programs more effective!
|
|
|
MWM State of the States 2018-2019 Released at Annual Summit
At our annual Summit on
October 26th
, we released this year's State of the States report. The report provides an overview of the movement and features a page on each state involved. The state pages detail events and initiatives within that state over the past year, commitments and pledges to mentor, and plans for the coming year, and provides information on that state's leadership structure and partner organizations. It's a chance to celebrate progress, share best-practices and scalable models of success, and dive deeper into the daily workings of this vast volunteer movement.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
