 |
WICSE celebrates 25 years of achievement
 |
Attending
the WICSE event were (left to right) Ph.D. student Kris Rosfjord,
former WICSE president Myra Boenke (Ph.D.’89), Dubravka
Bilic (M.S.’00, Ph.D.’01), undergraduate Elaine
Cheong, and former WICSE president Megan Thomas (M.S.’99).
PEG SKORPINSKI PHOTO |
Faculty, students, and friends gathered with 70 doctoral alumnae
last September to celebrate Women in Computer Science and Electrical
Engineering (WICSE) and its 25 years of success promoting women
in Berkeley Engineering’s EECS department.
Just eight years after Kawthar Zaki became the first woman at
Berkeley to earn a doctorate in EE, WICSE was founded by six women
graduate students in 1977. The robust networking and advocacy
organization has been successful in attracting and sustaining
women students through sponsoring pre-college outreach and hosting
activities from weekly lunches to national conferences.
WICSE was also instrumental in forging the Parent Policy, enacted
in 1994 and later adopted campuswide, allowing students flexibility
in progress toward their degree during childbearing years.
“WICSE is even more important now, since the passage of
Proposition 209, when diversity programs are under attack,”
says Sheila Humphreys, academic coordinator for student matters
in EECS. She credits WICSE’s success to its continuity,
its ongoing contact with successful alumnae and other prominent
women in the field, and support it receives from EECS for staff,
space, and funding.
Using the WICSE model, many Berkeley alumnae—like Mor Harchol-Balter
at Carnegie Mellon University and Amy Wendt at the University
of Wisconsin-Madison—have initiated similar advocacy organizations
on their campuses across the country. WICSE was recognized with
the 2002 award from the Women in Engineering Programs and Advocacy
Network for the “sustained national impact” of its
efforts.
|
|
FOREFRONT takes you into the
labs, classrooms, and lives of professors, students, and alumni
for an intimate look at the innovative research, teaching, and
campus life that define the College of Engineering at the University
of California, Berkeley.
Published three times a year by the Engineering Public Affairs
Office. Have a comment about Forefront? E-mail
your letter to the editor. Click here
to learn more about the magazine. |
|
