Santa Clara University

Betty Shanahan, Executive Director and Chief Executive Officer, Society of Women Engineers

Women Engineers Treated to an Evening with Betty Shanahan

Members of the SCU School of Engineering’s student chapter of the Society of Women Engineers welcomed SWE’s Executive Director and Chief Executive Officer, Betty Shanahan, to campus January 10 for a presentation on the issues facing those embarking on a career in a field populated by few other women. As Shanahan reported, the number of women earning engineering degrees is dropping, though the value of going into this field is greater than ever. In order to remain competitive in the global marketplace, it is critical that our country have a strong, diverse engineering force, she said.

While lauding SCU’s culture of affirmation and support for women pursuing an education in engineering, Shanahan addressed the challenges females often face in entering a traditionally male-dominated profession, and focused her talk on the importance of finding balance between being effective and remaining authentic to oneself. Having spent over twenty years in engineering, engineering management, and product management, Shanahan is well qualified to speak to the issues women can experience in this environment.

Shanahan encouraged the women to be aware of self-defeating thoughts and practices--feelings of inadequacy, patterns of self-deprecation—that are sometimes induced by a society that has yet to fully come to grips with parity in the classroom or in the workplace. She offered a number of suggestions:

• Focus on strengths, not weaknesses
• Ask for the resources necessary to do the job
• Avoid self-defeating speech
• Take credit for accomplishments
• Learn to promote yourself
• Support other underrepresented members in the workplace
• Participate in SWE and other women’s forums to validate experiences and get training
• Find/become a mentor for different support roles—advocate, sounding board, etc.

Women bring great value to the field of engineering, Shanahan said, and should strive to be effective while maintaining their authenticity. As she noted, creativity and innovation burgeon in a diverse workforce. “There is value in being different,” she said. “If women engineers strive to become white men in high heels, the employer loses the advantage of diversity,” and society misses out on an important point of view.