There were 460 first-year women this fall, up from 352 a year ago. Beth Holloway, director of the Women in Engineering Program (WIEP), says this is the highest number ever for first-year women in engineering. Women account for 26.1 percent of the first-year engineering class, compared with 20.6 percent in 2010.

The 1,534 total of women undergraduates in engineering also is the highest ever, Holloway says, up from 1,430 in 2010-11. That number has been growing steadily since 2005-06.

“Having more women in engineering will enrich the profession,” Holloway says. “It’s also a profession that offers women the chance to make the world a better place.”

Though there is no definitive proof that any one strategy has led to the increase, Holloway says one likely factor is a change in how Purdue faculty, staff and students talk about engineering.

“We used a National Academy of Engineering report called ‘Changing the Conversation: Messages for Improving Public Understanding of Engineering,’" Holloway says. “It has helped us talk to students, especially young women in high school, in a way that makes engineering more appealing and engaging.”

The 2008 report -- which Leah Jamieson, The John A. Edwardson Dean of Engineering at Purdue, helped write -- urged the engineering community to talk about engineering careers in a way that interests young people from all backgrounds by appealing to their desire to tackle real-world problems and find solutions that can make a difference in the world and improve people’s lives.

When talking to younger students about engineering careers, five points are emphasized: the work is enjoyable, done in a good working environment, makes a difference, provides a good income and offers flexibility. “These are important elements that really hit home with young women,” says Holloway.

The recent addition of the Ideas to Innovation Learning Laboratory for first-year engineering students, located in Neil Armstrong Hall of Engineering, also has been a draw.

“We make sure that our recruiting programs spend some time in this innovative space so potential students can get an idea of how collaborative the work is during their first year,” she says.

The Women in Engineering Program also has had an impact. The program, started in 1969, has grown from concentrating on students on campus to working with high school students to now offering programs that reach down to kindergarten through sixth grade.

Although all of the WIEP outreach programs are open to boys and girls, the professional engineers, staff and college students working on them mostly are women. “It’s important for both girls and boys to see female role models in engineering,” Holloway says.

WIEP hosted a fall open house for K-6 students and their families in November. It also hosts a day-on-campus for high school students and their parents in the fall and spring, plus residential camps in the summer.

Current women engineering students also call all admitted women to talk about Purdue engineering and encourage them to register. There is a high correlation between those who are called and those who enroll at Purdue, Holloway says:

“Nobody sells Purdue engineering to young women better than our women engineering students.”