Owensboro Community & Technical College, KY

Automotive Technology Program

"Before the WomenTech Educators Training, we had our own ideas about how to recruit more women, but they weren’t successful. The training helped us learn how to better recruit female students, so we were able to go from 2 to 7 female students in our introductory Automotive Technology courses.

There were 3 big things I got from the WomenTech Educators Training:

1. The training helped us change our emphasis from working with elementary schools to working with students we could recruit now, so we could see immediate results.
2. We started making sure any pictures in our recruitment materials were diverse and included women.
3. The best thing we learned was how to find and recruit female role models.

The training also helped on the retention side because I had talking points I could use when I would sit down and talk with female students about, ‘What are you struggling with?’ If they weren’t sure about opening up, I knew what to say and that was a big help.” 

Lewis Nall

Former Coordinator & Instructor of Automotive & Diesel Program, Owensboro Community & Technical College, KY (Now Automotive Instructor of Technologies, Calhoun Community College, AL)

This multimedia case study includes a sample Personal Encouragement Conversation and a detailed description of recruitment and retention strategies. 

About IWITTS

The Institute for Women in Trades, Technology & Science (IWITTS) has been helping educators nationwide close the gender gap for women and girls in technology since 1994. IWITTS provides tools, resources, and professional development for educators to help them broaden female participation in STEM and CTE programs where they are underrepresented. To discuss what type of professional development would be the best fit for your school, region or state please Contact Us. Visit our website at www.iwitts.org. 

The National Online WomenTech (NOW) Project is funded by The Advanced Technological Education Program from The National Science Foundation - Grant no. 1400531. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.

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