Engineer Role Model in the News

I was pleased to see Tyrone Harrison, a young engineering major, featured as a role model in Courtland Milloy’s column on July 30. And as a black man in college, Harrison is the type of role model we need to see in media more often.

I hope that the Post’s readership – as well as the rest of the citizens of our nation – do not have the view of young black men that Milloy fears: “based on images that tend to dominate the media -- athletes, entertainers, … and, all too often, criminals.” That’s certainly not what comes to mind when I think of black men. However, that may be because all the black men I have worked with had advanced degrees in engineering.

Snapshots of Life: July 31 for the past 38 years

2008 Thursday: Went to a book signing by Rep. Carolyn Maloney the previous evening. They served birthday cake! But it wasn’t for me, it was for her friends, Eleanor Smeal and Rep. Patricia Schroeder. Hillary Clinton said a few words then Rep. Maloney led us in a round of Happy Birthday.
2007 Tuesday: Maids came to clean the house. I went to lunch with Randy at a Mediterranean restaurant.
2006 Monday: Randy made a peach cake.
2005 Sunday: Randy threw some lawn chairs in the car and we headed east through residential neighborhoods in Vienna. I had no idea where we were going. We got on I-66. Then got off. We ended up at the West Falls Church metro station – turns out the Vienna station was closed for track work. When we got to Foggy Bottom, Randy stood up and we exited the metro. We grabbed a sandwich, then waited on a street corner. When a shuttle stopped for us, I realized we were going to the Kennedy Center. We saw Hairspray then wandered around Georgetown.
2004 Saturday: Randy cleaned the house and invited seven couples and their kids over for dinner. He put up Happy Birthday streamers outside and the kids across the street came over and asked if we were celebrating Harry Potter’s birthday. J.K. Rowling was born five years before me. Work friends took me to Haandi for lunch the previous day. I announced that I would start teaching full time at American University in three weeks.
2003 Thursday: Black balloons filled my office. As I entered, my phone rang. I couldn’t get to it because all the balloons were in my way. I took the afternoon off and went to Annapolis with Randy. We ate crabs with a hammer.
2002 Wednesday: Presented my research proposal at our company’s big proposalfest.
2001 Tuesday: A huge group went to lunch at Ledo’s Pizza. Randy met us there after a job interview.
2000 Monday: Had a job interview at Ohio University. After I got home, my sister, Tracy, had us over for “birth”day cake and announced she was pregnant.
1999 Saturday: Got a gold necklace from Randy.
1998 Friday: Another Ohio birthday. Perhaps the most interesting. Randy had a birthday cake made out of flowers delivered to my office at Wright-Patterson AFB. Coworker Jerry J. took me to the Olive Garden (officemate Paul B. was out of town). Caught a felon after work.
1997 Thursday: The high school dropouts of the McDonnell Douglas 500 blade cell had birthday cake for all July birthdays and invited me. The engineers didn’t even know it was my birthday. Had my own party at my house the weekend before. Tried to convince Sheila to bring over some cute guy she met at the grocery store.
1996 Wednesday: Dave Z. & Diane D. (not M. yet) took me to Outback on Backlick Road in Springfield. Had a bloomin onion. Took a surprise plane trip back to Phoenix to see Randy the next day.
1995 Monday: First birthday after marriage. Had an interview at Scottsdale Community College for an adjunct position. Someone had balloons in her office for her birthday. Had a party at my house. Sheila made up the shopping cart dance (must spend too much time at the grocery store). George P. gave me a party coffee mug that I still have.
1994 Sunday: First birthday in the new house. Went to church at the Newman Center. Someone asked what birthday was it. I said 29. He said, “Really?” I said, “No.” Then he looked confused.
1993 Saturday: Randy gave me presents all day. We went to the grocery store and came home missing a loaf of bread. Randy took me to Garcia’s and brought a present. I refused to open it because I knew it was a loaf of bread. He had gone out and bought another loaf because I was mad that it didn’t make it into our grocery bags.
1992 Friday: Randy & I threw a party at our apartment. At about 10:00 I went into the bedroom to bring out Pictionary. But never made it out because I fell asleep. I woke up at two in the morning and all the guests were gone.
1991 Wednesday: Worst birthday ever. The truck of my soon-to-be-ex-boyfriend of a year and nine months broke down and he called me at work demanding that I pick him up and bring him to work. Then I had to pick him up and take him home. We went to Denny’s for dinner.
1990 Tuesday: Boyfriend of nine months took me to a resort in Scottsdale for swimming and dinner. Mom called me a hussy.
1989 Monday: College friends Michelle R., Pete M., Pascal, and Jack K. took me to Olive Garden. Someone ordered wine. Pascal was the only one over 21. We ordered escargot. None of us liked it.
1988 Sunday: Parents gave me a mini-fridge for the dorm room I’d be moving into two weeks later.
1987 Friday: Worked an eight-hour day at Montgomery Ward, which was rare, since it was a part-time job. Mom picked me up after work and said I couldn’t go out anywhere.
1986 Thursday: Got a watch from my parents, which still works. They bought a cake from Baskin Robbins, where I worked, and my boss kept it a secret so my parents could surprise me.
1985 Wednesday: Had cheer practice at Lisa M.’s house. Her mom knew it was my birthday, so she bought us muffins and orange juice for breakfast.
1984 Tuesday: Grade school friends Cheryl G. and Kari E. spent the night. We snuck out to go to Circle K, but Cheryl, who had been kidnapped by her cousin earlier that summer, got scared so we turned around and went back to the house.
1983 Sunday: Cara S. and her friend Mel M. came over to play a few silly games.
1982 Saturday: My second month in Phoenix, so this was the first birthday to end the previous tradition. We invited my Phoenix cousins and their kids over to our apartment. Dennis B., who lived downstairs, wrote my name on twelve tiny pieces of paper, taped them to twelve pennies, and left them at my front door. I got a black Barbie doll, which surprised me because up until this point in my life, I had never seen a black person, except on TV.
1981 Saturday: For this and all previous birthdays, we did pretty much the same thing every year. Both sets of grandparents came over in the evening, Aunt Jeanne and Uncle Jim came over with their kids – it was cousin Jayne’s birthday too. If my birthday was on a weekend, Uncle John and Aunt Judy would be over with their kids to help out on the farm earlier in the day.
1980 Friday: Mom took me to get my ears pierced, even though she had said I couldn’t get them pierced until I was a teenager. Aunt Sue told me I was in the double digits now. That was the first time I had ever heard the word digits.
1979 Wednesday: I spent some of the summer trying to write a book about a mysterious pink house. Cousin Robert laughed because it had no plot and I threw a random puppet show in to waste pages. I wanted to put on a real play or puppet show, but wouldn’t be able to draw much of an audience on the farm.
1978 Tuesday: This was the summer I got glasses, although they were for my eyesight, not my birthday.
1977 Sunday: Cousin Patrick was at our house/grandpa’s farm for the weekend. We went to the Wayside fireman’s picnic. Some four-year-old boy grabbed my cotton candy right off the paper stick! His mom yelled at him and bought me a new cotton candy. The guy at the pony rides gave me a free ride because it was my birthday. All rides were fifteen cents each. I had a dollar bill. This is where I memorized 15 x 7 = 105. I had to scrounge up another nickel if I wanted to get seven ride tickets.
1976 Saturday: Everyone made a big deal about the bicentennial. I got a bunch of red, white, and blue clothes. Cousin Robert kept saying he could make me say blue and asked me the colors of the flag. I also got green bib overalls with ABC 123 on the pocket and a yellow turtleneck. My sister, Tracy, got matching overalls and turtleneck for her birthday.
1975 Thursday: Got a purple pinstriped suit that I called my birthday suit.
1974 Wednesday: … I don’t remember anything about the remaining Julys.
1970 Friday: 10:10pm CDT, Green Bay, WI. My mom wasn’t there. Instead, there was a girl named Alice Strebel who had been sent off to live with the nuns to finish high school with the rest of the bad little high school girls. Three weeks later, the records of my birth were destroyed, and I took on the identity of Lisa Ann Schaefer.

Groping Encouraged by the Washington Post Magazine

I understand in this time of layoffs that it may be financially imprudent for the Washington Post to print complaints about advertisements or to alienate frequent advertisers.

The Post Magazine frequently prints an ad that I find offensive toward the highly educated women of the Washington area that I presume are a large portion of Washington Post readers. It consists of several pictures of large, naked, faceless breasts with the words “We empower individuals” and a nonsense blurb by some male doctors. Normally I brush off the ad, rather than dwell on how professional women would more likely be ridiculed behind their back if they increased the size of their front, or wonder how the male readers would react if the ad suggested enlarging their body parts.

But this week, the ad was placed opposite a story about a young woman who had to endure groping by an 80-year-old man as a part of a class assignment. Proof that the last thing women should do to empower themselves is enlarge their breasts. And not a very good picture of what the Post’s male editors think of the empowerment options for its female readers.

AAUW Press Conference

I went to a press conference on Tuesday for the release of a new American Association of University Women research report. Read the article about it that appeared on the front page of the Washington Post.

Presentations were made by Linda Hallman, AAUW's Executive Director, David Sadker, Professor of Education at American University, and Tamara Brown, an African-American engineer and President of AAUW of Buffalo. Dr. Sadker and his late wife built a career on researching gender equity in education. When they were working on their Ph.D.s together in the 1970's, his wife was always ignored and they attributed all her research to him.

During the Q&A session, I made a comment at the microphone that while I was working on my Ph.D. in the 1990's, I felt that my work was recognized, I was highly respected, and I felt I belonged in the program and was included in everything just as much as the men. But then I echoed what I said in the AAUW video last June.

I find it interesting that there are four or five people out there who dislike AAUW so much that they monitor the Washington Post comment site and continue to post remarks. What's not to like about AAUW? The AAUW report is good news: improvements in girls' education do not hinder boys' education. I'd like to know what the REAL issue is behind these people's anger. No good deed goes unpunished.

Luckily they choose to vent their anger in a comment site that will be gone in a few weeks. Other victims of misogeny end up stalked, raped, or killed. That's what I worry about.

Perhaps the issue is not about problems with the formal education we receive in school. It's about the problems with the informal education we receive through life regarding how to treat others with respect. We all need to learn to treat people of both genders with respect. No one can expect to receive respect without first offering respect.

AAUW Federal Lobby Day

On Thursday, May 15, twenty AAUW members from Virginia and Maryland came to Washington to lobby the U.S. House of Representatives on the Pathways Advancing Career Training Act (H.R. 5774).

The PACT Act would provide financial assistance to states for training programs that prepare women for employment in high-wage, high-skill fields where they are often underrepresented. AAUW strongly believes that access to high-wage, high-skill jobs should be a right for women and girls from diverse racial, ethnic, socioeconomic, age, and disability backgrounds. When accepted in fields traditionally dominated by men, women workers can begin to close the persistent wage gap between women and men.

We met in the House cafeteria for a briefing by Anne Hedgepeth, AAUW Policy Assistant, and Lisa Maatz, Director of Public Policy. Prior to lobbying, the AAUW staff selected offices based on each congressperson’s likelihood to become a cosponsor of the bill. After the briefing, we split into pairs to visit seven offices.

Upon entering an office, we introduced ourselves as volunteer lobbyists from AAUW and asked to speak to the legislative aide for education issues. Most pairs were able to talk to three or four education LA’s. If they weren’t available, we left a handwritten note along with a letter from the AAUW staff. I often wonder if these days the LA’s, usually in their 20’s, think our handwritten notes are pleasantly quaint.

After visiting each assigned office, we met for lunch at Bullfeathers, an upscale sandwich and salad restaurant popular among congressional staffers, named for a favorite saying of President Truman.

This article will appear in the Summer 2008 AAUW of Virginia newsletter.

Randy in the News

Read the Washington Post to find out what my husband, Randy, has to say about the Turkeycock ramp.

You can also listen to both WTOP interviews about pedestrian crashes and high-tech crosswalks that played on the radio throughout the day the Tuesday before Christmas.

On the Thursday before Christmas, Randy was on WTOP again. I don't have an audio file, but here's the transcript.

STEM Policy Updates

The American Association of University Women (AAUW): Leadership Role Models

The Girl Scout Research Institute recently released Exploring Girls’ Leadership, a research review of youth leadership fields. The report found that the majority of girls view themselves as leaders today—at home, at school, and in after-school activities. But only 36 percent can envision themselves a being leaders when they get older. The report notes that girls need help in overcoming barriers to their development as leaders, both at their current stages in life as well as in their visions for their future.

AAUW is in an excellent position to serve as leadership role models to girls and young women. We need to show them what women can do as leaders, to help them better imagine themselves as leaders as they grow older.


STEM Grants

The U.S. Department of Education published its final regulations to carry out the Academic Competitiveness Grant and the National Science and Mathematics Access to Retain Talent (SMART) Grant programs. According to Inside Higher Ed, the final rules adopted few of the changes that have been requested by college officials. Designed to encourage more students from low-income families to enter science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields, these grant programs have not been as effective as many had hoped. Nearly $430 million in funds from the two programs were awarded to roughly 360,000 students in FY07. However, Congress appropriated $790 million for the programs. The department hopes to double the number of recipients of the two grant programs by FY10.


No Child Left Behind

AAUW supports the inclusion of science as a required area of assessment under the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act's measurement of adequate yearly progress (AYP). AAUW believes that this change will provide valuable data about student aptitude in science and will help identify opportunities to improve student achievement. Adding science to AYP ensures that the data to be aggregated by sex, and that children will be exposed to a subject that is likely to influence their future academic and career aspirations. If you haven’t yet done so, use AAUW’s Two-Minute Activist on AAUW’s web site to urge your representative to support the inclusion of science in NCLB assessments.

This article will appear in the Winter 2008 AAUW of Virginia newsletter.

No Hands Meeting

Lisa on the Web

I'm in a promotional video for the American Association of University Women. I talk for about five seconds at the beginning of the video about the highlights of my engineering experience from 1988 to 1996. Of course, my statements still apply today, only to a lesser degree.

They recorded about fifteen minutes of my ramblings when I was in the studio. I find it interesting what they chose to include in the video. One of the questions they asked me was what was the most memorable experience while on the AAUW Lobby Corps. I told them they didn't want to know.