Outside of Our Rooms: Networking Across the Academy

Date

2011-07-07

Authors

Davidson, Valerie

Journal Title

Journal ISSN

Volume Title

Publisher

Abstract

This document provides a comprehensive summary of an invited plenary presentation made by Dr. Valerie Davidson, NSERC/HP Chair for Women in Science and Engineering for Ontario, to the Royal Society of Canada Conference (RCSC) in Edmonton, Alberta on May 3, 2007. The conference was designed to offer an international forum for discussion of the factors within local and global cultures that can facilitate and constrain women's active participation in the knowledge economy and society. The theme of the 2007 conference was ‘Rooms of their Own – Women in the Knowledge Economy and Society.’ This theme was borrowed from Virginia Woolf’s cogent essay “A Room of One’s Own” on the unfortunate societal constrictions suffered by professional women in her time. In this 1929 essay, Wolfe predicted that women “in another century or so,” if given the opportunity and rooms of their own, would “have the habit of freedom and the courage to write exactly what we think,” seeing human beings “in their relation to each other” and “in relation to reality. Drawing on these ideas, it was the goal of the RCSC conference to engage in an in-depth consideration of the situation of women in the academy. It was hoped that this would serve to increase awareness about the challenges facing women in academia, expand the knowledge base on such issues and result in the formation of practical recommendations to address them. Dr. Davidson’s presentation spoke to these themes.

Description

The Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) created a program of five regional Chairs for Women in Science and Engineering (CWSE) in 1996.The mandate of this program is broad, with objectives to address both the need to encourage girls and women into science and engineering careers, and the retention of women as valuable contributors to science and engineering. Valerie Davidson, Professor in the School of Engineering, University of Guelph held the NSERC Chair for Women in Science and Engineering for Ontario from 2003 to 2011. She and her team developed the CWSE-ON program which focused on three different audiences: Early Enthusiasts - students in elementary and high school; Interested Intellectuals - women in undergraduate and graduate studies who are preparing for further education or careers in science and technology; and Productive Professionals - women in science and technology professions with a particular focus on women in the academy. Since Valerie has completed her term as Ontario Chair for Women in Science and Engineering, CWSE-ON resources have been placed in the Atrium for the others to use. The materials are organized by audience as well as general themes. The CWSE-ON program was supported by NSERC, Hewlett-Packard Canada (2003-2008) and Research in Motion (2008-2011).

Keywords

women in science and engineering, networking, academia, national chairs network, national alliance, NSERC Chairs for Women in Science and Engineering

Citation

Collections