Million Women Mentors

Partnership Seeks to Engage

More Than One Million Girls and Young Women

in STEM Education and Careers

I am so thankful to be graced to continue to share this journey of Purposed Work. My 2014 travel schedule has started. In lieu of a blog post this week, I’m sharing information about an exciting program for “advancing women and girls in STEM careers through mentoring.”

The National Alliance for Partnerships in Equity (NAPE) announced its partnership with the "Million Women Mentors" (MWM) initiative, launched January 8, 2014, in Washington, D.C., at the National Press Club, as part of National Mentoring Month. A collective effort of more than 40 nonprofit, media, education, government, and industry partners and 9 corporate sponsors, MWM will support the engagement of 1 million science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) mentors--male and female--to increase the interest and confidence of girls and young women to pursue and succeed in STEM degrees and careers.

In the past 10 years, growth in STEM jobs has been three times greater than that of non-STEM jobs. Today 80% of the fastest growing occupations in the United States depend on mastery of mathematics and knowledge and skills in hard sciences. Although women comprise 48% of the U.S. workforce, just 24% are in STEM fields, a statistic that has held constant for nearly the past decade. Although 75% of all college students are women and students of color, they represent only 45% of STEM degrees earned each year. Too many of these young women begin in STEM degree paths but leave despite their good academic standing, often citing uncomfortable classroom experiences and disconcerting climate. Even when women earn a STEM degree, they are less likely than their male counterparts to work in a STEM field--even though STEM jobs pay more and have a lower wage gap: 92 cents on a dollar versus 75 cents in other fields.

NAPE, through its Education Foundation, has developed a suite of professional development programs for administrators, educators, and counselors/advisors to improve opportunities for underrepresented populations in STEM courses of study and careers, including STEM-related Career and Technical Education. NAPE's  STEM Equity Pipeline™ offerings include the  Program Improvement Process for Equity™,  Micromessaging to Reach and Teach Every Student™, and the  Focus on Counselors Initiative. To date, NAPE has provided professional development in these programs to almost 1,700 administrators, educators, and counselors/advisors in 372 schools. 

As part of National Mentoring Month, on January 16, 2014, at 1 pm EST, NAPE will actively engage those who mentor girls in STEM in a webinar titled Building Trust.  NAPE COO Claudia Morrell will discuss the importance of paying attention to the use of subtle but powerful micromessages in building trust in mentor/mentee relationships. As explained by Ms. Morrell, "Without honesty there is no credibility in the mentor/mentee relationship, and the mentor becomes just one more person in a long line of people repeating things the mentee doesn't believe. NAPE is excited to contribute to this initiative by providing guidance to mentors about the best ways to communicate with their mentees."

Register for this free webinar today!

 To become involved with NAPE or Million Women Mentors, please visit www.napequity.org  or www.MillionWomenMentors.org . Contact: Claudia Morrell, Chief Operating Officer, (610) 593-8038.

If you like this post and want to catch up on some of my previous discussions, please visit the full Purposed Work blog at http://ltr-latrobe-mfg.blogspot.com/.

Falling on the Road to Good Works

…for the just falls seven times, but rises up again!

(Proverbs 24:16)

I got a text on Mother’s Day congratulating me for making “it” look easy. By “it”, I assume my friend meant juggling being a woman of God, a wife, and a working mom. While I am honored by the acknowledgement that she thinks I am doing a good job of it all, I want to remind everyone not to let the look fool you. As a good Southern girl, I was taught to smile and act as though everything was perfect. This followed me into adulthood, where I learned to act as though I had my superwoman cape on underneath my business suit, trying to do all things while making “it” look good and easy to everyone else. I got the reputation of being a fixer, so when I decided to become an entrepreneur, I continued the act, and proceeded like I could juggle all of my new responsibilities without any help.

The problem with juggling too many balls, or responsibilities, is that if one thing slips, epic fail or catastrophe is almost certain. I have spent so much time trying to prove myself that I sometimes forget that it is ok to ask for help. As I write this post, I do not know whether to credit Madeline Albright, Oprah Winfrey, Donna Freedman, or someone one else with this saying that has helped me to find balance in my life: You can have it all, just not at the same time. In my own experience, I was at the brink of failure (mentally, professionally, and financially) before I admitted that it was time to ask for help.

Starting a business for me was like getting married. In the beginning, during the honeymoon phase, everything looked easy, as though I could juggle all of the responsibilities. Getting married was the easy part, but after a couple of years, I soon realized that the real work was staying married. We surrounded ourselves with other married couples, of various ages and stages of their marriages, just to share experiences and to provide a sanity check that our journey was normal. Without specifically asking for help, these couples became our Marriage Board.

After starting my business, I made some avoidable mistakes, primarily, because I did not want to ask for help and have anyone think I was a failure, or a fraud. I am a survivor, so I learned a valuable lesson that allowed me to rebound stronger and wiser: I needed advisors. Large organizations have corporate boards to provide guidance and insight to avoid making catastrophic business mistakes. Throughout this journey, I know that everything will not go according to the strategic plan and that some failures are unavoidable. To help me manage the risks, I have an Entrepreneurial Board that consists of seven people who challenge me with checks and balance and boundaries:

• A seasoned mentor who has built a successful business model in industrial manufacturing
• A financial advisor who keeps me out of trouble with the taxman and in good favor with lenders
• A spiritual friend who reminds me that I am exactly where I am supposed to be
• A creative genius who dares me to color outside the lines (inside joke)
• A youthful mentee who has the same drive to change the world that I had in my twenties
• A retired collaborator who imparts wisdom and constantly asks about my exit strategy
• A soulmate who allows me to dream in living color but keeps me grounded in the present

So to my friend who says that I make “it” look easy, I say thank you, but rest assured it is not easy. I make a lot of mistakes every day. But as Pastor Donnie sings, we fall down, but we get up…on our road to good works!