Women Engineers in Advanced Academic Positions (weaap): Effecting change in higher education

Contemporary issues plaguing higher education and inhibiting the growth of engineering colleges are numerous and vast in scope. The survival of engineering programs across the nation require concerted efforts toward creative thinking and innovative solutions. The higher education community most likely to develop such solutions is comprised of in positions of executive administration. WEAAP, or Women Engineers in Advanced Academic Positions, was a workshop convened not only to address these concerns, but also to consider how issues of bias affecting women in engineering play a role in undermining the success of engineering colleges as a whole. The following paper provides an initial report of this gathering, expanding on the framing and defining of the problems colleges of engineering face, and on the strategies exchanged to address them. While this content is not exhaustive, it does provide groundwork for further study, and provides a comprehensive understanding of the aims and objectives of the WEAAP network.