Karen Zunkel was in a dilemma when deciding what to major in at Iowa State. She liked both science and math, so she looked into studying biochemistry, but as a high school newspaper editor, she also had an interest in journalism. She didn’t consider studying in the less traditional field of engineering and didn’t even know what engineers did.

Zunkel grew up in Ames, and before starting college, Arthur Bergles, the chairman of the mechanical engineering department at Iowa State at the time, approached her at church.

“He was desperately trying to get some women into the mechanical engineering department,” she said.

Bergles encouraged her to study engineering and with a large incentive — a scholarship to Iowa State.

“He had a scholarship to offer to a female entering mechanical engineering, but there were none,” she said.

After researching the curriculum and visiting with Bergles about different career tracks, she accepted.

Zunkel said she didn’t feel suited for mechanical engineering and eventually switched to industrial.

She graduated in 1983 with an industrial engineering degree and is now the director of the Program for Women in Science and Engineering at Iowa State.

According to the Iowa State Program for Women in Science and Engineering 2002-03 Annual Report, in 1997, 2,642 undergraduate women were majoring in science and engineering at Iowa State.

This increased for four years, up to 2,803 in 2001, but then dropped to 2,775 the next year. Officials did not have a specific answer for the decline.

“The whole image of what an engineer is needs to be dispelled,” Zunkel said.

This is the only way for the number of women in the engineering field to become even with men, she said.

In the 2003 fall semester at Iowa State, 167 freshmen females, compared to 892 freshmen males, enrolled in the College of Engineering, according to the Office of Admissions’ Annual Statistical Report Fall 2003.

Zunkel said 16 percent of Iowa State’s engineering college is currently female. The probability of engineering becoming a gender-balanced field depends on students with potential and interest in the field to not only consider it, but also explore it, she said.

“The lofty goals of 50-50 will probably not happen in my lifetime,” Zunkel said. “I think it’s taking longer for engineering than we hope because there are more stereotypes to break.”

The Program for Women in Science and Engineering does outreach to girls in grades K-12. Sixth- to 12th-grade girls attend “The Road Less Traveled” career conferences in which they tour Iowa State’s campus, do hands-on activities in engineering laboratories and meet undergraduate student and professional role models. Zunkel said anywhere from 150 to 600 girls come to each of the conferences.

“[The outreach program] does have an effect, but it’s hard to quantify,” Zunkel said. “The feedback is that it is effective on a short-term basis, but it’s hard to track in the long term.”

The other aspect of the Program for Women in Science and Engineering is the retention of college females within nontraditional fields. Women in Science and Engineering, or WiSE, is made up of eight Iowa State residence hall floors that help females in science and engineering develop networks of support — both academically and socially — with other females in the same major.

Developed specifically for first-year students, the program has expanded to accommodate second- and third-year students. Zunkel said engineering females make up about half of this year’s WiSE participants.

Douglas Epperson, interim associate dean for liberal arts and sciences and professor of psychology, has researched the retention and attraction of women in science and engineering.

Epperson said the WiSE learning communities have had a “profound impact on retention” of women in science and engineering. WiSE participants have 81 percent retention in the science field, whereas nonparticipants have 62 percent retention, he said.

Research conducted by Epperson and colleagues has found variables that encourage men and women to choose science and engineering majors are remarkably similar. Individuals with higher mathematical ability, mathematical confidence, interest in the course work and attraction to a career in the field are most likely to persist in a science or engineering major, whether female or male.

He said there are additional things women experience that make choosing and persevering in nontraditional areas of study more difficult. Epperson said women experience significantly more role conflict than men. He said men’s roles are defined by work, while women’s roles are defined in regard to caregiving and homemaking responsibilities.

“Historically, there is that division of labor,” Epperson said. “When women are young, they blow off the role conflict; they feel they can do anything.”

As women get closer to college graduation, aspirations for having a professional career conflict with the expected role of being a devoted wife and mother, he said.

It took Judy Vance switching her major, quitting school, selling dresses at Younkers and listening to her sister’s advice to finally travel down the engineering path.

Vance, chairwoman of mechanical engineering, said being one of only a few women in mechanical engineering at Iowa State was a non-issue, even though she graduated with only four other women.

After receiving her bachelor’s degree in 1980, Vance went on to work at John Deere Des Moines Works in Ankeny.

“This is where I really saw a difference,” she said.

Vance recalled one of her first days on the job when a male co-worker sat on her desk and said to her, “‘Did you know you’re taking a man’s job?'”

“I was shocked. I didn’t understand it — I didn’t deserve the same job?” she said.

The support of John Deere supervisors who wanted Vance to be treated fairly is what made her five years with the company tolerable, she said.

Vance said most people are not aware of how few women faculty members and leaders are in the engineering field.

“Women don’t self-identify themselves as leaders,” she said. “We need to sell engineering differently. We need to sell it as a profession that you can help people with … and not just build things with.”