2025 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Understanding Participant Engagement in a Large-Scale Mentoring Program for Women Undergraduate Engineering Students

Presented at Systemic and Policy Issues affecting Women Engineers

There is a lack of representation of women in engineering throughout all academic levels, with less than 30% of women earning bachelor’s degrees, and in the workforce, where less than 20% of working engineers identify as women. Commonly identified reasons for the disparity between men and women in the field include gender stereotyping, the lack of representation, and the absence of same-gendered mentorship opportunities. Once women choose to pursue an undergraduate degree in engineering, targeted programmatic curricula could be implemented to boost retention. It has been long known that mentoring proves to be beneficial to students and is an important method to increase retention. The 2019 National Academy of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine report on the Science of Effective Mentoring in STEMM (https://doi.org/10.17226/25568) described the science behind the success of mentoring programs showing that students with a mentor are more likely to succeed in their major. Moreover, they found that women mentees who were paired with women mentors had a higher chance of a positive experience in the workplace due to the shared relational struggles faced.

The Midwest University Women in Engineering Program has been offering mentoring opportunities for women undergraduate students since 1993. The first cohort had 50 participants that were in a paired peer mentoring relationship (where first-year students were paired with an upperclass student). Now, three decades later, the program offers support, affirmation, and strategies to more than 1,000 participants through a network-mentoring model where all participants (undergraduate women engineering students) can learn from one another.

This two-year longitudinal study (2022-2023 and 2023-2024) used the MUSIC (eMpowerment, Usefulness, Success, Interest, and Caring) Model of Motivation to understand 111 participants’ external motivation for engagement with the mentoring activities based on academic standing (first-year, sophomore, junior, senior) and type of mentoring relationship. We will also outline the administrative structure of the mentoring program including a the specific duties and roles of the administrative staff and student leadership team.

Authors

Dr. Mayari I. Serrano http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1033-6459 Purdue University at West Lafayette (PPI) [biography]

Mayari Serrano Anazco is a visiting clinical assistant professor in the Honors College at Purdue University. She earned her Bachelor's degree in Biotechnology Engineering at Ecuador's Army Polytechnic School and her Master's and Ph.D. degrees in Computer and Information Technology from Purdue University. In 2018, she and Dr. Suzanne Zurn-Birkhimer and Dr. Beth M. Holloway were conferred the Susan Bulkeley Butler Research Fellowship Award. After obtaining her Ph.D., she was appointed as the first post-doctoral fellow of the Women in Engineering Program at Purdue University.
Mayari Serrano has worked towards increasing women's participation in technology and engineering for over eight years previous coming to the John Martinson Honors College. She has authored, co-authored, implemented, and assessed learning activities, outreach activities, and workshops focused on modifying negative attitudes towards technology and engineering and increasing knowledge of several topics of STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics).
Mayari Serrano's research focuses on commercial and educational technologies' effect on teaching, learning, diversity, and inclusion. Her publications show interdisciplinary interest and cover multimodal learning environments, embodied cognition, complex concepts, user experience, spatial abilities, gender bias, gender stereotypes, e-mentoring, sense of belonging, campus climate, and exergaming.
Dr. Suzanne Zurn-Birkhimer Purdue University at West Lafayette (COE) [biography]

Dr. Suzanne Zurn-Birkhimer is Associate Director of the Women in Engineering Program and Associate Professor (by courtesy) in the Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences at Purdue University. She conducts research around student success.
Elyse K. Zurawski Purdue University at West Lafayette (COE) [biography]

Elyse Zurawski earned her Bachelor of Science in Biomedical Engineering and Certificate in Collaborative Leadership in May 2024 and her Master of Science in Biomedical Engineering in May 2025. Zurawski is currently a Graduate Assistant for Purdue University’s Women in Engineering Program. Her work focuses on developing effective methods of pairing mentors with mentees and measuring program success in student retention.
Lavanya Swaminathan Purdue University at West Lafayette (COE) [biography]

Lavanya is a Graduate Research Assistant for the Women in Engineering Program at Purdue University - West Lafayette, where she is researching participant engagement and how to optimize mentor-mentee pairings. She earned her Bachelor’s degree in Aeronautical and Astronautical Engineering at Purdue University and is currently pursuing her Master’s degree in Aeronautics and Astronautics, for which her research focuses on fracture mechanics models for composite materials. She hopes to pursue a career in developing cutting-edge composite materials for aerospace applications.

Note

The full paper will be available to logged in and registered conference attendees once the conference starts on June 22, 2025, and to all visitors after the conference ends on June 25, 2025

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