Media Releases

Westchester Businesses Join Conference
Supporting Middle School Girls From Across County

Now in it’s third year, the Expanding Your Horizons™ (EYH™) in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) conference is enjoying a dramatic increase in corporate sponsorship.

Area businesses are showing their support for EYH™ by sending employees to lead the workshops, making in-kind donations and sending checks. IBM, Entergy, Estee Lauder and River Deep all have employees who will be giving up their Saturday morning on March 11 to spend time with 150 7th grade girls and their parents and teachers. All workshop leaders bring their own supplies for the workshop and resource room, where information about STEM careers, at-home activities and organizations will be available.

A New Year – A New Opportunity for 7th-grade Girls in STEM

Girls across Westchester County are being invited to start the new year making a unique resolution of sorts – to keeping their career options open.

The first step is the American Association of University Women (AAUW) Westchester Branch’s Expanding Your Horizons™ in Math, Science and Technology Conference, hosted together with AAUW New York City Branch and Barnard College. Letters to all Middle School Principals in the county went out this week with registration information and an outline of the third annual conference to be held March 11, 2006 at Barnard College in Manhattan.

It’s Still A Pink And Blue World:
Cosmetology For Girls, Carpentry For Boys

High school career and technical education programs haven’t progressed much since the days when girls were required to take home economics and boys were required to enroll in shop, according to Tools of the Trade, a report released last week by the National Women’s Law Center.

The comprehensive report – and 12 state-specific toolkits – examines girls’ participation in career and technical education (CTE) programs that are nontraditional for their gender. The report finds that, in spite of the 33-year-old Title IX law that prohibits sex discrimination in education, girls still represent the vast majority of students in traditionally female fields and boys are nearly all the students enrolled in traditionally male programs – a pattern virtually unchanged over the last three decades.

AAUW Westchester Branch Invites Community to Panel Discussion

To help parents and teachers combat middle school girls distancing themselves from math, science and technology courses, American Association of University Women (AAUW) Westchester Branch, will be holding a panel discussion. The meeting will be held at the Blythedale Children’s Hospital in Valhalla on October 5 at 6:00 pm and is open to the public.

After a screening of Tech Savvy Girls, a short video hosted by Dr. Mae Jemison, president of the Jemison Group and former NASA astronaut (space shuttle Endeavor, 1992), participants will learn how to identify the patterns and situations that girls face and discuss intervention strategies.