[FRC Blog] Something New - SWE Grant

[Hallry]

Posted on the FRC Blog, 10/31/14: http://www.usfirst.org/roboticsprogr...-New-SWE-Grant

Something New - SWE Grant

Blog Date: Friday, October 31, 2014 - 08:27

Guest blogging this week is Carla Proulx from FIRST Marketing. Many of you may remember Carla from her FRC days but she is now the FIRST Alliance Manager, cultivating national Strategic Alliance relationships that play a key role in our success by creating teams, engaging mentors and most importantly, helping FIRST reach more students than ever before.

HOLA Teams and thank you Frank for the opportunity to share some exciting news with the FRC community.

I’m pleased to announce a brand new grant that is now open and available to both rookie and veteran FRC teams in the USA. Through the generosity of the Motorola Foundation and in collaboration with the Society of Women Engineers (SWE), this grant is meant to distinguish teams in the FRC program for their efforts in creating (rookie) or maintaining (veteran) team gender equality while additionally recognizing a woman driver within their ranks for her qualifications to represent the team in such an important capacity.

Additional details:

• Grant is in the amount of $1,000;
• Grant is eligible for re-grant and can be used for 2nd events;
• Submission deadline is 11:59PM EST on Friday, November 14th, 2014; and
• Email notification of grantees will be on November 21st, 2014.

The detailed qualifications/requirements along with the link to apply can be found here:

https://usfirst.submittable.com/submit/2b4381a2-e4a7-45f7-944f-55b52b5c4e07

FIRST is thrilled to collaborate with SWE on this groundbreaking grant and look forward to receiving team applications. Questions regarding this grant should be directed to submittable@usfirst.org and teams should reference SWE Grant.

Good Luck!

Carla

About SWE

For more than six decades, the Society of Women Engineers (SWE) has been the driving force that establishes engineering as a highly desirable career aspiration for women. A not-for-profit educational and service organization, SWE empowers women to succeed and advance in those aspirations and receive the recognition and credit for their life-changing contributions and achievements as engineers and leaders. Visit www.swe.org to learn more about this valued Strategic Alliance.

[Lil' Lavery]

The driver requirement is leaving me scratching my head. Why must "driver" be the leadership position they chose for this grant? There are plenty of other high profile leadership positions on a team, many of which carry far greater responsibility than driver. Not to mention, many teams don't select their drivers for the upcoming competition season in November, so applying for this grant would handicap their ability to select drivers later down the line.

Seems like a silly requirement for an otherwise good grant.

[Libby K]

Originally Posted by Lil' Lavery

The driver requirement is leaving me scratching my head. Why must "driver" be the leadership position they chose for this grant? There are plenty of other high profile leadership positions on a team, many of which carry far greater responsibility than driver. Not to mention, many teams don't select their drivers for the upcoming competition season in November, so applying for this grant would handicap their ability to select drivers later down the line.

Seems like a silly requirement for an otherwise good grant.

I've had a couple of discussions elsewhere online on this one too. I'm going to copy/paste what I've said elsewhere with some edits for wording/clarity, but whatever. Here goes...

--

Being totally honest here, I think this is pretty poorly defined and SEVERAL steps backwards.

1) Requiring a female driver. Why? If a driver is good they're on drive team, it shouldn't matter their gender. (This is my same point about everything on teams. Be special because you're useful, not because you're female.) Also, being a robot driver doesn't necessarily make you a leader, but it does make you a joystick monkey. Require a female captain if you're going for leadership; and even then, it’s a silly idea. Good concept, bad execution.

The problem with this is teams will just throw a female human player in there for the free money. "How many matches does the 'token girl' have to be in for me to get my grant?" Will most teams do this? Hopefully not, but it's an easy way to game the system, and a super-ineffective way of getting women to be actual leaders.

2) The 50/50 ratio. What about teams that are 51/49? 40/60? Do I need exactly 25 male and 25 female students to qualify? Where's the cutoff for 'roughly half and half'. Again, this doesn't do much for actually encouraging women in engineering, it just encourages women on the roster. Not every student on a FIRST team is a robot-centric person, and that's okay too! Not to mention, some teams may have already solidified their roster, so there's not much they can do about that qualification anymore.

The only thing I really do like about this is teams having a plan for encouraging diversity. IMO, the qualification for this grant should be the 'best'/most effective diversity initiatives and not 'throw a girl in your team's spotlight so you can get some money'. We have enough of a team-culture-issue accusing teams of that already without this grant aggravating the problem.

[MechEng83]

Originally Posted by Libby K

Being totally honest here, I think this is pretty poorly defined and SEVERAL steps backwards....

+1 on this. Thank you for articulating a viewpoint with which I wholeheartedly agree.

In order to meet the 50/50 criteria, I have to cut half of my team or 2/3 of the boys. Frankly, $1000 isn't worth that, nor is it worth the addition of 32 more people (girls or boys) to a large roster. Also, what if a team is 100% girls? Do they not qualify because it's not a 50/50 split? Is the SWE organization insightful enough to know what names are girls' and boys' names from a roster?

Last year, 2/3 of our top leadership spots were females, even though the team was 1/3 girls. Last year's human player was a female - does that count as a driver? 2 years ago, the girl who eventually became team captain was drive coach - does that count as a driver?

We run programs in the elementary and middle school level to encourage girls to develop STEM skills and gain an interest in pursuing technical education/careers. Does that count for something?

[cadandcookies]

I'm sure for the teams that qualify, this will be a nice source of funding, but I'm not sure many will, and I also don't entirely understand the rationale behind some of the requirements-- if a team is 50/50, isn't it a decent assumption that they're already pretty solid in terms of recruitment diversity and awareness of the issue? It seems to me like two grants were mashed together to make this one-- one for teams pursuing gender equality in their team and another for those who achieved it.

I do however applaud SWE and FIRST for putting this together-- it's always nice to see new partner organizations and funding sources appear.

[Steven Donow]

Originally Posted by Libby K

The problem with this is teams will just throw a female human player in there for the free money. "How many matches does the 'token girl' have to be in for me to get my grant?" Will most teams do this? Hopefully not, but it's an easy way to game the system, and a super-ineffective way of getting women to be actual leaders.

Agreed. They don't really define how this will be enforced other than saying pit admin will "verify" it. Let's also theoretically say that 'someone' will verify it during a match. What if my female driver happens to be a chairman's presenter and is missing that match? What if, assuming we need a female driver for all of our events, she ends up being unable to attend an event?

"Driver" being the distinction for a female leadership sounds very arbitrary when there are other (and, arguably more significant) leadership positions that a girl can hold on a team.

[ebarker]

Our team has a solid and positive record on diversity issues, with a solid track record of converting non-prior inclined young women into pursuing engineering and science careers. We send more girls than boys into engineering. The girls are dominate in most every aspect of the team.

We are doing well regarding diversity. For several reasons this initiative is too flawed as it currently exists. Having said that, we will not be submitting for this grant.

I'll discuss it offline if needed.

Ed

[AdamHeard]

By essentially only rewarding those that already meet a final goal, change isn't promoted.

As written, this grant doesn't really encourage teams to shift towards these goals.

Not the most efficient way to throw money around.

[Andrew Schreiber]

Originally Posted by Steven Donow

Agreed. They don't really define how this will be enforced other than saying pit admin will "verify" it. Let's also theoretically say that 'someone' will verify it during a match. What if my female driver happens to be a chairman's presenter and is missing that match? What if, assuming we need a female driver for all of our events, she ends up being unable to attend an event?

"Driver" being the distinction for a female leadership sounds very arbitrary when there are other (and, arguably more significant) leadership positions that a girl can hold on a team.

Furthermore, this grant defines Female far too loosely. Are we talking biologically female? Identifies as female? What about other cases, even dealing solely with biological gender there's more than just Male and Female...

[Shrub]

Originally Posted by Andrew Schreiber

Furthermore, this grant defines Female far too loosely. Are we talking biologically female? Identifies as female? What about other cases, even dealing solely with biological gender there's more than just Male and Female...

I think they're just assuming cis female, or identifies at female. Indicating biological sex would risk outing a student who doesn't ID as female, plus the binary can of worms.

I think that a lot of the grant should also depend on if the females in question actually feel comfortable in the enviornment. Just because you do have a solid 50:50 or what have you ratio or a female on the drive team does not mean that all or even most girls on the team feel they are given the chance to speak their mind and allowed an equal chance to participate in what they want to participate inside the team. Especially if a team does try to get this grant by placing a female on the drive team and cause resentment with other members. Then it isn't really indicative of gender equality on the team.
Hopefully the details of the grant or criteria are a lot more specific on the form. I understand why they thought it would be a good idea to create a grant like this, though.

[jman4747]

It seems that whenever you target a group of people specifically you are always working on a flawed premise. We recruit mostly based on, do you want to join & are you old enough. Really the ideal way to recruit is to recruit, not to try to recruit more of this type of person or that type of person. The best you can do is make sure you are being fair.

I also think more people need to realize a lot of disparities are affected more by social implications. Whether or not the majority of FIRST teams are fair and non-discriminatory won't do as much as the media and culture do in encouraging an individual to pursue one path or another.

[JesseK]

I'm not sure what all of the fuss in this thread is. Some of us have been working for years to get a roughly even ratio. With that, girls will naturally make their way onto and off of a drive team.

Years ago I was against organizations which gave scholarships specifically to girls entering engineering in college. Why punish males for the decisions of the females' parents? Then I had an epiphany - the parents were the root cause and the female-only scholarships were merely a residual effect of someone trying to encourage a better balance. It was at that point I really got on board with some of the non-engineering things my team does.

For a different and culture-based perspective, watch your favorite animated movie on any child-centric TV network. The TV ads that are aimed at children these days still fall along traditional gender role lines. It seems to me like there are two major ways to mitigate this: products like Goldie Blocks, or encouragement of parents to simply turn off the TV and put Legos in their daughters' hands.

Full disclosure, we've had a girl on our drive team for 2 years now. This year we'll have a girl on the drive team and most likely a girl at human player. The girl on the drive team has shown a lot of maturity since her Sophomore year, which is why she's been on the drive team for longer than any other student in our history. Along the lines of what Libby said in her post, she is there because she is a remarkable decision maker, not because she's female.

[Arpan]

I would argue that this is an issue that needs to be fought culturally on a larger scale with stronger role models and legislation that prohibits or punishes gender-bent marketing and merchandising- but not within FIRST.

I'm a firm believer in a team that does not discriminate based on gender. Our team has had (brief) issues with mentors discriminating against women on the team and made sure that it would not happen again. That said, affirmative action - which is what providing financial incentives for teams that have specific roles (e.g driver) filled by women is- replaces one form of discrimination with another.

During the Summer of 2013, I worked at NASA's goddard spaceflight center as an intern. One engineering intern I knew had been contacted for her role specifically because of her gender to keep her project in a 50/50 split. Knowing this made her feel like an impostor in her field- she was just as qualified as the men, but knowing that she had been picked for her gender made her feel otherwise.

Working actively against active discrimination by making females feel welcome is excellent. Working against stereotypes is even better. Providing a financial incentive for teams to achieve gender equality (by cutting male members or recruiting more females) or for teams to promote females to positions of authority is, in my eyes, just plain wrong.

[Caleb Sykes]

Originally Posted by Arpan

During the Summer of 2013, I worked at NASA's goddard spaceflight center as an intern. One engineering intern I knew had been contacted for her role specifically because of her gender to keep her project in a 50/50 split. Knowing this made her feel like an impostor in her field- she was just as qualified as the men, but knowing that she had been picked for her gender made her feel otherwise.

If NASA (or any other organization) believes that the "team" they are creating will be the better for having a more diverse membership, aren't they justified in hiring anyone who adds to the diversity of the team?

If you disagree with the idea that more diversity does not create better teams, that is fine, many don't. However, if you accept that some organizing bodies believe this, then their implementations make perfect sense.

[EricH]

Originally Posted by inkling16

If NASA (or any other organization) believes that the "team" they are creating will be the better for having a more diverse membership, aren't they justified in hiring anyone who adds to the diversity of the team?

If you disagree with the idea that more diversity does not create better teams, that is fine, many don't. However, if you accept that some organizing bodies believe this, then their implementations make perfect sense.

Let me put it this way:

You are competent for job X. You are hired for job X. But, if you KNOW that you were hired for job X because you were the nationality you are (and the workplace that has job X specifically needed more of your nationality), and NOT necessarily because you are the most qualified candidate for job X, is that a compliment or an insult? And, regardless of which it is, who is it directed at?




Do not take this to mean that I disagree with the idea that more diversity creates better teams. On the contrary, I agree with that idea. I choose to disagree with the point of view that forcing diversity on the teams (or other organizations) is a good thing in all cases. I could go into some cases in point, but that goes into at least one of the two areas not discussed in polite company. Suffice it to say that I like the Rooney Rule--you HAVE to consider at least one "person of different characteristics" for any open position above a certain level, but hiring them is not required. Once their foot is in the door, it's up to them to apply the leverage to finish opening it.