Work in progress - gender and leadership: The creation of a graduate course

Abstract

Using as the initial foundation a new undergraduate course offered through Purdue University's Entrepreneurship Program called “Women and Leadership”, a much needed graduate course on “Gender and Leadership” was developed. Benchmarking of similar courses was incorporated with a literature search related to gender, leadership, and the intersection of the two. These areas are of high importance to the future of engineering education in relation to diversity and skills. The resulting course examines gender and leadership as well as their intersections and their relevance to the lives of engineers and engineering educators. The course explores the social constructions of gender, gendered organizations, gendered leadership, obstacles to women's full participation in leadership positions, the intersections of gender with race, ethnicity, class and those effects on leadership, and a framework for gender equity. Students have the opportunity to explore facets of diversity (gender, race, and ethnicity) and its affect on the majority and non-majority populations with respect to leadership positions, particularly within an engineering professional context.