Engineering transformation with Christine Dearmont
McKelvey’s Engineering the Future podcast kicks off a new season focused on women in engineering with guest Christine Dearmont
On this episode of Engineering the Future, Christine Dearmont, director of WashU's Women & Engineering Center, discusses how her work with the WE Center supports women as they become successful engineers and future changemakers.
Learn more about the Women & Engineering Center, and support their mission.
TRANSCRIPT
Christine Dearmont: When I learned about this role, for the first time in my life, I thought, "That's what I'm supposed to do."
Shawn Ballard: Hello, this is Engineering the Future, a podcast from the McKelvey School of Engineering. I am your host, Shawn Ballard, science writer at McKelvey, and today I am here with the lovely Christine Dearmont, the director of McKelvey's Women & Engineering Center, also known as the WE Center.
CD: Thank you. Good morning, Shawn.
SB: Christine, tell me about the Women & Engineering Center. How did it come to be, and what is your mission?
CD: Yeah, so the Women & Engineering Center actually was formed after a decade-long initiative. It started with some alums who said, "We want something different for women, for our students, for our alums."
And so with the approval and support of Dean Bobick and the help of University Advancement, they just started a small mentor program. And over a decade that really began to grow, Dr. Emily Boyd came on and she helped internally to create some light programming. And then eventually it created so much momentum that they realized we could create a center.
We are on a mission to create a community where all engineers can thrive.
SB: So you came in 2022. What drew you to this position? What made you look at this new Women & Engineering Center and say, "I absolutely have to be the director of that. That is the thing that I must do."
CD: Shawn, that's a great question. When I learned about this role, for the first time in my life, I thought, "That's what I'm supposed to do." I had goosebumps on my arms and I'm not kidding, for the first six months in this role, I would still get those goosebumps. I still do sometimes today where I am so just in -- I'm in it, right?
This, the mission of what we're trying to do truly will transform lives. And it's not just for women. I'm thinking about the future of the world because engineers are innovators and inventors, right? They are the people who will create the technologies and the interventions and the things that we need to move forward. And it's critical that women are represented and can thrive in that area.
SB: Absolutely. I love that. Just have a moment to… yes, women, please come join.
CD: Please.
SB: So you're doing this amazing work, right? That's going to be so critical, not just for our school and how we're moving forward, but how we're really thinking about future change makers, right? And you've mentioned this a few times that there are mentorship programs, there have been other programs that have built over the years. What are those offerings? What are the main programs that you have for students coming in and wanting to connect with you and connect with the center?
CD: So we are, we are working towards our mission using three main strategic pillars. So it's mentoring, leadership development, and shared experiences.
Our mentor program, like I said, that's really our flagship program, which is a one-to-one matching program with a student and an alum. But we've actually grown that. So now we also do mentoring roundtables, where we just try and get as many exposures to women role models for our students as possible, as well as theme mentoring, which is very similar to the roundtable, but it's around a topic and we'll have a handful of women there to talk and mentor our students.
And then we also have peer-to-peer mentoring, so that's one that we're trying to break into a little bit more moving forward this academic year.
And then leadership development. We do that. That's open to everyone. However, I have a leadership society who really leans into that to earn a milestone credential.
And then shared experiences. That's just all about bonding, right? We need to know each other as human beings. And so we're building that in more and more, even considering going to a basketball game this year together. So it's not always something that's completely formal, but it's something that the students ask for and they say it helps.
SB: What is the best thing about your job?
CD: I love my job. I'm so lucky. The best thing about my job is those moments when you see students transform. So when you meet them, perhaps they're just trying to find their confidence, trying to find themselves. And then later on in the year, or even for example at graduation this year, we were both there. I had students walk up to me and give me a big hug and they are just a completely different person in the best way possible. Maybe not a different person, but they are confident in the person who they are. And it's just so gratifying.
SB: I love that. And graduation that really brings up Jennifer Coolidge telling us, “You are already everything that you need to be,” so it seems like you really get a front row seat to seeing students grow into that and realize that for themselves.
CD: Great analogy. Yes. If only I could say it like Jennifer Coolidge.
SB: Right? If only we all could.
CD: Right.
SB: Okay, so those are the best things and you're doing this amazing work. You're seeing the students blossom and thrive and come into their own. What about the other side? What are the biggest challenges facing either you as the director or the center itself? What challenges are you thinking about right now and what are you going to be overcoming in these next, say, few years?
CD: Sure. So, you know, anytime you build something new, you have to make decisions about how you can make the biggest impact towards reaching your mission versus when something has been around for a long time. It's just smaller tweaks, right? You kind of just track the data and you make changes. So decision making in that regard is a constant challenge, but also thinking about resources, right?
I have this constant, just urgent feeling to need to reach more students and to deepen the impact on each one of those lives. And you can only do that with a small staff. So I have me and a part-time assistant. Now we do have a huge network of volunteers, so our mentors. Thank you to all of our mentors. But, you know, it takes time and it takes work. And so I would say the biggest challenge is finding the resources.
And then the next is helping our students, not just today, but thrive after they graduate, right? So looking at those statistics, for example, preparing them for the unconscious bias and the microaggressions that then turn into shielding and, you know, not feeling like yourself, right? So we want students to, or future alums, to thrive as engineers.
The other piece is then thinking about, well, how do we help them take off, right? And so there's the missing rung that they say where entry-level technical workers, women, are not promoted at nearly the same rate as men. In fact, there's a study, I want to say it was two or three years ago, that said that for every 100 male technical worker that was promoted to a manager level, only 52 women were promoted. And so it's really thinking about why that is and what we can do to prepare them.
SB: Yeah, and what are you thinking in terms of those solutions? I feel like that's something that, you know, you hear even as a woman in, you know, sort of science adjacent, right? I encounter a lot of women scientists in my work and I'm very fortunate in that way. But the fact remains that I encounter a lot more men scientists, right, who've moved up and have gotten to this level. How are you addressing that missing rung? Like what sort of tools are you giving our students, our future alums, who are going out there to be able to deal with that and to tackle that?
CD: Yeah, you know, it's really through the strategic pillars that I mentioned. So it's not just the leadership development, it's also the mentoring and the shared experiences. Having a community should not be, we need to make sure that we value that, right? Because you need validation, you need to go back and have people to call on.
But the leadership development is an obvious piece of it, where it's important to, and the science says, you know, the more we can talk about what you may, encounter, right, anticipate that, the better we can prepare them to thrive when those things happen, because we can't prevent it.
So we have bigger events that talk about these things and WE Day talks about, we have our alums come in and they tell a really cool story about a time that they've overcome a non-technical challenge in their career and then gone on to thrive. So it's also just showing it's okay to have hard times and there are all sorts of different ways to work through that, different strategies. So we have big events like that and then we have small workshops throughout the year that we also integrate into what we're doing.
We also had students tell their story about the moment that they knew they wanted to be an engineer, so kind of developing that sense of belonging. And the way we found that was through a storytelling workshop. Yeah, it's really important to be able to tell your story and speak up. So it was great, it was a great source of information as well as just helping our students with that skill.
SB: Alright, so you've told me all these amazing things about the center and the work you're doing. What do you wish more people knew about the center? What do they not know? What's not out there on your website? What is just not getting enough attention and you really wish, hey, when you think of the Women & Engineering Center, this is the thing I want you to think about it.
CD: Well, we often abbreviate it to the WE Center, WE Day because it really is meant to be an inclusive place, a place for women and allies to thrive. Women can't thrive without allies and sponsors, right? And difference makes a difference, so it helps everyone.
What I wish more people knew, so from students in that regard, it's one we're not competition, and we are here to help you and the more you lean in, the more you'll get out of it. From everyone else in the community, it's that volunteers, we need you! Role models are incredibly important and they're a difference maker. And then resources, the sooner we can have more staff, the bigger impact we can have.
SB: Okay, I feel like we need to, like, for the camera. It's for everybody. The WE Center is for everybody. And please come, welcome, hang out with us!
All these things that you're doing that sound amazing, and I wish I could come hang out with you.
CD: You should.
SB: I will.
CD: It's for everyone.
SB: It's for everyone. It's for me too! What resources do you wish people were taking more advantage of? I mean, besides me coming to your events, what do you wish more people were doing and participating in for these great things that you offer?
CD: You know, growth takes commitment. And so I wish that more students would really lean into this opportunity. What I mean by that is we have a huge mentor program and it's fantastic, but I can't say with confidence that every single student leans into it and comes prepared for those conversations. So you'll only get in as much as you, you'll only get as much as you put into it. So just leaning in because it will make a difference in our students' lives.
SB: Okay. Yeah. And what might that look like if you were saying, you know, students come on down. It's for everyone. But then when you're here, we need you to lean in. What does that look like for a typical McKelvey student?
CD: For mentoring, it's preparing, right? So sometimes it's hard to know what you want to get out of mentoring, right? But just think about what is a challenge that you're trying to overcome or what is something that you're curious about that you could ask this mentor. But it's also just as simple as sending that first email to connect. That can be pretty hard and intimidating. So just letting our students know that, you know, mentors were students at one point. And the reason why they're mentors is because they want to know our students and they want to help them. They want to give back.
SB: With this mentoring that's going on, they're engaged, they're volunteers, they're from our alumni network. But do you find that, you know, are our students intimidated to talk to them? Do they feel like they're, you know, in some ways maybe not authorized or don't have what they already need to go into that conversation, which would be really sad because you're going into the conversation to get more of the things you need. But is that one of the holdups for them for not being able to lean in as much as you want them to?
CD: It can happen. Yeah. You know, there's so much pressure on women to perform, right? To be right and prepared all the time. And so to be vulnerable and reach out to a highly successful engineer that is probably someone who you look up to just by seeing their title, right? That can be very intimidating. And so, yes, we do see that, not with every student, but it's a hump that we try to overcome and we try to prepare students for.
What's, you know, I also hear it from mentors, right? And so they say, you know, it's okay, you know, if they, if you say something incorrectly, right? If you have a typo in your email, we'll get through that, right? Just reach out. Let me know when you're available.
SB: So you've done all these amazing things. What are your proudest moments as director so far? You've been only doing this a couple of years, so it may be a little soon, but it seems like you've done a lot in that time. What are those best, brightest, proudest moments for you?
CD: It's those moments of transformation that I mentioned, you know. There's some students, they come and they're a bright shining star and confident. And this is just something that helps them further along and prepare. There's other students who really have to do the work in order to get there. And those moments are so rewarding when either you just see it happen, right? Or they say it, whether it's in our surveys or at graduation, right? It's just so gratifying. It's the small moments that are the big ones to me.
SB: I love that. Okay, moments of transformation, which brings us to our next one. What is next for the Women & Engineering Center? You mentioned that it's new, so there are still bigger things happening. Do you have your own moments of transformation coming up?
CD: Oh, I like how you said that. You know, one that is guaranteed is we're going, just doing a small construction project. I'm excited we're expanding our reception area, which we'll just make it so we can deepen community building in a more serendipitous collision type way, right? See people a little bit more often.
What I'm really working towards is as we have more resources and staff, I have curriculum ready to go for leadership development, right? And thinking about the whole life cycle of a student where, you know, their first year all the way through PhD, what is it that we can help them begin to develop over time? And one, being very confident in their self, right? Who am I as a person? Because if you can't center there, it's going to be very hard to kind of take all the other challenges that come with being a woman engineer. So that's a piece of it.
And then beginning to infuse the whole, you know, influencing without authority and negotiation and then defining who you want to be as a leader. These aren't things that a one-time workshop is going to teach you. It's going to expose you to it, right? And I want these to be lifetime learnings, or at least learnings that help you get through that first seven years of your career. That can be very transformational. So that's really what's next on deck, is just deepening everything that we're doing.
SB: Okay, I love that. You’re engineering transformation, as it were.
CD: Sure, I love that.
SB: Okay, so for fun in closing, Christine, what is your top media recommendation right now? What TV, movie, music, whatever you've got, what have you been really enjoying lately?
CD: You know, I've gotten really into the Be the Way Forward podcast. It's run by the Anita Borg organization who is behind the Grace Hopper Celebration Conference. So women in computing. It's just really great. They bring on, it's almost like their podcast is a podcast version of the Women & Engineering Center. So they bring in tons of just engineering role models to hear from. And sometimes they just talk about their work they're doing, but they also talk about, they do some leadership development and then, you know, add the lens of being a woman or just a person with diverse intersectionalities. It's just, it's run really well. It's a great podcast.
The other is, my husband sent me this old album. It's like three years old, but I've just heard it for the first time by Katie Pruitt. I don't know if you’re familiar? And there's a song on it called “Georgia.” And it is just such a beautiful song about sort of the challenge between knowing who you are and then perhaps not knowing how that fits into a larger community and loving yourself and just the kind of universal idea of love. It's just, it's a beautiful song. So I recommend it.
SB: Amazing. Thank you. I will check out both of those.
Thank you so much, Christine. This was amazing. I am very much looking forward to joining you at the next WE Center event.
CD: Awesome. Thank you, Shawn. I had so much fun, and I will see you at WE Day.
SB: Perfect.
