The Suburban Times

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Strengthening the Pipeline from Service to STEM

By

Submitted by Connie Coleman-Lacadie.

Women veterans bring many strengths to the civilian workforce, such as leadership, teamwork, and problem-solving skills, as well as resilience and persistence. Education Development Center (EDC) has been funded by theNational Science Foundation (NSF) to examine how to leverage the unique strengths of women veterans to address barriers to their (re) engagement in the STEM workforce by hosting a virtual convening (register here) on this topic. 

We are inviting you to this virtual convening to help us identify and prioritize strategies to develop and leverage existing services and stimulate new ideas to provide more targeted outreach to engage, train, and retain women veterans in the STEM workforce.

The objectives of the convening are to:

  • Provide an overview of the project, its goals, and the importance of engaging women veterans on the STEM Workforce.
  • Build a common understanding of the landscape of assets and challenges faced by women veterans in the four focus areas.
  • Make recommendations to address barriers to engaging women veterans in the STEM Workforce.
  • Identify and prioritize opportunities to scale recommendations related to policies, practices and funding needs for multiple key stakeholder audiences. 

Keynote Speakers:

The schedule and topics for the convening are:

  • March 2, 2021 1:00–4:30 EST: The Future of Women Vets in STEM Plenary where participants will be provided an overview of the project and hear from four nationally recognized women veterans on their experiences transitioning from service to the workforce in Ted Talk-style keynote addresses.
  • March 3, 2021, 1:00–3:00 EST: Transition Services and STEM Workforce Development (concurrent) Work Group Discussions and Recommendations where participants will have the opportunity to provide and prioritize recommendations to address barriers and leverage strengths in one of these focus areas.
  • March 4, 2021, 1:00–3:00 EST: STEM Education and Health and Well-being (concurrent) Work Group Discussions and Recommendations where participants will have the opportunity to provide and prioritize recommendations to address barriers and leverage strengths in one of these focus areas.
  • March 5, 2021, 1:00–4:00 EST: Work Group Summaries, Discussant Panels, and Next Steps where a panel of employers, federal agencies, and our convening chairs will discuss recommendations from the previous days and participants will have an opportunity to ask questions and provide input on the recommendations. 

STEM Industry Panel

Federal Agency Panel

  • Meg O’Grady, National Veterans’ Employment Manager, Department of Labor VETS
  • Tamre Newton, Director, Military-Civilian Transition Office, Department of Defense
  • Amy Street, Deputy Director of the Women’s Health Sciences Division of the Department of Veterans Affairs National Center for PTSD

Convening Chair Panel

  • Dr. Anthony Dean, Assistant Dean for Research, Batten College of Engineering and Technology at Old Dominion University
  • Dr. Tomika Greer, Assistant Professor and Undergraduate Program Coordinator in the College of Technology at the University of Houston
  • Rosalinda Vasquez Maury, Director of Applied Research and Analytics at the Institute of Veterans and Military Families (IVMF) at Syracuse University
  • Micah Taylor, Air National Guard Education and Training Manager and Idaho Area Manager, Hire Heroes USA

Participants will also be invited to join optional networking sessions prior to the start of each day hosted by STEM workforce industry representatives.

We hope you will join us at this virtual convening and help us to strengthen and scale the impact of existing initiatives to support women veterans’ success in the STEM Workforce.

Comments

  2. Thank you Connie. Thank you Suburban Times…for amplifying this event to better serve my fellow women veterans.

    I look forward to serving as keynote speaker on March 2nd to kick off this Convening, with success stories of women veterans who have made (and who are currently making) the transition into STEM careers as civilians. I can’t to inspire and inform with Best Practices that have worked for US.