For Immediate Release
Date: Febuary 15, 2005
Contact: Brad Mitchell
Phone: 312-353-4807
U.S. Department of Labor’s Women’s Bureau Announces St. Paul Program to Promote Young Women in Science, Engineering and Technology
CHICAGO – Students from Arlington and Highland High Schools, St. Paul, Minn., will begin participation this week in the Girls E-Mentoring in Science, Engineering & Technology (GEM-SET) program. Created in 2001 by the U.S. Department of Labor’s Women’s Bureau, the program encourages girls age 13-18 to consider careers in science, engineering and technology.
GEM-SET matched teen girls with volunteer women mentors in the fields of science, engineering and technology via email and also featured a website to help increase the awareness of the economic benefits and career options available in these fields. The Women’s Bureau is currently working with interested parties who plan to replicate or adapt GEM-SET to serve the educational needs of their communities.
One such adaptation will begin Thursday, Feb. 17 as Guidant Corporation and St. Paul Public Schools launch their Girls E-Mentoring at Guidant (GEM-Guidant) program. Junior and senior high school students will have the opportunity to tour the Guidant facility; participate in hands-on activities designed to help them and their mentors get acquainted; and gain real insight into potential careers in science, engineering and technology. The event begins at 9:00 a.m. at Guidant Corporation, 4100 Hamline Avenue North.
The Women’s Bureau’s Chicago Regional Administrator Nancy Chen; Tene Wills, president of Women’s Venture, St. Paul; and Guidant Corporation representatives will attend the opening event.
Students participating are juniors and seniors from Arlington and Highland High Schools who have shown an interest in, or high potential aptitude for, careers connected to the three fields. The project will be managed through Women Venture, an economic development organization for girls and women based in St. Paul. If successful, GEM-Guidant may be replicated in other Guidant offices and corporate settings across the country.
GEM-Guidant was inspired by the GEM-SET project, which was expanded nationwide in 2002 and served more than 1,300 girls in 35 states. Additional information about GEM-SET may be found online at the Women’s Bureau website at http://www.dol.gov/wb/. The University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) is continuing GEM-SET as part of the pre-college mentoring efforts of the university’s Women in Science and Engineering (WISE) program.
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