As Women's History Month comes to a close, we thought it would be a good time to highlight some of MSOE's own women's history, as found during some recent processing. Merine, who only had one year of high school algebra and never took chemistry or physics before enrolling at MSOE, credited a field trip to a radar installation near her hometown of Baudette, Minnesota for sparking her interest in science. She would go on to work for American College Testing in Iowa and would contribute to research on the testing of students with disabilities in the 1970s and 1980s.
Though Merine blazed a trail for future female MSOE graduates, a more enlightened era didn't happen overnight. In 1974, Judith Krueger, the first female recipient of the masters in industrial management, was commended in a memo as "not only an outstanding student" but also "attractive and personable." Even a brochure meant to encourage female applications ("The Ms. in MSOE") occasionally comes across as condescending: "Remember when things like long division and fractions and threading a sewing machine seemed terribly difficult? It's the same with engineering."
While a woman graduating from MSOE is no longer a newsworthy event, there is still a lot of progress to be made: just as women make up a minority of the MSOE student body, they are also underrepresented in STEM careers. According to census.gov, women make up 48% of the total workforce but only 23% of STEM workers. Here's to all the progress current female MSOE students are making and to a future for women in STEM that makes 2023 look like 1965.
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