Dr. Amy Fleischer Named to Inaugural Class for “ELATE at Drexel” Program

Dr. Amy Fleischer, Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering, along with 11 other top female engineering educators, has been tapped to join the inaugural class of faculty fellows of the national Executive Leadership in Academic Technology and Engineering (ELATE) program at Drexel University. Together, they will spend a year focused on increasing personal and professional leadership effectiveness, developing knowledge of organizational dynamics at their institutions, improving strategic management of finances and resources, and strengthening relationships.

According to the National Science Foundation and the American Society for Engineering Education, women earn nearly 22 percent of engineering doctoral degrees in the United States, but they make up only 5 percent of full professor positions and 11 percent of engineering department leaders. A program of the International Center for Executive Leadership in Academics at the Drexel University College of Medicine, ELATE at Drexel is a one-year program that addresses the need to increase the diversity and leadership capacity of engineering, computer science, and related fields within academe.

ELATE at Drexel offers fellows the opportunity to connect with “leaders in the fields of engineering, technology, and leadership development” who will direct a curriculum that leverages “lessons of leadership that move from the classroom into on-the-job application at each fellow’s home institution.” In addition, each fellow will develop an Institutional Action Project in collaboration with her home institution’s dean that will serve as a capstone to the experience. The projects will allow the fellows to take what they are learning in the classroom and apply it to an institutional or departmental need or priority.

The program runs from May 2012 to April 2013 and combines online assignments and community building activities with three weeklong in-residence sessions. Other 2012 ELATE fellows hale from Rochester Institute of Technology, Wayne State University, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Carnegie Mellon, Drexel University, Duke University, University of Iowa, Purdue University, and the University of Pennsylvania.