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Survival skills for women program honored

An Argonne career skills workshop for women scientists and engineers was awarded the 2003 Department of Energy (DOE) Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) and Diversity Best Practice Award. This award recognizes innovative programs and initiatives throughout the Department of Energy complex that enhance equal employment opportunity and diversity.

SURVIVAL MENTORS — "Survival Skills for Successful Women in Science, Engineering and Technology" received DOE's Equal Employment Opportunity and Diversity Best Practice Award. Pictured from left are Diversity Program Officer Eve Gohoure, Project Engineer Kirsten Laurin-Kovitz, molecular biologist Michelle Arora, and bioscientist and program administrator Linda Phaire-Washington. Not pictured, Dongqi Li.

"Survival Skills for Successful Women in Science, Engineering and Technology" is a six-month series covering topics such as mentoring and goal-setting during the two-hour workshops held monthly. The goals are to give women at Argonne the chance to learn skills necessary to succeed and for the laboratory to be able to retain and attract employees.

The pilot series ran from June 2002 to February 2003; the second session began in June. The series is sponsored by Argonne's Women in Science and Technology program.

"In selecting the winners, we look for innovation and results, but we also look for programs that others can easily emulate at their own sites," said Neil Schuldenfrei, senior attorney and advisor for DOE's EEO Resolution Division.

Results of a survey sent to participants of the pilot series indicated women felt more confident and more in control of their own careers after the series' end.

Kathy Harkay, an Advanced Photon Source physicist, attended the first series and felt that it helped her to feel less isolated and more connected with the women around her. She plans on building those connections and continuing to network by attending the second series.

"After each Survival Skills workshop session that I attended," Harkay said, "I felt energized and enthusiastic. I think most of all, the sessions were empowering. Seeing successful women as speakers and sharing common experiences with the participants gave me positive energy."

Workshop topics included goal setting, strategies for balancing life and work, mentoring for success and negotiation skills for women. In addition to the monthly workshops, the program hosts six informal lunch discussions

The survival skills workshop was initiated by Dongqi Li, a physicist in the Materials Science Division, after she held a similar series at the American Physical Society's 2002 meeting.

The organizing committee included Li, project engineer Kirsten Laurin-Kovitz, bioscientist and program administrator Linda Phaire-Washington and Diversity Program Officer Eve Gohoure.

"Being recognized by DOE for best diversity practices validates the importance of such workshops," said Laurin-Kovitz, the current chair of the organizing committee for the second series. "It's good to know that this type of workshop is appreciated outside of Argonne."

The series is designed to bring together as many women as possible, Laurin-Kovitz said. Women in technical fields are often isolated from one another and don't have the resources and networks available to their male counterparts.

"The barriers women face today are subtle, and might be hard to recognize and overcome. But they clearly exist," Phaire-Washington said. "The goal of the workshop series was to help women learn the rules of the game to enable them to navigate through the waters of today's science and engineering world." — Rhianna Wisniewski

For more information, please contact Catherine Foster (630/252-5580 or cfoster@anl.gov) at Argonne.