Million Women Mentors STEM Mentoring Initiative

By: MENTOR

Campaigns

July 2015

MENTOR is proud to be a strategic partner of the Million Women Mentors (MWM) initiative, which is designed to get more women and girls involved in STEM careers through mentoring. MWM launch in January 2014 during National Mentoring Month. The initiative supports the engagement of one million science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) mentors – male and female – to increase the interest and confidence of girls and young women to pursue and succeed in STEM degrees and careers.

Since 2002, MENTOR has led National Mentoring Month as part of a larger effort to expand the number of quality mentoring opportunities for our nation’s young people. Along with the Harvard School of Public Health, the Corporation for National and Community Service, the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevent and United Way Worldwide, MENTOR provides this public awareness platform to the mentoring field to recruit volunteers and drive engagement by demonstrating the powerful and positive impact of mentoring on young people and communities.

As our nation addresses the challenges and opportunities posed by an evolving global economy and shifting demographics, innovation in sparking interest and development in STEM careers is a key priority.

In the past 10 years, growth in STEM jobs has been three times greater than that of non-STEM jobs. Today 80% of the fastest growing occupations in the United States depend on mastery of mathematics and knowledge and skills in hard sciences. While women comprise 48% of the U.S. workforce, just 24% are in STEM fields, a statistic that has held constant for nearly the last decade. While 75% of all college students are women and students of color, they represent only 45% of STEM degrees earned each year. Too many of these young women begin in STEM degree but leave those degree paths despite their good academic standing, often citing uncomfortable classroom experiences and disconcerting climate. Even when women earn a STEM degree, they are less likely than their male counterparts to work in a STEM field even though STEM jobs pay more and have a lower wage gap: 92 cents on a dollar versus 75 cents in other fields.

To learn more about MWM visit www.millionwomenmentors.org.

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  • MENTOR National and Affiliates will use the information you provide to better inform future publications and keep you up to date with advancements in the mentoring field. For more information, check out our privacy policy.