More options for college students.
Donor-funded program to give women the skills and certification to manage collaborative makerspaces
Oakland teacher Cicely Day loves tinkering, electronics, art and incorporating it all when she works with her elementary school students. But she has never been able to afford intensive science, technology, engineering andmath training. That will change next month. In August, Foothill College will start a donor-funded program to give women, especially women of color and other minority identities, the skills and certification to manage collaborative makerspaces.
Makerspaces in schools, libraries and community centers can include a variety of equipment and tools, from laser cutters and 3D printers to sewing machines and soldering irons. Men or whitemen runmost of themakerspaces Day has visited, and she wants to see broader representation. Barriers frommoney to time have prevented her and other women of color from opportunities in the field.
“Everyone doesn’t have a $1,000 to blow on materials and then the time to do that,” said Day, who will be one of the participants. “Everyone doesn’t have a formal education to figure
out how to solder and then put this wire here to make this chip work and then add this stuff. And ‘Oh now, we’ve gotta 3D print these parts, you should’ve gotten a 3D printer.’ The imaging just was not saying you are a maker.”
The Makerspace UniDIVersity program at Foothill College’s Krause Center for Innovation costs $75 and is open to female residents of California, particularly women of color, women with special needs and women who have served in the military. The 10-month, 18- unit certification program will help women balance other jobs and family, as most of the training is online. Participants may go to the center to use its machines, but are only required to be in the classroom for nine days.
The programincludes all the same courses as the Los Altos Hills college’s Makerspace Coordinator program, which is open to the general public and costs about $750, at a tenth of the price. It begins Aug. 6 and will accept 25 students. Those interested can apply online until the day before. As of last week, 17 have been accepted.
Lisa DeLapo, the Innovator in Residence at the center who proposed the program in February, remembers facing gender discrimination while working in public education technology.
“We would go to meetings and the men would huddle around together as the good old boys group,” DeLapo said about technology leadership meetings. “Whenever we’dmake an idea or a decision ‘oh, that’s so cute.’ And it was just demeaning. I just want to empower women so they have skills so they can get around those situations.”
She said part of the goal is to support women in taking on tech leadership roles, securing pay raises and breaking through glass ceilings. Program organizers also aim to encourage girls in schools, community centers and libraries to go into STEM careers.
Participating educators such as Day look forward to bringing back the new skills they learn to their students.
“With female leadership, it’s so much more powerful to see women doing the work and then girls being interested in following that model,” DeLapo said.
Some of the courses cover computer programming, 3D design concepts, Adobe Illustrator, multimedia overview, e- portfolios and instructional design and technology. Women will also network with each other and female guest speakers who have worked in tech fields in the Bay Area.
The first of its kind in the area, Makerspace UniDIVersity is funded by donors to the Krause Center, including Becky Morgan, the president of The Morgan Family Foundation who served as an elected official for 18 years. She said supporting and preparing girls and women for employment is a passion of hers.
Gay Krause, the center’s executive director and founder, said she hopes they will be able to continue the program next year.
Nonetheless, Day noted women have worked as makers and creators long before makerspaces run by men started popping up everywhere.
“I want people like my mother and my aunt and my grandmother to be seen as makers and be given as much respect and admiration as if they had 3D printers,” Day said. “I just want more women of color and more women to be recognized for the work they’ve been doing and can do.”