Girlstart keeps growing under Hudgins’ leadership
Executive director says the nonprofit has changed her since she joined.
When Tamara Hudgins took over as executive director of Girlstart in 2009, it was a successful Austin-based nonprofit with good timing. Its mission — to promote STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) — was becoming a mainstream goal in American education. And it’s increasingly becoming a focus of the technology industry, where some believe a shortage of highly skilled tech workers could be on the horizon.
But Girlstart’s mission is also tightly focused. It doesn’t do art projects or provide a big tent for any students to join. It’s geared to fourth- to eighth-grade girls, the time period when many girls frequently become risk-averse in the classroom, especial- ly in subjects like math and science. They may hold back and refrain from participating at the moment when experimenting and learning from failures is most critical.
“Girls find it challenging to step out of a comfort zone and take risks in an environment with both boys and girls,” Hudgins said recent- ly on the “Statesman Shots” podcast that I co-host with blogger Tolly Moseley. “Nobody’s going to learn if they don’t fail first. We provide them with that safe place.”
In 2009, Hudgins thought, “We could do more.” By 2010, a plan was in place to set
some big growth goals. The idea was to get Girlstart’s after-school and summer camp programs to as many girls as possible, especially those at risk of losing interest in STEM fields. Under Hudgins’s leadership, Girlstart expanded from four after-school programs in 2009 to 51 with 1,200 girls participating, and from eight to 27 summer camps in Austin, San Antonio, Bryan, Taylor and even Chicago, where Hudgins hails from.
From now until 2017, the plan for Girlstart is more expansion, specifically to Houston, the Dallas/Fort Worth area and the Rio Grande Valley. It’s part of a larger, notso-modest goal of getting its programs to a million more girls, the number of young women Hudgins says are in danger of losing opportunities for STEM-related careers.
On the phone last week from a vacation with her family, Hudgins said that’s been the big change at Girlstart these last few years: keeping the quality of the programs high while expanding out to other cities and increasing the number of local programs. There’s a 66-district waitlist for Girlstart programs in Texas, and Girlstart summer camps are full this year, with double-digit waitlists.
“Our problem is not demand,” Hudgins said. “It’s how can we say yes to more.” That means funding city expansions in advance so they’re stable before they start, staffing up and working closely with schools to identify the students who need Girlstart the most.
The programs, whether they’re after school or summer camps, are typically cooperative (there’s no tears-inducing robot competitions), project-oriented (all girls learn how to design their own video games) and inquiry-based, which means the girls are active participants. They’re not lectured to, and instructors aren’t going to do their work for them.
Hudgins has a 10-yearold daughter who participates in Girlstart programs, the perfect age to be a sounding board and focus group for her.
“I think she’s going to be a great engineer,” says Hudgins, who sometimes thinks she would have gone into the field herself had she known it was an option as a teenager.
But like a lot of parents, she sometimes worries that pushing a kid in one direction might make them rebel toward another direction. “I may be overwhelming her with STEM,” she laughs.
In March, Hudgins was inducted into the South by Southwest Interactive Hall of Fame at the festival’s Innovation Awards. There, Hudgins gave a passionate acceptance speech urging members of the largely male audience of startup entrepreneurs and innovation evangelists to join the million-girl movement.
“It was crazy awesome, frankly,” Hudgins says. “Gaining recognition, especially at something like SXSW Interactive, it’s very meaningful for us. That’s our sandbox.”
When she started at Girlstart, having worked at the Chisholm Trail Communities Foundation in Georgetown, she considered herself an academic, a solitary worker for social good. It changed her.
“I can say that working with a team of passionate people has been so transformative as an individual. I didn’t expect it and I’m grateful for the experience. It’s like Christmas every day.”