MentorNet News – February 2010 Volume 1

Opportunities and Announcements Avnet Tech Games Offer Real-World Experience and Scholarship Dollars Avnet, Inc., a leading global technology distributor, is hosting the fifth annual Avnet Tech Games (ATG). For the first time this year, the ATG is open to students nationwide through a number of virtual games, which complement the traditional onsite competition held in Arizona on April 10. The virtual games make the competition accessible to more students and provide thousands of dollars in new scholarships. The ATG requires students to work in teams or individually—testing their knowledge, creativity, problem solving and technical skills. Deadlines are fast approaching! For more information, visit www.avnettechgames.com. Summer Internships Applications are available for summer 2010 internships through the Research Alliance in Math and Science program. Please note that all fields are required for submission and for cyber security, there is no opportunity to save partially completed applications. Current student resumes should be uploaded as a Word (.doc) file with LAST NAME as the first word in the filename. Apply here. --source: Oak Ridge National Laboratory Engineer Mentors Sought on East Coast The regional Future City Competitions in Washington, DC, and Western NY (particularly Jamestown and Syracuse areas) are still looking for engineer-mentors. Write Bill Knight, Future City Program Manager, at bknight@futurecity.org For more information, please click here.  --source: National Engineers Week Foundation Professor Honored Sue Ion, a visiting professor at Imperial College London and chair of the UK Fusion Advisory Board, was named a dame for her services to science and engineering by the UK's New Year's Honours list.  --source: BBC News What is the Most Diverse Company in the U.S.?   Can you help us find the most diverse company in the world? Here are the stats on our first candidate:   Gender 57/43 Female/Male   Racial/Ethnic Identity 14% African American 14% Hispanic 14% Arabic 14% Indian 14% Chinese 28% Caucasian   Religion by Birth 14% Muslim 14% Hindu 14% Buddhist 14% Christian 14% Jewish 28% Catholic   Countries of Origin Alabama, Brooklyn, China, India, Mexico, Syria, Slovakia, U.S. (OK, OK, most people would say Alabama and Brooklyn aren’t really different countries.)   English as a Second Language 60%   Click here to find out who it is.     Help Us Welcome New Board Members Please help us welcome and congratulate three new outstanding members of MentorNet’s Board of Directors: Mary Fernandez of AT&T, Ginna Raahauge of Cisco, and Sarah Saltzer of Chevron. All three women are distinguished in their fields and in their companies and have already brought growth and fresh perspectives to MentorNet and our mission.  We are grateful for their volunteerism and look forward to the benefit of their considerable and distinguished leadership. You can view their profiles here and send messages of welcome to them here. MentorNet's Spring Campaign   In January, we launched our 2010 Spring Outreach Drive in recognition of President Obama's declaration of National Mentoring Month. To read how our drive works, and to learn about our incentives for campuses, click here.   Earthquake in Haiti: In Brief • Read Architecture for Humanity's 7-point reconstruction plan for Haiti here. • UW-Madison's chapter of Engineers Without Borders returns from Haiti. Read it here. • The women's movement mourns the deaths of three Haitian leaders. Read it here. • NASA is sending an airborne radar to map Haiti's faults in 3D. Read it here. To donate to Haiti through the American Red Cross, click here.   Thanks to January's New and Renewing Partners • American College of Sports Medicine • Association for Women in Science • Land O'Lakes • North Star STEM Alliance • University of New Mexico Recommended Reading   Study: Women Scientists Do More Housework than Men When the biologist Carol W. Greider received a call from Stockholm last fall telling her she had won a Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, she wasn't working in her lab at the Johns Hopkins University. The professor of molecular biology and genetics was at home, folding laundry. Read more MentorNet Editor's Note: The above article addresses one of the many topics our mentor/protege pairs are encouraged to discuss in their weekly communications: work/life balance. Mentoring Matters Many discussions of efforts to diversify the faculty ranks include concerns about whether female and minority academics need mentors. Advocates for female and minority professors say that white men are more likely to learn informally from senior (male) colleagues about how to get ahead.  Read more 'The Unchosen Me' What challenges do students of color face during their years on campus, and how do these challenges affect their college success—or lack thereof? In her new book, The Unchosen Me: Race, Gender, and Identity Among Black Women in College (Johns Hopkins University Press), Rachelle Winkle-Wagner explores these questions from the students' perspective. Read more 840 W. California Avenue Suite 200 | Sunnyvale, CA 94086 US