On Feb. 8, 2011 Tech hosted almost 400 10th and 11th grade female students and their parents for the Institute's annual Futures event. Futures is designed to help them become familiar with the opportunities Tech offers for its female students, both in and out of the classroom. Tech's First Lady Valerie Peterson gave opening remarks.
Thank you Brenda (Morales, vice president, Undergraduate Student Government Association). Welcome. Thank you for investing your time and joining us today.
I want to give a special welcome to all of you parents who are joining us. I can relate to your role. President Peterson and I have three sons and a daughter. They are 28, 30, 32 and 34, and I can remember when we were looking for the right college for each of them.
I especially remember the days when we sent them off to college.
We also had the blessing of having nine foster children over eleven years, and still keep in touch with several of them as adults.
You want the best for the students in your lives. Of course, I believe that Georgia Tech is the best. In fact, two of our sons and a girlfriend are enrolled in graduate school here. They are all working on their MBAs. We vote with our check book!!
It is really hard for me to believe that President Peterson and I have been here almost two years. We continue to be impressed with Georgia Tech, and I am convinced that the more you learn about it and have opportunities to get to know some of the people here, you will be too.
Because we live in the President's Residence on campus, it is very convenient for us to attend a lot of student events, ranging from sports to leadership and community service activities. (We were just at the men’s basketball game on Saturday.) I love getting to know our students, and it is a privilege to join with them in volunteering in the community.
You may not know this, but almost one third of Tech's 20,000 students are women. This fall we had the largest group of females in our freshman class—37%. Women have 42% of the student leadership positions at Georgia Tech. That's pretty impressive when you think that there are about 400 student organizations to choose from. Last year, both our undergraduate and graduate student government association presidents were both women.
This year, Brenda Morales, whom you just met, is vice president of the Undergraduate Student Government Association, and Kathy Schnure is executive vice president of the Graduate SGA. You’ll be hearing from some of our other outstanding students a little later today.
Today's event is appropriately named "Futures." You are exploring your options for the future, and the people of Georgia Tech are poised and ready, to work alongside you, to invest in your future.
You have tremendous potential. If you didn't, you wouldn't be sitting here today. The question is, how will you take that potential and develop it to the fullest? We believe there are tremendous opportunities here for your growth and success.
One of the things I've enjoyed most about my time at Tech is learning about the traditions, and the university's rich history. Georgia Tech is celebrating her 125th anniversary this year, and she has plenty of both—history and traditions.
Here are a couple of traditions: Tech's mascot, the Ramblin Wreck, is 50 this year. Sideways the dog is buried near the President's Office. Freshmen wear a “rat cap” which has nothing to do with a rodent, and for homecoming we have a mini-500 tricycle relay race with men and women participating. Talk about something that would be hard on your knees!
Now that's a sampling of traditions!! Let me share a bit of the history of how women came to Tech. Last spring, President Peterson and I participated in the annual Women in Engineering Excellence Awards Banquet. It was an event where companies and foundations awarded more than $140,000 in scholarships to Tech's outstanding female students studying in various engineering fields. Bud was the guest speaker, and he talked about how the evening was symbolic, of how far we had come, because for the first 67 years of the university's existence, women weren't allowed in Tech's full-time programs.
In 1947 Tech's President was Blake Van Leer. He and his family shared a commitment to engineering education for women. His wife Ella was an architect, and his daughter earned her chemical engineering degree from Vanderbilt, because Tech wasn't accepting women. President Van Leer submitted a proposal to the Board of Regents of the University System of Georgia that they accept women, but they turned him down.
What happened next, however, is a great example of the power of women working together. President Van Leer enlisted Tech's librarian, Mrs. Dorothy Crosland, to help. She had been Tech's librarian for 20 years and had a great deal of personal influence with several of the regents and others in the community. Ella Van Leer and Dot Crosland helped to mobilize a number of outside women's groups. They worked on the issue for three years. The Women's Chamber of Commerce in Atlanta formally petitioned the regents. The Tech student council adopted a resolution favoring the admission of women, and the faculty and administration strongly supported the admission of women as well.
On April 9, 1952, the regents voted to admit women on a full-time basis, but it was a limited resolution. They could only enter programs not offered at other units within the University System. Believe it or not, that restriction was not lifted until 1968, 16 years later.
Today, Tech is the number one producer of female engineers in the country. And women excel in dozens of other areas. Women are studying in Tech's Colleges of Architecture, Computing, Engineering, Management, Sciences, and the Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts, which is Tech's fastest-growing program.
For about 40% of Tech students, a study-abroad experience is part of their undergraduate education. You'll be hearing more about those programs today as well. Tech is a leader in providing students the opportunity for an international experience, to enrich their education. It also makes graduates more attractive to employers. Last summer, President Peterson and I had the privilege of participating in the 20th anniversary celebrations for Georgia Tech's campus in Lorraine, France. We met with a number of students, and they said that their study abroad opportunity is one of the highlights of their undergraduate experience. And you'll be interested to know that many of them have classes for four days a week, and spend the three-day weekend traveling in Europe. Now doesn't that sound like fun? I think I want to sign up.
Georgia Tech is about developing leaders. Students are preparing to solve some of the world's grand challenges like clean water, energy and health and public policy issues. And they don't wait until they walk across the stage at graduation to begin solving these problems. They're doing it while they're still undergraduate and graduate students. Let me share one example.
Dr. David Ku is our Lawrence P. Huang Chair in Engineering Entrepreneurship and a Regents' Professor. Dr. Ku is an MD-PHD with dual roles in both Mechanical Engineering and Management. He was challenged by the head of virology at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control to develop a quick, economical way to diagnose pneumonia, the leading cause of death among children around the world. Pneumonia is a super infection that is often associated with other diseases such as tuberculosis and HIV, and a quick and accurate diagnosis is often critical. Dr. Ku challenged a team of ten Mechanical Engineering and Biomedical Engineering graduate students.
They developed several devices, but he sent them back to the drawing board because each unit would cost around $200. He told them that they needed to design something that would help the poorest child in India, and be a "point of care" device that wouldn't require a trip to a hospital or clinic.
They did it!! The new device will provide a diagnosis within 30 minutes of testing at a fraction of the cost of their original design. It can be done anywhere, all over the world. Dr. Ku believes it has the potential to save more lives than any other device in the world. The graduate student who was the lead designer on the team is a woman.
In addition to being Tech's First Lady, I am also a former high school teacher, and have mentored hundreds of young people. If you don't mind me sharing some free advice, I would like to leave you with three things. They are to
- dream big
- work hard, and
- change the world.
Thank you.
In closing, I would like to share with you a 30-second video. Each year Georgia Tech's Communications and Marketing team produces a public service announcement, to air during televised sporting events. This year, we featured Caity Jimenez, a fourth year Architecture student who plays the drums in the Georgia Tech band. She is jamming with Shimon, a robot designed by Gil Weinberg, director of Tech's Center for Music Technology. Shimon can listen to and analyze melodic music and improvise with human players. I think you'll enjoy it.