Daily Pioneer News

PLATTEVILLE - Joanne Wilson was a graduate level teaching assistant at the University of Nebraska when a male student entered her office. It was the end of the semester, and the student wanted to tell Wilson that he was wrong.

He had thought he couldn't learn engineering from a woman.

Professor Wilson has taught general engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Platteville for 18 years, and over the course of that time she has strived to make women students feel more comfortable in a field dominated by men. This year she is being honored with the first-ever UWP Woman of the Year Award.

The award was established to recognize female employees and students who have impacted the lives of women by supporting their well-being and interests.

Traditionally, men have dominated math and science professions nationwide, and it's because of the effort by people like Wilson these industries have become more accepting of women in recent years. Wilson remembers beginning her graduate level education at the University of Nebraska in the mid-1980s.

"In my first class, it was 40 men and me. If there was a women in your class she was a phenomenal student, and there was a lot of pressure to succeed," she said. "There's no reason that women can't work in science and technology today. That wasn't the case 25 years ago."

After completing her master's degrees, Wilson entertained many job offers, but felt employers were looking to hire her because she was a woman, not necessarily because she was the best person for the job. Wilson eschewed employment in the industry and focused on becoming an educator instead.

"I believe at the time I was choosing to make a difference, hoping that teaching would give me the opportunity to make the world a better place for women attending engineering school," Wilson wrote in a letter supporting her nomination for the award.

When she came to UWP in 1986, Wilson said she felt lonely as one of only a few women in the then-College of Engineering. More of a detriment than the numbers, however, was the sense of isolation many female students and female faculty members felt.

Wilson tried to forge connections with female faculty members, and students were aided by the development of the Women In Engineering program, established in the early 1990s. The dean of the College of Engineering at the time, Ron Yeske, challenged the women faculty members. If they could get more than 100 female high school students to come to a career day event, a full-time specialist for the Women in Engineering program could be hired.

"We got something like 150 students, plus teachers and guests, and we just beamed," Wilson said. Today the Women in Engineering program flourishes, as does the local chapter of the Society of Women Engineers.

Wilson was also instrumental in helping get more women faculty members involved as leaders on the UWP campus. Early in her career at UWP, Wilson remembers there were only one or two female members in faculty governance groups like faculty senate and the rank, salary and tenure committee.

"Now it's like half and half, or even more women in some cases," Wilson said. "More and more women are getting involved on this campus."

Wilson helped women faculty members network by helping develop a circulated list of women faculty members, which was later incorporated with the campus e-mail directory. It helped women faculty members connect and support each other, and now Provost Carol Sue Butts hosts a women faculty get together each year in the fall.

Wilson strives to be a positive role model for women on campus. When she was an undergraduate, Wilson felt like her professors didn't take the time to genuinely help with her career objectives and educational choices. She doesn't want to make the same mistake, and treats her students as individuals. Erin Ralph, who graduated from the mechanical engineering program in December, cherished her relationship with Wilson.

"She was willing to take the time to get to know me, my hopes and dreams as well as the disappointments and challenges," Ralph wrote in a supporting letter. "I was more than a student with a number to her; I was a person who mattered."

"In a male dominated field, ... it is encouraging to see a woman who knows she can accomplish anything she puts her mind to," Ralph continued. "She is a person with a huge heart for giving in more ways than she knows."

Wilson, who resides in Platteville, will be presented with a plaque in recognition of the UWP Woman of Year Award at the Chancellor's Convocation Sept. 7. Her name will also be engraved on a comprehensive plaque in the Patricia A. Doyle Women's Center.