Ching-Leou Liu:
This is the session called “Women Leadership Development”. I’m Ching-Leou Liu from Hostos Community College and I’m the presenter for this session. I’m going to introduce the speakers. Each person is limited to ten minutes, so please be brief. If you have anything in writing, please give it to me. We’re going to publish it. Our first speaker is Judge Doris Ling-Cohan. She’s a New York Civil Court Judge. She graduated from Brooklyn College and she attended New York University School of Law on a full scholarship. She has served as Assistant Attorney General in the Bureau of Consumer Frauds, Associate Counsel of the New York City Department of Again, and Executive Director of the Majority Coalition. She is currently seeking the nomination to be the first Asian American female Supreme Court Judge in New York State. Judge Cohan.
Honorable Doris Ling Cohen:
Thank you. Good afternoon to all of you. I’m very happy to see you. Many, many women and an enlightened man. I understand that he’s related to one of the panelists, nevertheless, I think it’s wonderful that we have a man in the room. The title of this workshop is “Women’s Leadership Development” and my topic is “Asian American Women in the Courts.” There aren’t that many, so it’s going to be a very short talk. But I would like to talk about women leadership development as a general topic as part of what I discuss.
In terms of Asian American women in the courts – we have 3,900 judges state wide. In Family Court, we have zero Asian American women, one Asian American male judge. In the Criminal Court, we have zero Asian American women judges, one Asian American male. In Housing Court, that’s where our substantial numbers come in. That is, we have three Housing Court judges who are Asian American women and we have zero male Asian American judges. In the Civil Court, we have two Asian American women judges, and zero at this point, male Asian American judges. In the Supreme Court, we have zero Asian American female judges, and we have one Asian American male judge. In the Appellate Division, which is the next appellate level after Supreme Court, we have zero Asian American women, one Asian American man. And in the Court of Appeals, we have zero. So out of 3,900 judges, we have five Asian American women.
The numbers are obviously not representative of our numbers in the city or the state, and it’s something that needs to be increased. In terms of how many Asian Americans go into law, when I went to law school and I graduated in 1979 from NYU Law School, we had three Asian Americans in my graduating class. I’m told the now at NYU Law School that there are 50-60 Asian Americans in each graduating class, and roughly half of them are women. So we have come a long way, so to speak. As an Asian American, I never thought of becoming a judge, because there were no Asian Americans in the court system who were judges, and in terms of even seeing court officers or court reporters, or court clerks, we were really invisible. It was rare to see any Asian Americans in the court. When you saw Asian Americans, people assumed they were translators.
As an attorney, even though I had been an attorney for ten years, at one point I was a prosecutor, and when I went into a court room, I was always assumed to be a translator. So initially I thought, if I dress differently, if I put my hair in a bun…it doesn’t really matter. Many people who are Asian American who are lawyers, have come up to me, and particularly when I started running for civil court, would come up to me with their own stories of how they were mistakenly assumed to be something other than what they were.
As Asian Americans are breaking into the court system, and particularly women, I think we are redefining how people view us. For example, when I first became a judge, I was elected from Chinatown, and in terms of the elected judges, I should say, two of the elected judges are women. There’s a distinction between election and appointment in the state. Appointed judges, it’s hard to go up. It’s hard to be appointed up. Elected judges have a better chance of going to the Appellate Court. So if you’re in the track of election and there are only four elected judges, who are Asian American in this state – which is a very, very low number – two of us are women; two of us are men. We have a possibility of going up. As was mentioned, I’m running for Supreme Court, which is the next highest level of trial court and allows me to go to the appellate division.
You can’t go to the appellate division without being a Supreme Court judge. So it’s a track of going up, and it’s theoretically more prestigious, it gives more visibility, tries bigger cases, and things like that. But in terms of seeing us in the courts, there are very few of us and we are trying to increase our numbers.
One of the things that we are trying to do is that we have just formed, within the last four months, an organization called Jade Council, which is an organization of Asian American employees that I helped formed, and everybody thinks that I’m the president, but in terms of leadership, I want to encourage new leadership. I will say that we have roughly about 25 members at this point. A lot of them are clerical, informational people within the court system who have their own issues in terms of glass ceilings, in terms of being promoted and things like that. These people have been wonderful.
When we talk about leadership and women’s leadership development, I think that we have in common with our male counterparts, a reluctance to take leadership as Asian Americans, because I think our culture does not necessarily encourage us to speak what our mind and what is in our thoughts, freely and to really articulate and take leadership. Because sometimes it’s not considered quote/end quote “humble” or something like that. You have to have a certain amount of aggressiveness to accomplish things, which is not always perceived within our culture as a positive trait. But it is something that I think that as educated women in the community and also people who want to do something for the community that we have to go beyond that. To accomplish things for ourselves and our community, we need to go past that and not criticize people who demonstrate those skills (that’s part of it), but also not be afraid to take leadership.
When I first started this Jade Council, people said you should be President, and I said, no. This is about encouraging new leadership. The first couple meetings were very painful because nobody wanted to speak out and we would go ten minutes with silence, and then gradually people started volunteering and offering their thoughts, and it took us a long time to even decide on a name, but we did it in a very democratic way. We did it by email and we had votes and people figured out what that process would be in terms of voting, and it was a wonderful thing to see.
And I will say, the people in this group who are leaders, are mainly women, because in their own lives and in their own families, they are a lot of times the leaders. They make sure that everybody is clothed; they make sure that everybody goes to work on time. They’re very task driven and they know how to accomplish things. In any successful organization, that’s what has to be done – the various tasks. To get from point A to point B, you have to figure out how to get there. Women have those skills. They don’t always show it to the world, but you’re all capable of it and you can’t be afraid of showing it. I think that’s something that we as women have to encourage other women to do.
I would just share with you one other experience. I’m one of the founding members of the New York Asian Women’s Center. Some of you may know of that organization. It’s the first Asian American organization on the East Coast to address domestic violence in our community. And we started …I keep saying 15 years, so I know it’s longer than 15 years, probably closer to 20 years ago, we started with a group of women who were familiar with the issue and had clients who were victims of domestic violence in the community. We just got together to talk about the problem. In talking about the problem, we realized we couldn’t just talk about the problem, we needed to do something about the problem.
Getting from point A to point B was, again, very difficult. In doing so, I saw women who first were, obviously concerned about the problem, because otherwise they wouldn’t be there, but timid as to expressing their ideas on how to get from point A to point B. Gradually you saw women start to take leadership.
The way to encourage women to take leadership, and I’ve given some thought to this in the last few years as I’ve gone from starting organizations, is you have to be task driven. In other words, you have to have tasks. You have to have goals in mind and then encourage people to give their ideas on how to accomplish those tasks. So for example, in Jade Council, one of the tasks we’ve come up with is that we’re sponsoring this Asian/Pacific American Heritage Month event which is to benefit the community. It’s Community Awareness Law Day.
I encourage you all to come. But because we’re a fledging organization, this is a major event for us. And for all we know, it might be a total disaster. But it really encouraged people to take ownership of an event, of a task, and sometimes people don’t necessarily volunteer and somebody says, well I think so and so would be really good at this. And that person is encouraged to take leadership. That’s another technique to encourage women to take leadership. People do not always think that they’re capable, but you have to encourage other women to take leadership, to take ownership and in doing so we’re encouraging our species do better, and helping the community. I think I’ve probably exceeded my ten minutes. (There’s no buzzer thank God.) I’ll be happy to take questions later on.
Ching-Leou Liu:
Our next speaker is Ms. Patricia Eng. She’s the Senior Project Manager in the Rulemaking and Guidance Branch at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). She is a registered professional mechanical engineer with a B.S. degree in Nuclear Engineering form the University of Illinois. Ms. Eng has served as the on site NRC Resident Inspector at the Zion Nuclear Power Plant, and she was the first woman who received the Service Award for outstanding resident inspector effort. Ms. Eng.
Patricia Eng:
Thank you. You all have a hand out, right? I’m going to try to stay within my six minutes, was it? I did a survey in 1992, and it was a national survey across the United States, and it was not intended to be focused on Asians, but I found that we had 100 Asians respond, so when I had some spare time, I sat down to look at the Asian population. What I have done is I have collated for you in these view graphs, which I have one, some of the more interesting statistics about the Asians and in particular, Asian women.
I think what I’d like to do, rather than read to you since you can all read it just as well as I can, I’d like to go straight to slide 13. The question asked on that slide was, “Do you feel that employees completing the same job are treated equally where you work, regardless of ethnicity, nationality, race or religion? They were given these three choices: “No – Consistent Inequities”; “Depends – Sometimes Yes, and Sometimes No”; and “Yes – Always Equable”. We had some people talk about reverse discrimination and that comes from the open ended. If you’ve ever had a survey, there’s always a place where you say, is there anything else you want to say, and you let them go on forever. Then you take all that stuff, and that’s where you get the interesting data.
But I think what’s nice about this is that all of us who are not white (sorry), you are all familiar with that feeling, you alluded to it before, when you walk into a room and you’re the one or the two. Many employers (and we’ll get to that later) will talk about that isolation, that standing out more so from a female standpoint, than from a female Asian standpoint. But as we were just told, being female and Asian, I don’t sound and act like I look. I should be nice and quiet. I should be soft spoken, and I don’t do that at all. I’m very, very different. We all know this but now we have the data and that’s what this is all about.
The next thing that’s interesting, is when you compare…there were two open ended questions that we asked of the survey respondents. They were, “What is the biggest deficiency in your training, as an engineer?” (Because I’m an engineer and that’s what my paper was about.) And, “What is the greatest obstacle in your career?” Well, let’s cut to the chase. The biggest training deficiency that everybody said, mostly women (and not necessarily Asian women) women period, was that they didn’t have any practical examples. They were all given theory, they were all taught about cases, etc., but they weren’t able to go out and do something for real. I think any of you who have any scientific background, you hear about these amoebas and stuff, but have you ever cut an amoeba? Well… It’s the same thing if you’re an engineer. You look at the calculations for the bridge, but do you then try to design something small scale, try to load it, and see if it works? Well if you don’t have that experience and you go out and design a bridge, I’d be terrified my bridge would fall down and we’d kill 350,000 people, so that was the number one thing.
The second thing (and this is so, so, so important), in the talks that we listened to this morning, [we heard] the old adage, “Work hard, make money and mind your own business.” You can work hard, but just working hard, you’re not even going to get to step two, making money. You have to be able to articulate, and that’s what I think we’re all talking about. You have to be able to articulate your ideas and you have to be able to explain your case. You don’t have to go in there like a Mack truck. You can go in there like a nice and quiet, very presentable person, but you have to be able to communicate. That was the second training deficiency.
The one thing I would like to point out to you is that Asian women in the sciences and the technical fields see their lives and their obstacles differently than their female counterparts. So if I could have you all slip, without paper cuts, to slide number 17, what I have here, is I have the greatest obstacles shown for all women in the survey (and there were 1,743 of them) versus the 47 Asian women who responded. Now all the clarifications and the qualifications with the data are in here. The 47 women were all under 44, so you have to be careful, and that this data was taken in 1992. If you’d take a look at this (and if you’re colorblind, I apologize) you’ll notice that the women all say discrimination is their number one greatest obstacle regardless of their age. If you have the data, I would say regardless of their industry, regardless of their schooling.
The non-Asian women say, when they’re under 30, they need more training, they need a husband, they need to do something for themselves. The Asian women don’t have that problem. Well they do, but it’s not their number one problem. Their number one problem is discrimination. And the question becomes what can you do to fight that discrimination? All of our parents have always told us that you have to be the best that there is. Well the best that there is, isn’t necessarily the smartest. The best that there is, is the one that knows themselves.
If I had to come up with four major points, and I’m going to really try to keep under my time limit, number one is to know yourself and know what’s important to you. Know what you’re willing to do and what you’re not willing to do and stick to it. Don’t let somebody talk you into it. I hate to say this with my father in the room, but it’s not what your parents want, it’s not what your spouse wants, it’s not what your kids want, it’s not what your grandparents want (and I know that’s the big guilt trip), it’s what you want. You need to figure out what you want, and what you’re willing to do to get it. Once you decide that, if it’s not management, that’s ok. That’s fine, because it’s your decision.
Number two, I can’t stress this enough, learn how to communicate. This goes for everybody. You don’t have to be female and you don’t have to be Asian. I go through 200-300 resumes a month and when I finally call them down and I interview the people that I’m going to interview, they can’t talk or they can’t write or they can’t even remember what’s on their resume. Please. Try to work on your communication skills.
Number three kind of more applies to us. After 9/11 people are a little paranoid. At work now, if you have three or four Asians, usually guys, talking and they’re talking in whatever they’re talking in, guess what? The manager’s saying conspiracy. Wen Ho Lee. Oh my God, if you’re at work, don’t talk in your native language unless you’re in a social situation. People make things up in their head, and whatever they’re thinking you’re saying – you’re probably talking about a baby shower or where you’re going to eat dinner – they think you’re planning on stealing secrets. Just eliminate that issue.
And the forth thing, somebody mentioned it earlier, if you don’t know, ask for help. It’s not a national emergency. It’s not something to be ashamed of. Most people are very flattered when you ask them, would you please help me? You’re so smart, could you help me? Who knows? Maybe you’ll get a sponsor or somebody who could help you in your career. The technical part, the skills that you learn in your academic programs, that’s up to you. This part I’ve learned the hard way, and I hope that it’s of some help to you.
Ching-Leou Liu:
The next is Ms. Renee Tang. She’s the Associate for the New York State Division for Women in the Office of the Governor. She also serves on the Board of the Coalition of Asian Pacific Americans, the organization that sponsors the annual APA Heritage Festival each May; and on the Board of Directors for the Organization of Chinese Americans- New York Chapter. Ms. Tang.
Renee Tang:
Hi. Thank you very much. My topic is “Women Leadership in the Non-Profit Sector,” but I’d like to combine that with working in the government as well. I’ve been working in Governor Pataki’s Office in the New York State Division for Women for four and a half years. Just to give a little background on the Division for Women – it’s very unique in that we have twelve Regional Advisory Councils and each Council has a chair that varies in size between 60-200 members. Each Advisory Council – they’re all volunteers, so we act as the headquarters. For example, we’re based in New York City near Grand Central but we might not know what the local issues are in Western New York, the Lakes Region or near Suffix County.
These women lead on their own and they make a report to my director and to our office. That’s one way that women can fulfill leadership, and I’ll just echo what Doris and Patricia said, it’s like you have to get involved, you have to be proactive. There should be no ten minutes of silence at any time at any event, at any board meeting, because people should be fully engaged in whatever they’re volunteering in.
I think the best way, as young people and future graduates of CUNY, I think the best way is to just become a volunteer for an organization. Right away when I went to Hofstra University in Long Island, the first thing I did was I joined a student organization to plan activities for the entire school and that was a way for me to make new friends. Surprisingly in the first meeting (I wasn’t planning to), I became president of their publicity committee and then it was just one thing lead to another. It escalated and before I know it I’m planning events every week.
When I graduated, I discovered Kappa which is the organization that sponsors the Heritage Festival, and through all these different connections…at first I was very scared. I thought, I’m just a young person, I don’t know anything, I have all these degrees behind me, what could I possibly do? But you start and give yourself attainable goals. I also think you should try to match yourself up with someone that will encourage you. That’s an important thing.
If you say, I’m going to try to plan this enormous event by myself with no experience, it probably won’t be very successful. But if you volunteer at an organization that does event planning all the time, or you can seek the advice of a mentor, which I strongly encourage. That’s even better because they can tell you about the pros and cons and then as a young person, you have some successes and you know what you did right to get up to that point, which makes you satisfied. But if you fail, at least you have this advisor to help you out and you can say, I tried this and it didn’t work.
All I can say is the most important thing is to find mentors in the industry that you’re interested in, and even if you’re not, I encourage you to look into every industry possible and join networking groups. There’s the National Association of Asian American Professionals, there’s the Organization of Chinese Americans, and they always welcome input from the corporate younger population, which I’ll call 20s and 30s, because you guys bring a lot of new blood to these organizations and the way their thinking, and also it’s a good way to just meet more people. You never know who your future boss will be, you never know what your future job lead will be, so even just by coming to a conference like this.
I’ll tell you how I got to be a panelist. Dr. Thomas Tan, who’s a professor here, and Judge Doris and I, we sit on the Board of the New York Chapter of the Organization of Chinese Americans. So I hate to say it, but the Asian American Committee in your city is a little incestuous. Everything is so related and then you see each other every week – especially in May, Asian American Heritage Month. You’re like, ok I’ll see you tomorrow at the other event. Then last Wednesday, Governor Pataki had the Asian/Pacific American Heritage Month Award Ceremony at the Metropolitan Museum – more people and then the weekend before was Heritage at Union Square park. It’s all these connections.
I know if someone calls me up at the Governor’s Office Division of Women with a question, I can call one of the commissioners at one of the over 90 state agencies that we have, I can go over to my colleagues in Community Affairs, I can call Doris, I can call Fred Teng, President of OCA. There are a lot of resources I can draw on and I’m definitely beyond the point where I’m embarrassed to ask or I feel stupid for not knowing. It’s ok to not know, and people tend to be very gracious and very generous to you. Because when you’re saying, I don’t know, you’re being very truthful and very humble about it. People are very flattered that you’re asking.
Another one of the most important things for women is to share constantly. And at church, they say each one reach one. But I believe that it’s equally true in the women’s community. It’s not just Asian American women, because we can’t do it ourselves. You look at the Board of Directors of the top Fortune 500 companies, they don’t look like us and their last names are not spelled like ours. The only way we can get ahead is to network. We have to create our own network. We have to work with other minority groups. We have to work with other women’s groups as well too.
For example, prior to working in the Governor’s Office I used to be the Program Manager for Asian Women in Business, and they did a lot of events with One Hundred Hispanic Women and they did of events with the Coalition for One Hundred Black women, and together these three women’s organizations formed the 21st Century Women’s Leadership Center.
Leaving that position to come to the Governor’s Office was a natural progression for me because my interest in the woman’s community is very strong. I was able to bring all those resources, all my experience working at that previous job to my current job. So every place that you go, every person that you talk to, you’re never too old to learn. All these people that I’ve seen in the community for a long time, like Judge Doris, it’s just really amazing to think, wow, I’m sitting on the board with these people that I read about five or ten years ago. I’m just so amazed. Oh, they know my name, wow. It’s just an incredible feeling. I think I’m pretty down to earth. I will do anything at an event. I will be a panelist, check your names at the door, not a problem. I think everyone has value, everyone contributes something to an event.
I just want to tell everyone, regardless of your age, you can always give back something to your community, you can always give back something to New York. It’s just been very empowering, very inspiration, the last ten years (well over ten years, I graduated awhile ago) just to see all these role models around me and for them to always give me praise and encouragement. Then people start drawing on you for a resource too. I would just suggest in terms of leadership development as a woman, for anybody, be a volunteer. That’s the number one thing.
I know the job market is very difficult right now, so whoever’s graduating this year, I wish them the best of luck. But start with volunteering. Don’t waste your time doing nothing while you’re looking for a job. Some of us may not be fortunate enough to land a job right after college, but by volunteering for an organization, you will expand the Rolodex like crazy. You may get that future job. But you also need that role of mentors I think. It’s been a pleasure and honor to be here. Thank you.
Ching-Leou Liu:
Thank you. Our three panelists have offered a very practical way to deal with leadership development and I’m sure all the other panelists will do the same. Prepare your questions for our panelists, and now our forth speaker, Ms. Catherine R. McCabe is Assistant Vice President and Director of TIAA-CREF’s Metropolitan New York City/Connecticut Regional Office. Does everybody know TIAA-CREF? That’s CUNY’s pension. Our money goes there. And she is a registered representative of the NASD with Series 6, 63, and 26 licensing and maintains Life, Health and Variable Annuity licenses from the State of New York. Ms. McCabe.
Catherine McCabe:
Thank you very much Ching-Leou. Ching-Leou asked me what those stood for. I’m going to be a judge, nuclear scientist. I don’t know what all your credentials were, but I have to give some credentials, but those are actually licenses with the National Association of Security Healers. We have to have certain licenses in able to handle and invest your money. You’ll see why I have a prepared speech, when I get to the end of my speech, which will definitely be within the time frame.
I manage a group of consultants, like Rosemary, who is the primary representative for CUNY, here in Manhattan. The office that I’m in covers a bigger territory, but I’m assigned specifically to Manhattan. And we have over 700 clients in Manhattan alone, on this little island. And 145,000 participants, people like Ching-Leou, who are saving for their retirement through TIAA-CREF. I’m really honored to be here. I think in a different capacity, but not really. As a woman, and one of the things I didn’t do, but I could do afterwards are some statistics. I didn’t do this in my prepared speech, but as I was listening to some statistics.
One thing that TIAA-CREF is very good about – it’s an excellent company to work for; we are a very diverse group of people. We actually were just listed as in the top 100 companies for women. It’s very family oriented, but I don’t know what percentages everybody falls in. But it is an excellent company and an excellent company for women.
My topic is “Getting Ahead in Corporate America,” and what I thought I would do, especially for those of you going out into the world – those of you who have been in the work world for awhile I think you probably have adopted some of these lessons as well. I have three lessons that I think have helped me get to where I am, and some of them I heard the three of you say. You’ll hear some of the things you said. I graduated with a B.A. in English and a path that many thought I would take was to become a professor or a teacher. I had two great role models – my mother and my oldest brother were both professors.
But instead I pursued a career in the corporate world and hired by, at the time [Price Waterhouse], (since then they’ve changed, but at the time they were [Price Waterhouse]) in their international tax department. English major, international tax – how did that happen? What they did, their goal was to hire a group of liberal art students each year and shape them, take these broad thinking minds and shape them. Be bigger than just numbers, not just number crunchers. Although the goal was a good one, I found out that it was really about number crunching and that wasn’t really for me. So I didn’t last very long there. I stayed less than a year and I didn’t know what I was going to do. I got the book What Color is Your Parachute? I don’t know if that still exists, but I used it to try to figure out what I would do.
I was lucky that I had an opportunity at TIAA-CREF. I began there as a junior consultant in the same office that I’m in now (we’ve changed our name). In 1987, I thought this was my professorial debut, because TIAA-CREF was very well known for being the world’s largest pension company (and it still is), so I thought what I would be doing is teaching the teacher on how to save for a financially secure future.
So that’s where I started my career, and I think this leads to my first lesson learned, which is, do not wait for opportunities. I heard that a little here. We have to seek them out. They’re not just going to be there. And that goes for throughout your career. They’re not just going to be handed to you, like here’s a project. Go look for that project. Work hard, but not just work hard, be honest, be ethical and have integrity. I really feel when I wake up in the morning I can look in the mirror and say I’m going to do something good today, I’m going to be helpful, I’m going to be ethical. I’m not going to do anything to hurt anybody.
I think a trait that has helped my reputation and has given me recognition in this way, is that I treat everybody the same. I treat everybody with respect, whether you’re somebody that works for me (maybe on some days I’m crankier than others) or you’re my peer or above me, and whether you’re a client externally or you’re somebody that I works with. And that, of course, goes for friends and family as well. I think teamwork is essential. When you get out in the workforce, you’ll see it’s not all about what you do, it’s how you work with others, having successful results, and another thing is positive feedback. Giving that to people, telling them you’re doing a really good job, they’ll respect you and want to come back and help you out.
I just celebrated my 15th anniversary at TIAA-CREF. I was a child prodigy. I started there young. And things at TIAA-CREF have changed dramatically through the years. When I first started, we really truly were just a pension company. We offered two investment choices. We are now a full blown financial services organization. Rosemary was staffing the table when you all came in this morning with all the different products that we have, not just for people like Ching-Leou who work at CUNY, but for people in the general public. Our clients are always number one in our process, and what we haven’t moved away from is our core belief that we want to offer the highest quality products at the lowest possible cost. That’s our main goal.
That leads me to lesson two, which is to accept and embrace change. Change is good. It’s necessary to competitive, on the cutting edge, to be the leader in what one does. Over the years that changes have occurred, I have embraced those changes. I have accepted them, I went forward with them, but one thing that I feel hasn’t changed and that is when I first started at TIAA-CREF, I had fire in my belly. I wanted to do a good job and I wanted to make it in the company. The one thing that hasn’t changed is I still feel that way. I still believe I’ll probably be with TIAA-CREF until I retire, which is probably a long way out (although sometimes I wish it was sooner), but I do really like what I do, and enjoy working with people like Ching-Leou.
My lesson number three that I’ll lead up to is that one of the things that’s a recurring theme or trait about me that helped me get here, and this goes to communication is that I’m very organized (although some days I’m getting crazy). I’m organized. I am a good communicator. When I look back on my appraisals, it says, nice presenter, made something difficult easy to understand. That was a recurring theme. I was a team player, and still am.
I think a stepping stone to my success was when I was charged to leading and developing a corporate project team about years ago. I’d never even been on a corporate project team and now they’re asking me to lead it, and I find out that the team that’s been assigned to me has never been on a project team either. So the first thing I did was figure out how to run a corporate project team. And because we’re the kind of company we are, we had those resources available. HR came in and trained us in a very short time frame. In a short period, we completed our goal, we presented our product to upper management, they gave us their stamp of approval, and we took it on the road to train our colleagues.
This led to an award for our team, which is another great thing that TIAA-CREF does, is recognize people at all levels for the many different things that they do. It led to an award for me and a promotion. This project is now an actual unit at TIAA-CREF, which is something that I’m very proud of. But that leads me to lesson three and why I have a written presentation, and that’s…not that you need to have a written presentation, but I need to. It’s that you should be prepared.
One must always be as prepared as you can in everything that you do. Put your all into each and everything that you do. I’m a planner. Rosemary knows that. She just said to me, you’re an eight type personality, which I am. I plan for parties, vacations and saving for retirement, all with the same gusto. It doesn’t mean that something can’t go wrong. I’m okay with that. There are times that you are put on the spot and you don’t have time to prepare, so just do your best.
So in closing, these three opportunities: looking for opportunities, accepting and embracing change, and being prepared have really helped me to get where I am at TIAA-CREF on the corporate ladder. I still have a long way to go, but it’s kept me in good status and it hopefully will. Whatever you want to do in your careers, and those of you who are already in your careers, think big, don’t have limiting thoughts and commit to what you want, and you should have success in your futures. Thank you.
Ching-Leou Liu:
They can all share experiences from all different lines of work, so any questions? I think we want to hear more. Or it’s Friday and you want to get out of here. Any questions?
Doris Ling-Cohan:
This is a nurturing environment, so this is the place to ask your questions.
Renee Tang:
Is there a particular industry that you’re interested in? In general. To me, I would say look around or you could even go to your career advisor. Let’s say you’re in a fashion industry, I would try to find out…if you know someone you could ask if someone could recommend a mentor to you. Or if you’re interested in starting your own dot com company, then I would try to find someone who started her own dot com company.
But for generic mentor…I told you my mom is my role model, so for me, I’m very lucky. I consider her to be one of my best friends. I call on her for advice. So that kind of mentor – maybe someone that’s more personal. Or even one of your professors you can draw on as a mentor. But if you’re looking for something industry specific, you can also look on different websites.
I think a good resource is National Association of Asian American Professionals. There’s a wide range of Asian diversity in terms of Chinese, Korean, Pilipino, South Asian…and in terms of people, they’re in government, they’re in non-profit, they’re in for-profit, so that would be a good way to start out. At the end of the conference I’ll give you my business card so that we can talk more extensively.
Patricia Eng:
The only thing I was going to… before her honorable self. You said something earlier about getting involved in volunteering stuff. The most powerful member I ever got, I met in the ladies’ room at a Society of Women Engineers Conference, where I was volunteering, and she said, oh you’re the woman who was passing out the pencils (or whatever it was). This woman is now the Vice President of Northrod Grumman. And I met her in the ladies room, volunteering, passing out pencils.
So those are all really good ideas, but it’s kind of easier to ease into it, I found, to get involved in some sort of professional association that’s in the field that you’re interested in. If you’re interested in the fashion industry, or whatever, I think those are good leads. That way it’s not a formal situation. It’s somebody you can meet kind of casually and decide, maybe I don’t want this person as my mentor. You can shop around that way.
Doris Ling-Cohen:
It’s hard to find a mentor. I think that one way of getting one is to not be afraid to ask for advice, following up on what Renee said. And the best piece of advice that I got from someone was that people love to give advice. It makes them feel important. So when you ask for advice, you’re kind of elevating them. Then you have to be selective, because not all advice is great.
Nevertheless, when you ask for advice, you basically will be auditioning mentors. They will put themselves out and give you advice and then you can always follow up and say, I followed your advice and this is what happened. Have them be interactive with your life and as you develop that relationship, that person will become a mentor to you, without your asking, “can you become my mentor,” because you have been interactive.
Audience Member:
I have a question about TIAA-CREF. I’m currently with TIAA-CREF. But like she said, I’m thinking about what do I want? And what should I do with TIAA-CREF? And what I mean is could I continue while I work at the other companies?
Catherine McCabe:
So you’re talking about your personal investing?
Audience Member:
Yes.
Catherine McCabe:
Well, there’s a couple of things. First, if you go to another employer who has us, because we are non-profit, we only deal with non-profit organizations, and the majority of colleges and university. But the 700 that I referred to right here in Manhattan run the gamut of types of organizations. One for example, is the Asia Society, the Japan Society…those are organizations that participate with TIAA-CREF. So what you may end up finding is that a new employer that you go to, if it’s in the non-profit sector, chances are that they are participating with us, and you can continue through that plan.
We do have other products now, that anyone, even your dad, can invest in at TIAA-CREF, which anyone can invest in, which we say are available to the general public. We offer mutual funds, just like mutual funds you can get at Fidelity, Janice and Vanguard. We offer IRA products. We offer the New York College Savings Program (Pataki’s Program), is with TIAA-CREF. It’s the state plan. We are the funding vehicle that you can use to help save for education – and not just your child. It could be any child. It could be yourself. It’s really a dynamic program. I’m not sure how much you know about it, but it’s a phenomenal program that’s available.
So there are lots of things that you can do. You may have to use a different product to do it, but there are things available to you. I don’t know if you still have things out on the table? When you leave, right by where the cafeteria was, there’s a table with brochures, but I’ll also give you my card. Thanks for giving me an opportunity to sell my product. Very nice.
Audience Member:
Ok, I have a question. You talked about being very organized, and I’m just the opposite. Also, I remember my father always said, at our home I have one brother. He’s a mechanical engineer and he’s always very organized and always knew what he wanted to know what he wanted to do for his life and for the next year. But I’m just the opposite. My father would ask me, what do you plan to do for the summer? I don’t know. I waste my time. I’m a daydreamer. So a person like me, talking about leadership development, are you going to set up long range planning and short range planning? No?
Patricia Eng:
I decided last August to grad school. I’m 47, what am I doing going to grad school? Life is a journey. All I know is what I want to do. Now I thought for 20 years I wanted to be an engineer, and one day I woke up and said, yeah I could be a really good engineer, but I’m not really happy doing this. Now, like you, I’m not just going to quit my job. I have 20 something odd years with the federal government. I’m not going to throw that away.
But in the meantime, that’s going to end. What do I want to do next? So you start taking small steps. I’m going to grad school. Maybe I’ll be a judge. Increase the numbers. But I’m going to grad school, and of all things, sociology. Now that has nothing to do with nuclear physics, I know, but it’s ok, because I decided. Nobody…[my dad] would rather I’d do something else, and I don’t know what my mom wants me to do, but that’s what I’m doing. Don’t feel bad, because I’m very disorganized. You don’t have to be organized to be an engineer. You just have to think in boxes. You don’t have to live in them. So I don’t know…
Audience Member:
What if somebody on your staff is not organized and you want them to develop leadership, what do you do?
Catherine McCabe:
Well I think like Patricia said, you can’t force your type, who you are, on somebody else. You have to accept that everybody’s different. It doesn’t mean that they’re disorganized. Maybe their desk looks disorganized, but the way that they conduct their business…Rosemary probably knows who they are. I have some people that are probably not that organized, but they’re brilliant. They come to me with great ideas and they’re innovative and they know what they want to do. But I think what we do, in that case, if you have someone who’s really all over the place, I think it’s a shorter term goal. Let’s try to accomplish something, not way into the future – let’s work on this one thing. Do you think you can focus on this one area, and see how it’s doing?
Doris Ling-Cohen:
I was going to say, leadership comes in different forms. One of the people I worked with at one point is a recognized leader. His name is Dennis Rivera and he’s the head of 1199. I never thought of him as an organized person. He was an idea person. Other people would organize to carry out his ideas. He would say let’s just do this demonstration, and then somebody else would take care of it. He’s not the person to take care of the details. I mean, we all have different skills and strengths. That’s not to say we can’t be more organized or we can’t become more of an idea person. We can all always increase our skill level, but we should recognize that we do have different strengths, and encourage people around us to exhibit their strengths.
I think the hardest part for women and for Asian American women, because I think a lot of our culture does not encourage us to speak out. As a child, I had a very traditional upbringing, and I love my parents dearly, but we were not encouraged to speak out. I was a very shy person. My first legal job was in legal services, which is basically helping poor people, and you think of lawyers being able to be very articulate in the courtroom, and when I got on a telephone with an agency to advocate for a client, I wrote out a script. I actually said, hello my name is…I would write it all out because I was scared to talk.
I think that now, through encouragement of other people and not being afraid to take chances in seizing opportunity. I think I’ve been able to accomplish more than what I started out with. I think that if you give yourself those opportunities and don’t be afraid, then you’re going to increase your skill level and be able to do a lot for yourself as well as for your community and your career.
Audience Member:
Women, especially Asian women, have to do everything. They have to take care of the family and take care of your kids and take care of your husband and then to work very hard in the office. What do you say to those people? What should they do?
Catherine McCabe:
That’s why Rose just ran out, she has two kids she has to get home.
Doris Ling-Cohen:
Well, I think you have to have a partnership. You can’t have a situation where you’re off yourself doing whatever you want and your spouse is off doing whatever they want and your children are doing whatever they want. I think there has to be communication. We’ve been talking about communication and communication among family members to say that on weeknights we’re gong to have takeout food from Chinatown and we’re going to do this, and this is a way of making life easier and there are specific tasks that have to be done by everybody.
Not laying down the law, but really having communication among the family members so that everybody is on the same page, so that you can do what you want and so that you’re also taking care of other people’s needs. I think that we’re always thinking of others.
Women, I think culturally, we are always encouraged to think of other people. That’s a good trait; it’s not a bad trait. But on the other hand, we also have to think of ourselves, and also encourage ourselves to develop as well. I think that really relies on communication as well.
Patricia Eng:
First of all, I couldn’t agree with you more. One of things that I found in the full blown study, which I couldn’t bring all of the statistics, the Asians used the extended family concept. I can speak that my cousins…I have six cousins and they all got married and they all have kids about the same age, who knock Auntie Pat over when she walks in the door because they’re just about that tall. And what happens is, every morning during the week, they all go to grandma’s house and grandma takes care of the four or five of them. And the mom’s go off to work and they all choose one day in the week when they choose to come home early.
And we’re finding that employers are starting to accommodate this because they’re seeing the contribution that women are making. They’re seeing that women are not stressed when they’re able to take care of their children. The federal government is starting to put day care centers in the workplace. I work in a high-tech industry and we have a day care center downstairs. So if your kid gets sick, you get a phone call and you don’t have to take time off from work, you just go downstairs, bring the kid back to your desk, and the kid sits in your office while you continue to work. I think that it’s still not easy, but it’s easier.
I think that some of the workplaces are starting to do that kind of thing. They’re also giving the fathers time off to be with the children as well. So what I would say to you is find an employer who is open and willing to work with you on those issues. Also work at home. I’m starting to work at home next week, I forgot to tell you. They’re starting to let people telecommute to try to maintain their workforce instead of loosing them to going home and not coming back. So you definitely need a partner, and you definitely need a workplace that understands that you are a whole person. But I only get to work at home one day a week.
Ching-Leou Liu:
Do you have any comments?
Renee Tang:
Actually I am not married, I am not a parent. But I have to say, just in terms of finding balance in your life, I’ve learned that leadership is a process. Before I used to think, Bill Gates is a leader; the mayor and the governor are leaders. But leadership is actually a two-way process. It’s about the leader having vision and directing his or her group of people, but another part of it is sharing your power, sharing the decision making.
Before when I was helping in organizing events, I used to think I know exactly what I’m doing and I’m going to do everything because I don’t have the time to have someone take the time to learn how to do it as well as I do. But then you just get burnt out. I think a lot of people do that, especially Asian women, because we’re just brought up to be nurturing and do multi-tasking, and thinking there’s no other option. It’s all on you, it must be done. It just took me years to unlearn all that.
Yes, it must be done, there’s no question about it. But now I’ve learned to ask for help and I’ve learned more about balancing. I try to have one day a week to just watch Law and Order and just do nothing. And it took me a while to not feel guilty about doing nothing, but that’s so important. I think as women, especially Asian women, we have to look after siblings, do our job, bring home the paycheck, cook, clean and do everything. I think it’s ridiculous. It’s impossible.
The expectations are different for my brother and I. As you mentioned, there are gender differences in every household and I think we have to be honest with ourselves. We have to know who we are and what we want. Once we realize what we want, we can say, well maybe I can have some of it now and more of it later. I have 10,000 things to today. Maybe I’ll ask my best friend if she can do these two things, and I’ll ask my mother if she can do these two things, and I’ll do the 8 that’s left.
There’s a Chinese saying, “Put your problems in little boxes and open up one at a time.” Instead of tackling the whole box and then you feel bitter and sick. So I think for young women who are single and not married and don’t have kids, I think you have to have the big picture and not get burnt out from the beginning. It’s a lifestyle and there are a lot of things you have to unlearn, because after I graduated, I just had this idea that I had to be superwoman.
It’s very difficult, being Asian, not to succeed, to do less. If I say, I’m only going to do 5 things today instead of my usual 20, then I’m such a loser. I think you have to alleviate your guilt, and if people give you slack for it, too bad. You need that time for yourself. These women who are mothers and have full time jobs and are volunteering left and right, they need time for themselves. We shouldn’t even have to justify it. I think we deserve for ourselves.
Audience Member:
I think this is not a problem just with Asian women, but is universal for women in general.
Ching-Leou Liu:
I want to thank all our panelists and to thank all the people that came here. Thank you.
Patricia L. Eng, P.E.
B.S. NE University of Illinois
Society of Women Engineers
7208 Righters Mill Road
Derwood MD 20855 USA
M. “Peggy” Layne, P.E.
B.E. Vanderbilt University, M.S.E.E. University of North Carolina
National Academy of Engineering
2101 Constitution Ave. NW
Washington DC 20418 USA
Abstract: In 1992, the Society of Women Engineers surveyed the members of 22 engineering societies in the United States. Data was collected on demographics, education, employment, salaries, family status, satisfaction with job, education, advancement opportunities, and perceptions of equitable treatment of women and minorities. Analysis of the responses to open-ended questions about career achievement and greatest obstacles to success reveal interesting differences not only between male and female, but also between Asian respondents and the overall engineering population. In general, the survey data show that young women and men start out their careers at parity in terms of salary and responsibilities, but within ten years the men begin to pull ahead of the women, and the gap continues to widen throughout their careers. Sufficient data were collected on Asian-American engineers to perform analyses and comparison of the experiences of Asian Americans with the majority population.
INTRODUCTION
Several years ago, the Society of Women Engineers conducted a national survey of men and women in the profession in the United States.1 SWE’s study contains data for a representative sample of the entire U.S. engineering workforce, using a stratified sample of members of 22 professional societies. The project conforms to academic standards for survey research and its data has been used as a basis for at least one PhD dissertation, at the University of California at Berkeley. A summary of the survey findings is found on SWE’s home page. (www.swe.org)
Upon analyzing the data, out of a total of 1,743 cases, exactly 100 classified themselves as having Asian ethnic origins. Although the number of Asians is relatively small, differences between Asian Americans and others in the engineering workforce can be examined. We have evaluated the data as reported by the survey participants who self-identified their ethnic origin. The term Asian is defined as that used by the U.S. Census bureau during the time the survey was conducted in the early 1990’s and includes Chinese, Filipinos, Indians, Indonesians, Japanese, Koreans, and many other nationalities. For this project, analysis has been limited solely to those who identified themselves explicitly as “Asian/Pacific Islander.”
BODY
Most statistical computations using data from the SWE project must be weighted to allow for deliberate over sampling of women, because the survey was originally designed to measure gender differences; when weighted data are used, the count of Asians drops slightly to 97.6.
The Asian group, albeit small can be used to analyze simple comparisons of overall percentage differences between Asians and non-Asians with a 95% confidence level.
DEMOGRAPHIC CHARACTERISTICS
There are no significant differences in the relative number of women engineers in the Asian American population (8.2%) compared to the females in the overall engineering population (7.7 %).
The demographics of Asian women engineers in the U.S. are striking. The Asian female respondents are generally younger than the non-Asian women in the profession (mean age 30.5, compared to 33.9 for women engineers in general). Over half of the Asian women -54.0 %-are under the age of 30, compared to 34.6 % of all women engineers. This greater youthfulness of Asian women in engineering may explain some other differences, including a lesser tendency than the non-Asians to be married.
Not surprisingly, Asian-American engineers tend to live on the West Coast of the U.S.: 35% of the men and 62 % of the women are located in the Pacific states; compared to 17 % and 25 % for all U.S. engineers.
Asian women engineers are less likely to be married than other women engineers (45 %, versus 61 %, respectively). This may be partially due to the fact that the Asian women as a group were younger than the other women responding to the survey. Of those Asian women who are married, roughly 30% have children. This is about the same as the non-Asian women engineers. However, Asian women are much more likely to place their children in a private home for day care than other U.S. women engineers. Asian family members, including siblings, grandparents and other relatives often provide day care for children of similar ages simultaneously. This practice eliminates the costs of caring for young children and also draws the family closer together. The sharing of parenting responsibilities continues through grade school in that relatives help in transporting children to after school and weekend activities. With this type of support, male Asian-American engineers are also more likely than their non-Asian peers to have children (65 %, compared to 47 % of the non-Asian men in the SWE survey).
EDUCATION
Asian men engineers are much more likely than others to hold advanced degrees, as shown in Table 1. Fully 82 % have an advanced degree; almost 40 % of the Asian men have doctorate degrees. This proportion is almost three times that of the rest of the male survey respondent. Asian-American women engineers resemble other women engineers in education level as seen in Table 1.
Table 1: All Engineers And Asian Engineers, By Gender: Academic Degrees
(Note: Percentages total more than 100 % because many persons hold more than one advanced degree.)
All Engineers All Asians All Men Asian Men All Women Asian Women
Avg # Degrees Earned 1.6 2.2 1.6 2.3 1.5 1.4
Avg # Advanced Degrees 0.6 1.2 0.6 1.3 0.5 0.4
B.S. Only, No Adv Degree 55% 22% 54% 18% 62% 64%
Engineering M.S. Degree 32% 69% 32% 73% 26% 27%
M.S. Degree (Except MBA’s) 6% 11% 6% 11% 6% 8%
MBA Degree 7% 3% 7% 4% 8% (none)
Engineering PhD Degree 10% 30% 11% 33% 4% 4%
Other PhD Degree 3% 5% 3% 6% 2% (none)
PROFESSIONAL CHARACTERISTICS
In the SWE survey, 37 % of the respondents noted that they chose engineering because they were “good at math and science.” The next highest reasons for becoming an engineer were “fun, interesting, enjoyable,” at 22 %; “career opportunities,” at 16 %; “challenges of the work” which tied with “family influences,” at 9 %; “encouraged by other people,” at 8 %; and “good salary prospects,” at 6 %. Among Asians, however, the importance of being good at math and science is the primary reason for going into an engineer: 57 % for Asian men and 63 % for Asian women. Asians cite “Fun and enjoyment” much less frequently (8 %) that the overall engineering population (22 %).
Asian American engineers much more likely than others to be university professors than the overall U.S. engineering population (17 % for Asians, compared to 8 % for all U.S. engineers). As such, Asian engineers view research and development as extremely important (41 % for Asians, compared to 16 % for all engineers) and cite task or project management, administrative duties, personnel management, or cost control as less important to their jobs.
SWE found that most engineers, including the Asian men, believe that their skills are appropriately used; however, Asian women are less sure that their abilities are being well used than their U.S. women colleagues (67% for Asian women compared to 81% of all women responding to the survey).
COMPENSATION
Salaries of Asian engineers are plotted along with the salaries of all survey respondents on Figure 1. Asian-American engineers do better than their colleagues in general, except for the most mature age group. This may be due to two things: one, older engineers may be experiencing compression of the lower salaries of 20 years ago; and two, we may be seeing the effects of the glass ceiling for Asians. Managers tend to earn higher salaries than their technical counterparts, including university professors, and Asians hold relatively few management positions in high-tech companies and in government.
Figure 1. Salaries of Engineers by age and ethnicity
EQUITABLE TREATMENT
When Asian-American engineers are asked about equal treatment of men and women, their responses mirror those of all engineers: men typically say that both sexes are always treated equally, while only a quarter of the women concur. But when the question of equitable treatment of different groups outside of gender is asked, specifically related to ethnic origin, nationality, race, or religion, Asians see a different picture than the overall engineering population. Fully 61% of those responding to the SWE survey said that all ethnic groups were treated equally. Only 35 % of the Asians concur. When asked whether women or minorities have been overlooked for choice job assignments or promotions, 13 % of all U.S. engineers report discrimination against minorities compared to 48 % of the Asians.
The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights (USCCR) noted that Asian Americans face a number of barriers in their careers, notably a glass ceiling. USCCR reported that the representation of Asian Americans in the senior executive suite is a mere 0.1% of the Asian population, even though the average education level for Asians is much higher than the national average.2 Asian American engineers, both foreign and U.S. born are much less likely to be managers. The survey respondents view discrimination as the root cause for this phenomenon. Since promotion decisions are subjective, it is hard to prove that discrimination is a factor. USCCR suggested that the subject of employment discrimination regarding Asian Americans merited serious research; however, such research has not been conducted.
ACCOMPLISHMENTS, CAREER OBSTACLES, AND OTHER EXPERIENCES
The SWE survey explicitly asked for comments regarding career obstacles, and educational deficiencies. Specifically, survey participants were asked to identify the greatest obstacle in their careers. A striking finding was that men typically identified factors that were beyond their control. U.S. male engineers overwhelmingly identified issues related to the economy as the primary factor holding them back from promotion. U.S. women engineers, on the other hand, tended to identify personal deficiencies as their obstacle. Women often stated that they needed more training, better time management skills, and to figure out what they wanted to do in order to move ahead. This suggests that women are either not as secure or confident in their abilities, or are not comfortable in acknowledging that their lack of advancement may be beyond their control.
The vast majority of survey respondents noted that their biggest training deficiency was a lack of exposure to “real-world, practical” engineering problems in their academic training. The Asian American respondents agreed with this view; however, the Asian American view of career obstacles was very different from the overall U.S. engineering population.
Many Asian-American engineers cited discrimination as a barrier to job advancement (note that immigration related issues were not counted as discrimination issues). Asian women cited both gender and racial discrimination as significant issues. Male Asian engineers tended not to cite discrimination as an obstacle until they reached the age of 40. At that point, comments on racial barriers became more common. No Asian males cited gender discrimination as a career barrier, instead, they identified a variety of issues, including insufficient funding, the poor state of the economy at the time the survey took place, foolish management practices, and others.
OVERALL SATISFACTION WITH ENGINEERING WORK AND CAREERS
To summarize respondents’ experiences, the survey included a set of the usual Likert-scale satisfaction questions (with choices like “Very Satisfied,” “Satisfied,” “Neutral,” “Dissatisfied,” etc.). Responses to these items were scored to convert results into single “satisfaction scores” which could vary between plus or minus two: plus two for perfect satisfaction, zero for neutrality, and minus two for complete dissatisfaction. Such items were asked about a number of dimensions of work and about general overall reactions to the respondents’ engineering careers.
Regarding general reactions to their work, male Asian-American engineers’ satisfaction levels were comparable to those of all U.S. men engineers. Female Asians were significantly less satisfied than other women engineers. However Asian American engineers are less satisfied than the overall U.S. engineering population with a number of issues. Specifically they express dissatisfaction with equitable treatment on the job and with their immediate supervisors. Male Asian-American engineers, but not females, are significantly less satisfied than others with their compensation and benefits. Female Asian-American engineers are less satisfied than other women with their support facilities and advancement opportunities. However they are more satisfied than other women engineers with the overall management of their companies.
U.S. engineers are very pleased with their academic training. Asian-American respondents express a higher level of satisfaction with their academic training than the overall U.S. engineers. Engineers are also fairly well satisfied with their own career accomplishments; male Asian Americans are somewhat more satisfied than others, female Asian Americans somewhat less satisfied. While still positive, satisfaction levels are slightly lower for engineering employers, supervisors, and career prospects.
In the case of supervisors, Asian-American women are significantly less satisfied than either Asian men or other women engineers. A number of Asian American females noted that their supervisors were insensitive and tended to overlook them when assigning prestigious projects.
CONCLUSIONS
The data reveal a classic portrait of high-level employment discrimination against Asians. While the data verify a number of commonly held beliefs about Asian American engineers, including the tendency of Asian men to become engineering professors. The item of note, however, is one of inequitable treatment on the job.
The high education levels of Asian-American engineers lead employers to welcome them as entry-level workers, to retain them when company shakeups occur, and to pay them well-up to a point. The data suggest widespread prevalence of glass ceilings-a phrase used by Asian men as well as women-which form serious barriers to advancement into the management positions that are the culmination of engineering careers. These types of evidence include compensation trends, increased feelings that one is not a participant in management, and significant increases in awareness of inequitable treatment.
What is unclear is whether Asian Americans want to go into management. Many Asians tend to pursue research and development activities and other highly technical jobs. Such pursuits do not naturally lead to management positions. The view of Asians as a generally intelligent introverted, and inarticulate group may also hinder promotions into the executive suite.
Regarding compensation, it is possible that the drop in salaries reported for the most experienced Asian engineers is a phenomenon of the 1990’s that may not be repeated in the future. But to assume that this explanation is entirely sufficient is to ignore a long, well documented history of such glass ceiling effects in the cases of many groups, including women, other races, and religious minorities. Therefore, the salary data may be an indication of discrimination. The historical record of discrimination up through the 20th Century against Asians in the United States, which is extreme3, supports this.
Asian-American women engineers appear to be a particularly dissatisfied group. They are much less likely than others to feel that their skills are well utilized; they are much less satisfied with many aspects of their work and their supervisors.
The SWE 1992 survey data not only demonstrated notable difference between male and female engineers, it also demonstrates the glass ceiling encountered by Asian-American engineers. Examination of differences between Asian Americans and others in engineering is feasible because, unlike other ethnic minorities, Asians are not underrepresented in the profession – quite the contrary. This analysis makes one curious about the current status of Asian-American engineers. Much has changed since 1992. The increased number of high technology companies, including the “.coms”, and the subsequent economic recession has done much to affect the demand for engineering talent. By now, the Asian women who responded to the 1992 survey are in mid career. A follow-on survey effort is needed to determine whether the glass ceiling for Asian Americans persists.
1 “A National Survey of Women and Men Engineers: A Study of the Members of 22 Engineering Societies,” Society of Women Engineers, 1993
2 “Civil Rights Issues Facing Asian Americans in the 1990s,” U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, February 1992, Pp 131 – 134.
3 Ibid. Pp 2 – 9.
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