US-Turkey Planning Visit for a Workshop on Industrial Engineering Women in Academia in the U.S. and the Middle East

该奖项资助了阿拉巴马州奥本大学工业与系统工程系的Alice Smith博士和LuAnn Sims女士2006年夏季计划访问土耳其。此次访问的目的是与土耳其安卡拉巴斯肯特大学的Berna Dengiz博士合作，共同组织将于2008年夏季在土耳其举行的区域研讨会。讲习班的重点是从事学术工业工程和诸如系统工程、工程管理和制造工程等有关领域的妇女。讨论将集中在有关区域这一领域的女学者目前的环境，并为征聘和留用问题拟订可行的解决办法。参加者将来自美国和中东国家。规划和组织本次研讨会的筹备时间较长，因此更有可能充分探讨有关国家丰富多样的实践、挑战、制度和解决方案。虽然在美国工业工程专业的本科生中，女性占了相对较大的比例（在许多院校，这一比例接近50%），但在同一领域，女性学者却寥寥无几。由于土耳其在这一领域的女性学者比例相对较高，因此是举办此类研讨会的理想场所，也是美国和中东大学考虑的成功实践和模式的理想来源。这样的研讨会有可能刺激美国和中东之间的积极研究互动，增加参加研讨会的所有国家中选择攻读高级工业工程学位并进入学术界的合格女性人数，并改善该领域当前女性学者的保留和发展。在计划访问期间，PI及其同事将访问至少8所拥有强大工业工程专业的土耳其大学，以探索研讨会的候选场地，并与潜在的参与者会面，征求他们的支持和想法，以使研讨会取得成功。研讨会的负责人之一、科威特大学（Kuwait University）的突尼斯裔女工业工程学教授莱姆·m·哈拉（Rym M-Hallah）博士将与美国访问团和登吉兹博士一起参加计划中的访问。她将帮助联系该地区其他国家的女教授和高级博士生，包括埃及和黎巴嫩。

0549304 SmithThis award funds a summer 2006 planning visit to Turkey for Dr. Alice Smith and Ms. LuAnn Sims, Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, Auburn University, Auburn, Alabama. The purpose of the visit is to work with Dr. Berna Dengiz of Baskent University in Ankara, Turkey to co-organize a regional workshop to take place in Turkey in the summer of 2008. The workshop will focus on women in academic industrial engineering and related fields such as systems engineering, engineering management and manufacturing engineering. Discussions will center on the current environment for women academics in this field in the regions involved, and to formulate workable solutions to problems of recruitment and retention. Participants will be drawn from the U.S. and from Middle Eastern countries. The long lead-time for planning and organizing this workshop enhances the likelihood that it will fully explore the rich diversity of practices, challenges, institutions, and solutions across the countries involved.While women form a relatively large proportion of industrial engineering undergraduate students in the U.S. (their number approaches 50% at many institutions), female women academics in the same field are a minority. Because Turkey has a relatively large proportion of women academics in this field, it is an ideal place to hold such a workshop and an ideal source of successful practices and models for consideration by U.S. and Middle Eastern universities. Such a workshop has the potential to stimulate positive research interactions between the U.S. and the Middle East, to increase the number of qualified women who choose to pursue advanced industrial engineering degrees and enter academia in all countries involved in the workshop, and to improve the retention and advancement of current women academics in the field.During the planning visit, the PI and her colleagues will visit at least 8 Turkish universities with strong industrial engineering programs in order to explore candidate venues for the workshop and to meet with potential participants to solicit their support and ideas to make the workshop successful. One of the principals for the workshop, Dr. Rym M-Hallah, a Tunisian-born female industrial engineering professor on the faculty at Kuwait University, will join the U.S. visitors and Dr. Dengiz during the planning visit. She will help contact women professors and advanced doctoral students in other countries in the region, including Egypt and Lebanon.