The Thayer School of Engineering will receive $530,000 from the Clare Luce Booth Program to pay for a new female faculty position and to fund the last year of study for eight female engineering majors.
Associate Dean of the Thayer School Carol Muller said the money will keep the number of women graduating from the College with a bachelor of engineering degree on the rise.
Thayer was one of 10 schools selected to receive approximately $5 million dollars of grants to be given out by the nine-year-old program next fall.
The national program for women in the sciences awarded Thayer a total of $205,000 to pay tuition for four fifth-year women for each of the next two years.
"Female students will complete the degree who would not otherwise do so," Muller said. "This will help get more students into the engineering loop."
Because less financial aid is available for fifth-year Thayer students than for other undergraduates, who complete their studies in four years, final-year costs might deter some students from finishing their B.E., Muller said.
As of April last year about 25 percent of the students scheduled to graduate this year were women, she said.
Muller said the number might have changed by the time of Commencement ceremonies.
The remaining $325,000 from the gift will help Thayer create a new five-year junior faculty position for a female professor. Currently only one of Thayer's 24 tenured professors is a woman.
"The Clare Booth Luce fellowship grant also provides that woman with additional funds to ensure the likelihood of success in that particular position," Muller said.
Muller said the school has already decided to ask Linda Wilson, who is currently doing post-doctoral work at the Langley Research Center at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, to fill the position.
The Clare Booth Luce program was established in 1987 upon the 84 year-old Luce's death.
Luce, a former U.S. Senator, ambassador to Italy and editor for Vanity Fair, set up the grants as part of the larger Henry Luce Foundation, named after her husband who founded Time Inc.
