April is Community College Month! Established in 1985 by the Association of Community College Trustees (ACCT), Community College Month aims to raise awareness of the vital role that community colleges play in bridging gaps in higher education for diverse and underrepresented students. In engineering, community colleges offer critical pathways to baccalaureate and advanced degrees or directly to the technical workforce, driving social and economic mobility for those typically outside the engineering “pipeline.”
This month, SWE’s Community Colleges Affinity Group — which advocates for community college women in engineering and technology and promotes the transformative impact of community colleges in diversifying the STEM workforce — celebrates the reciprocity between community colleges and SWE. In doing so, we pose two important questions: Why are community colleges important to SWE? And why is SWE important to community colleges?
Why Are Community Colleges Important to SWE?
In his 2002 speech titled The Importance of Diversity in Engineering1, William A. Wulf, computer scientist and then-president of the National Academy of Engineering (NAE), emphasized the critical role diversity plays in “good engineering.”
He argued this for three reasons. First, diversity is an issue of fairness and equity. Second, to ensure enough engineers given a decreasing number of white males, more women and underrepresented individuals are needed in engineering.
Wulf’s third reason — his core argument — was that the quality of engineering is affected by diversity. He wrote:
“…Engineering is a profoundly creative profession — not the stereotype… The psychological literature tells us that creativity is not something that just happens. It is the result of making unexpected connections between things we already know. Hence, creativity depends on our life experiences. Without diversity, the life experiences we bring to an engineering problem are limited.”
Wulf differentiated between “collective diversity” — the diversity of race, ethnicity, and gender — and “individual diversity,” which he described as “the breadth of experience that a single individual has” and the “gene pool” of creativity. Collective and individual diversity are “essential to good engineering,” he asserted. “At a fundamental level…”, wrote Wulf, ”…men, women, ethnic groups, people with handicaps, all experience similar life experiences differently. If all are not involved in creating engineering solutions, needs are unstated and, therefore, unmet… This has gone beyond an equity issue.”2
Collective diversity and individual diversity are the essence of the community college population. The nation’s ~1,000 community colleges educate a disproportionate number of underrepresented, nontraditional, first-generation students, and “higher proportions of women, low-income students, and student parents compared with four-year institutions” (Costello, 2012). “Community colleges provide the most diverse student body in the history of the United States with access to higher education” (AACC 2024). NRC and NAE (2012) state, “Community colleges serve people of color, women, older students, veterans, international students, first-generation college goers, and working parents.3 In particular, minorities who are underrepresented in STEM fields are disproportionately enrolled in community colleges.” Community college STEM students represent more than one-quarter of all U.S. STEM students and more than one-third of the 4.4 million enrollees at community colleges nationwide per semester.4
Community college students come to engineering education, the engineering profession, and SWE with a wealth of unique perspectives and backgrounds borne of intersectional identities of race, culture, socioeconomic status, class, age, parental status, work experience, and more.
Why Is SWE Important to Community Colleges?
For community college women in engineering, being a part of SWE is about belonging and all that belonging means and offers. Where there is isolation, SWE offers community; where there is a lack of professional exposure, SWE teaches the ethos of engineering; where there are no outlets through which to share their stories, SWE offers space; where there are no role models, SWE provides them; and where there is no career or professional development, students say conference experiences are “life-changing.”
As a peer network, SWE acts as a “community of influence” whose members serve as “social vaccines” for women in STEM, increasing belonging and inoculating fellow members’ self-concept against stereotypes.5,6 SWE members contribute to a “constellation of mentors” which, according to Dr. Becky Wai-Ling Packard7,8, of Mount Holyoke College, is essential to community college women. Packard writes that, “A constellation mentoring strategy, or having a set of strategically assembled mentoring relationships from different sources that provide a range of mentoring functions along one’s pathway, is recommended to promote persistence and career success.” Dr. Packard also states that “many different kinds of mentoring relationships contribute to persistence in college and within STEM specifically. Students are more likely to persist in STEM when they experience a combination of (1) socioemotional mentoring functions, such as encouragement or role modeling, and (2) instrumental mentoring functions, including academic support, college navigation, and career coaching.”
Amplifying the Relationship
There are challenges to community college participation in SWE. The diversity of experiences and circumstances that we celebrate — the collective and individual diversity that Wulf references — is both celebratory and limiting. Life challenges often prevent community college women from initiating and maintaining traditional mentoring, networking, and working relationships with SWE. Because they may not be adept at professional navigation and engagement, community college women often struggle to participate in SWE in meaningful ways — despite the unique strengths and perspectives they offer and the benefits of participation.
How can you help amplify this important relationship? We suggest the following:
- Understand the mission of community colleges, learn about community college women in engineering, and promote the importance of community college engineering pathways for diversity and inclusion in STEM. Check out these recent SWE Magazine articles: The Community College Connection and Community College Educators Make a Difference!
- Help us build community and challenge the “community college stigma!” Are you a community college student, graduate, faculty, advisor, or sponsor? Be loud and proud about your community college experience. Engage with the Community Colleges Affinity Group (AG) in a working group role, AG events, and coffee hours. Connect with the AG on LinkedIn, Instagram, and by email. Subscribe to our group’s email updates by logging into your member portal and scrolling to Communication Preferences.
- Support SWE’s efforts in research and support for community college affiliates and students. Read SWE research about community colleges, and learn more about SWE’s Community College Affiliate Support and Expansion (CCASE) Program, which has significantly impacted community college participation and experience.
- Ask how your professional section can support community college women in engineering and affiliates. Reach out to a local community college. In our forthcoming April 2025 newsletter, read about the “secret recipe” for engaging community college students as a sponsor in an article called Connecting Professional Sections and Community College Affiliates.
- Considering sponsoring a community college woman for conference travel.
Community colleges are our most diverse institutions. Community college women offer valuable perspectives and contributions borne from diverse life experiences and backgrounds. Yet, there persists a misunderstanding of this group and why they’re critical to broadening participation in engineering.
The reciprocity between community colleges and SWE is good for community college women in engineering, for SWE, for engineering, and for society at large. Work with the Community Colleges AG to celebrate the potential of this relationship!
1: Wulf, W. A. (2002, October 10). The importance of diversity in engineering. National Academy of Engineering. https://www.nae.edu/
2: (Wulf, 1998) https://www.nae.edu/7488/DiversityinEngineering
3: According to the American Association of Community Colleges (AACC, 2025), community college students are 28% Hispanic, 12% Black, 42% White, 6% Asian/Pacific Islander, 1% Native American, 4% 2 or More Races, 4% Other/Unknown, and 2% Nonresident Alien. By gender, community college students are 57% women vs. 43% men; by status, 34% full-time vs. 66% part-time. The average age of community college students is 27; the median age is 23. 32% are first-generation; 13% are single parents; and 23% are students with disabilities. 8% are non-citizens; 4% are veterans. In 2019-2020, 43% of full-time community college students were employed full-time; 30% of full-time students were employed part-time; 59% of part-time students were employed full-time; and 23% of part-time students were employed part-time (AACC, 2025).
4: Report co-author Clive R. Belfield, Ph.D., an economics professor at Queens College, City University of New York. The report revealed that 22% of U.S. workers who have a community college education, or 6.6 million people, work in a STEM occupation (including healthcare jobs).
5, 6: Dasgupta, N. (2011). Ingroup Experts and Peers as Social Vaccines Who Inoculate the Self-Concept: The Stereotype Inoculation Model. Psychological Inquiry, 22(4), 231–246. https://doi.org/10.1080/1047840X.2011.607313
7: Packard, B. W.-L., Gagnon, J. L., LaBelle, O., Jeffers, K., & Lynn, E. (2011). WOMEN’S EXPERIENCES IN THE STEM COMMUNITY COLLEGE TRANSFER PATHWAY. Journal of Women and Minorities in Science and Engineering, 17(2), 129–147. https://doi.org/10.1615/jwomenminorscieneng.2011002470
8: Packard, B. W.-L., (2016). Successful STEM mentoring initiatives for underrepresented students: A research-based guide for faculty and administrators. Sterling, VA: Stylus Publishing, LLC.
