The Urban League of Nebraska (ULN) administers programs in education and youth development, offering supplemental and enrichment opportunities for high school students. One of our signature programs is the Whitney M. Young Jr. Leadership Academy, a college preparatory program. Under the leadership of Nicole Mitchell, the program’s coordinator, she operates a Girls Summer STEAM Academy in collaboration with the Omaha Public Schools District.
The ULN WMY Girls Summer STEAM Academy is a six-week program offered free-of-charge to as many as 20 young women of color from grades 9-12. Participants are exposed to careers in science, technology, engineering, arts, agriculture and mathematics through hands-on work, on-site tours of local corporations and institutions, and talks with professional women who are leaders in their respective fields.
Although women make up 50% of the total workforce, less than 30% are employed in STEAM fields. A report published by the National Science Foundation found that 42% of graduate students in science and technology were women. But of those women, only 14% were Black, Hispanic or Native American. Women are underrepresented in the fields of science and technology, but women of color are noticeably absent.
We use our work to teach our students that there are no “men-only” jobs in science and technology. The ULN WMY Girls Summer STEAM Academy prepares students for post-secondary education, emphasizing opportunities in STEAM-related careers and working towards shattering race and gender assumptions by increasing the representation of women of color in STEAM-related careers.
Hosted at Creighton University, the academy offers our students early exposure to a college campus setting. While they follow a formal curriculum that includes lectures, the real learning happens during the field trips. Students visit an architecture and engineering firm, a power plant, a hospital and medical school, a television studio, and a Fortune 500 railroad company.
Students attend talks with guest speakers who discuss the challenges and obstacles they encountered as women in careers that have traditionally been male dominated. Our students explore tactics and strategies to overcome those barriers as they learn the stories of these pioneering women who have achieved success in their chosen professions.
The Urban League of Nebraska developed the Girls Summer STEAM Academy to pique the interest of young women of color in the fields of science and technology and to help power the diversity and inclusion revolution of the future. We believe the young ladies who take STEAM classes today will become the women who dispel long-held beliefs about the women of color and their place in our shared digital reality.
