STEM Goes Red event educates local female students about exciting career paths

Female high school students from Corbin, Lynn Camp and Knox Central high schools got the unique opportunity to receive some valuable insight and advice pertaining to their potential future careers Wednesday when they attended the one-day “STEM Goes Red” event at Eastern Kentucky University’s Corbin satellite campus.

EKU partnered with the American Heart Association to present this special program, which around 50 students attended. During the course of the morning and afternoon, these young women received information that will help them as they make plans to pursue degrees in the STEM fields of science, technology, engineering and/or math.

Participants in the program also had the opportunity to apply for the Carol Barr Fund Student Scholarship, which is named after U.S. Congressman Andy Barr’s late wife, and supports female student in eastern Kentucky who are entering into any of the above-mentioned areas of study.

“We are here today to give high school students the opportunity to see who they can become,” said Dr. Judy Jenkins, who heads up the STEM education program at EKU. “We want them to experience and try out different STEM activities so that they can best make decisions about where they want to go next.”

Jenkins explained that the students present at Wednesday’s program were able to attend because they were hand-picked by their teachers based on “the promise that they saw in them, and the interest that they have shown in these areas.”

As part of the day’s schedule of events, Jenkins led an hour-long discussion with a panel of special guests that included Christina Brady, RN, MSN, CNOR at Saint Joseph Hospital; Caitlin Johnson, engineer with the Stantec engineering firm; Emily Landis, CADD technician with Qk4 Incorporated and Haley Thacker, occupational therapy student at EKU. Students had the chance to ask these panelists questions about a wide range of topics including their college experiences, career choices, and what it is like to be a woman working in STEM-related fields.

As for the American Heart Association’s involvement in this event, AHA Executive Director Andrea Ooten said, “Our STEM Goes Red program started several years ago nationally when it became apparent that there was this huge, troubling gender gap in women going into STEM careers. We are a science-based and health-based organization that really wants to help address that.”

Ooten added that cardiovascular disease is the number one killer of all Americans, including women, so finding ways to engage students at a young age is critical in addressing that problem as we move ahead into the future.

EKU Corbin campus director Trent Pool was excited about having the chance to host Wednesday’s event, commenting, “This is a great opportunity to have another window of engagement with our local schools, and the students who attend those schools. It is another opportunity to get them engaged, not only with the American Heart Association and with various STEM-related programs, but with this campus specifically.”

For more information on the work that the American Heart Association is doing in Kentucky, visit the organization online at www.heart.org/lexington.

For more information on the many degree programs being offered by Eastern Kentucky University, visit them at www.eku.edu.