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At left: Student in the CodeCrush program for middle school girls. Below: This summer 55 girls attended EUREKA!/STEM camp.
Attendees learn about and apply skills based on music informatics, computer science, bioinformatics, coding, IT innovation and cybersecurity. The program includes hands-on educational workshops, campus and cultural activities, visits to local corporate IT departments and panel discussions. Teacher mentors attend parallel sessions on how to incorporate emerging IT topics in their classes. The Women in IT mentoring program pairs UNO students with IT industry professionals. Each mentor meets with her mentee monthly to share professional wisdom, give insight about how she’s become successful, coach the mentee on workplace practices, and introduce her to other IT professionals in their workplace. Since its inception, the program has more than doubled in size, growing to 33 pairs in the 2014-15 academic year.
From left: College of IS&T students Delaney Lyman, Kat Slump and Emily Pachunka.
Feeling Welcomed
When deciding upon a college to attend a few years ago, Delaney Lyman saw a distinct difference at UNO that put it ahead of other schools. “No one could hold a candle to how welcoming UNO is to women,” Lyman says. An information assurance major, the sophomore has found many ways to build her skills and get support. In the spring, she attended the 2015 Women in Cybersecurity conference in Atlanta. She calls it “an incredible experience” to meet with other students as well as women who working in the field. Lyman has been working since January at The Attic, an IS&T student developer group that creates mobile apps and websites. She since has learned five different computing languages and worked on projects for UNMC. She also has become a mentee in the Women in IT mentoring program. Lyman has plenty of company at UNO. That includes junior IT innovation major Kat Slump. UNO students pursuing such a degree get a computer science background while also choosing 33 credit hours that support their career goals. Slump says she’s been able to take her interest in tech and apply it to other areas — and that’s given her a new perspective on her future.
EUREKA!/STEM, a four-week program for Omaha-area middle school girls, provides a hands-on experience in science, technology and mathematics. This summer, 55 girls attended the camp, a partnership between UNO and Girls Inc. of Omaha. Guidance and lessons on STEM concepts came from faculty in the UNO College of Education and College of Arts and Sciences. This year, participants had an opportunity to apply their STEM education at locations such as Adventureland, the Henry Doorly Zoo and Glacier Creek Preserve. They also engaged in unique activities including a high-altitude balloon launch, an aquaponics project, and use the equipment at the UNO Biomechanics Research Building.
It’s been a busy year. She received a scholarship to attend the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing conference in Phoenix last fall. Slump also was one of 22 women in the U.S. — and the first in Nebraska — selected to participate in Square College Code Camp, a five-day immersion program held in San Francisco. This summer, she interned at the Omaha IT start-up Flywheel, where she learned a new programming language and created dashboards and other tools. Fellow student Emily Pachunka has received similar assistance at UNO and now helps others get excited about IT by taking part in outreach programs like CodeCrush. She’s also taught mobile app development classes for underprivileged kids. “I realized how amazing that is,” she says. “If someone sits down and takes the time to get them exposed to IT, they can realize this might be something they can do later in life.” As Pachunka works on her senior thesis research project, she’s eager to apply what she’s learned to a real-world situation, like cancer research or gene therapy research. She says she appreciates the support the college gives students. “They really have a personal interest in the students. They put all their time and effort into what students need to succeed and into making partnerships with area companies, so we can have the opportunities we need to be successful.”