Victorian Tea Party

Promising young women attend a Victorian Tea Party by invitation.  The tea provides the young women with opportunities to talk with women in engineering and engineering technology programs and careers.  When the tea was first organized, in 2009, only high school students were invited.  In 2011, select members of the a group of young women from a junior high school who had been participating in NSF-sponsored activities were invited.

A member of the IVCC Leadership Team, at right, talks with a high school student and her father during the 2009 tea.

The tea is held at the Hegeler Carus Mansion in LaSalle,
a National Historic Landmark constructed in 1874.  

Hosts and organizers of the tea from IVCC and from the Carus family.  The highlight of the teas in 2009, 2010 and 2011 was a presentation by Kate Carus, a licensed professional engineer, about her great-grandmother, Mary Hegeler Carus, the first woman to receive an engineering degree from the University of Michigan.  In 2009, Inga Carus, the President and CEO of Carus  Corporation, welcomed the young women and shared her career story.

The tea provides the young women and parents with an opportunity to talk 
with women engineers and engineering technicians including several employed
at Carus Corporation.

Dorene Perez, right, talks with a mother and daughter
at the 2010 tea.

Two members of the middle school STEM girls (at left) and Sue Caley Opsal at the 2011 tea. While STEM typically means Science, Technology, Engineering and Math, the members of this group re-defined the acronym to Smart Teams where Everyone Matters.

 


At right, attendees hear a short presentation about engineering careers and Mary Hegeler Carus

 To a news story about the 2009 tea

FOR MORE INFORMATION ABOUT HIGH SCHOOL ACTIVITIES, contact:

Principal Investigator Dorene Perez, Program Coordinator of CAE/CAD, Email:  dorene_perez@ivcc.edu

Senior Personnel Jeanette Maurice, IVCC and Starved Rock Associates for Vocational and Technical Education, Email:  jeanette_maurice@ivcc.edu

 

Illinois Valley Community College
815 North Orlando Smith Avenue
Oglesby, IL 61348
PHONE: 815-224-2720
FAX:  815-224-3033