Sub-series SS14 - Women in Technology Exploratory Evening Course

Delivery agent and target audience: SIAST Palliser Campus. Moose Jaw, SK.

Overend designed this program with the assistance of Doreen Gurnsey, a drafting technician and a WITT Coordinator at Palliser Campus.This program was modelled after the Women in Trades Exploratory Course and was customized to profile the technology programs offered at SIAST Palliser Campus in Moose Jaw. As with the WIT Exploratory, the WiTECH Exploratory Course was meant to provide a template for a similar course at the other 3 Campuses. The 36-hour evening exploratory course focussed on shop/laboratory time in several different programs.

Selection of tasks was challenging because, unlike trades tasks, very few could be applied to a home situation. While the WIT course drew women who both wanted to work or train in trades, it also attracted women who simply wanted some basic home repair skills and knowledge. The WiTECH course did not have the same attraction and the audience was limited to women who wanted to enter a technical occupation but needed assistance in determining a good fit. Their biggest challenge was finding students to fill the seats. They targeted their focus on current students in high schools and in SIAST Adult Education programs. This was a good fit. They also were able to get seats sponsored by local corporations who were interested in attracting students. While Overend is not certain, she think they ran 4-5 deliveries, including one that was contracted exclusively by an Aboriginal high school in Regina who travelled in a van to Moose Jaw for 2 evenings per week. Ultimately, they finally settled on a successful model whereby various Crown Corporations sponsored individual high school girls to participate as a recruitment initiative. On a sad note, the deliveries were discontinued upon the death of Doreen Gurnsey in 2008. Possibly the program was picked up again in later years.

NB. Very limited information is available on this program because most of the documentation was sent to the Saskatchewan Provincial Archives in Regina.