President Zorica Pantic has been accumulating a few frequent flyer miles recently—representing Wentworth in the Far East and Europe, while focusing on campus priorities and engaging in national education issues.
In November, she joined u.S. Rep. Steven Lynch, WET ’82, CMW ’88, in Germany for a conference on building trans-Atlantic trust and cooperation. In recent months she’s also addressed a gathering of the International Women’s Forum and traveled to Japan for a world conference on cooperative education.
In Germany, Pantic was part of a select delegation of civilians and members of Congress. While there, she also took time to visit with about 30 Wentworth undergraduates who are in Berlin for study abroad programs.
Pantic said Lynch’s invitation to have her join the trip to Germany reflects his work on behalf of Wentworth.
“Congressman Lynch—among other things— has helped tremendously with networking and es-tablishing important connections for the Institute,” she said.
Lynch, D-Mass., received an honorary degree from the Institute in 2004. Earlier this year, he helped to secure a $3 million federal grant to expand ap-prenticeships in the Commonwealth. Wentworth is an educational partner in that initiative.
The conference, “German-American Dialog: Revitalizing Our Partnership to Answer Common Challenges” focused on international issues ranging from climate change and migration, to education and energy security, health care, and free trade.
Pantic said the gathering created optimism and goodwill among attendees and will be a key factor in addressing the issues.
“It’s important for Wentworth to be engaged in meetings like this—to monitor what’s happening internationally and ensure our academic programs are keeping pace,” she said.
Lynch and Pantic spent three days in sessions in Berlin and three in Siegen. Other attendees includ-ed Roman Kern, senior director of programs and operations at MassChallenge; u.S. Rep. Chellie Pingree, D-Maine; and u.S. Rep. Billy Long, R-MO.
The conference was sponsored by the Aspen Institute, a Washington-D.C.-based educational and policy studies organization that has a branch in Germany.
Speaking on a panel at the International Women’s Forum World Leadership Conference in Boston (Oct. 28-30), Pantic said it may take 10 to 15 years before the country reaches significant gender parity in engineering and computer science.
“We’ll solve some of the issues,” she told attendees. “But I think it will take that long before more measurable progress is seen.”
She said key hurdles remain, from emboldening and encouraging girls when they are very young, to increasing access to equipment and opportunity by equally aligning education and career resources.
Pantic, who has been lobbying for and urging young women to study and work in the STEM are-nas, cited several Wentworth initiatives at the IWF conference, including hosting an annual forum for women in construction, and spearheading alumni mentoring programs in science and technology.
She said these and other efforts to increase female enrollment at Wentworth have been working. For example, today about 10 percent of the students in the Construction Management department are women—from a total of about 375 students. Five years ago that figure was 5 percent.
Pantic traveled to Japan in August to participate in the WACE World Conference on Cooperative and Work-Integrated Education (CWIE) hosted by Kyoto Sangyo university.
“That gathering,” said Pantic, “was an opportunity to build new partnerships and friendships, and to speak—on a global platform—not only about Wentworth’s tremendous success with co-operative learning, but also its leadership in engineering, technology, design, and management education.”
—Dennis Nealon
