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Harrisburg University Provost and Chief Academic Officer Dr. Bilita Mattes is featured in a recent Reinvented Magazine article in which she discusses the importance of growing the number of women who enter STEM-related careers and the STEM-UP Network, a social enterprise powered by HU.

Mattes is the Executive Director of the STEM-UP Network, a community of professional women in science and technology that support each other in women’s ability to thrive and advance in their careers and lives. This includes women just entering their STEM careers in industry, government, the military, and academia, those looking to advance in their careers, and senior executives.  

In the feature article, titled “Speaking Up and Speaking Loud: Advice from Bilita Mattes,” HU’s Provost shares:

“What I tell women all the time is: get out of your own way. Don’t second guess yourself. Say what you need to say. Be the person who shows confidence in what you have to contribute and don’t hesitate to make the contribution.”

Mattes also shares the business case for encouraging women to enter STEM fields in the article.

“When you think of women in STEM, their ticket to the dance is their discipline skill and not their ability to negotiate a salary [or] negotiate and navigate a promotion,” she says. “There’s a solid business case behind striving for gender parity and equity. If over 70% of professions today require STEM skills, and 50% of your workforce, which are women, are underrepresented in those STEM positions, and then you lose another 50% of them…. You just have to do the math to see the problem and the opportunity. There’s a business imperative in the answer.”

To read the entire article, follow this link.

About Harrisburg University

Accredited by the Middle States Commission on Higher Education, Harrisburg University is a private, nonprofit university offering bachelor and graduate degree programs in science, technology and math fields. For more information on the University’s affordable demand-driven undergraduate and graduate programs, call 717-901-5146 or email, Connect@HarrisburgU.edu. Follow on Twitter (@HarrisburgU) and Facebook (Facebook.com/HarrisburgU).

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