Donna Milgram is founder and Executive Director of the National Institute for Women in Trades, Technology & Science (IWITTS), a California-based national nonprofit organization dedicated to providing training, e-strategies, publications and technical assistance nationally to the education system and employers to integrate women into technology and law enforcement careers. She has developed extensive resource publications, produced an instructional video, and conducted hundreds of workshops on recruiting and retaining women in technology education and related occupations at national WomenTech workshops, national and state conferences and for state, regional and local educational institutions.
Ms. Milgram is currently the Principal Investigator of the CalWomenTech Project, a $2 million National Science Foundation grant awarded in April 2006. Over a five-year period, IWITTS will work with ten California community colleges' emerging technology centers to assist them in recruiting and retaining women and will disseminate the results statewide and nationally.
Ms. Milgram was also the Principal Investigator of the WomenTech Project, funded by the National Science Foundation, which had a goal of increasing the number of women enrolled and retained in technology education in three national community college demonstration sites. Key accomplishments included: doubling the number of females enrolled in the Community College of Rhode Island's technology programs ranging from telecommunications technology to computer networking technology to electronics technology; development of a WomenTech section of the three participating community college's Web sites; launching of www.womentechworld.org, an online community for women technicians and students with content of over 50 role models and a WomenTechTalk ListServ, Message Board and E-Mentoring site; and the successful piloting of "Tech Readiness" courses designed to bridge the digital divide. The Community College of Rhode Island (CCRI) WomenTech site received a "Best Practice Award" for the Project from the American Association for Women in Community Colleges at their national conference in Dallas, Texas in March 2003.
Ms. Milgram led IWITTS's partnership with the Cisco Learning Institute (CLI)/Cisco Gender Initiative via e-research, e-strategies, e-training and consultation on marketing, evaluation, and e-support. Ms. Milgram developed the majority of the content of the domestic best practice portion of the CLI Gender Initiative Web site, click here to go to their site.
Accomplishments of the Gender Initiative Project include: online focus groups with Academy Instructors and a focus group report; case study profiles of 11 best practice sites; FAQs on recruiting and retaining females to Cisco Networking Academy Programs; two online training sessions for Academy instructors on recruiting and retaining females, and profiles of female role models.
Ms. Milgram produced the interactive teacher training video "School-to-Work: Preparing Young Women for High Skill, High Wage Careers" and accompanying train-the-trainer publications in 1997 as part of the School-To-Work: Women in Science, Engineering & Math (SEM) National Science Foundation Project. Ms. Milgram was Principal Investigator for this joint effort with the North Carolina School-to-Work Office and the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction. This Project was funded for field-test only, and since that time Ms. Milgram has conducted hundreds of national and statewide train-the-trainer workshops and personally trained thousands of educators on recruiting and retaining women and girls for technology occupations on a fee-for-service basis.
Ms. Milgram's recent conference presentations include: the NSF ATE Conference "Recruiting Women to Science, Technology, Engineering & Math" (2004), California Educating for Careers Conference in 2003; League for Innovation in the Community College, pre-conference Learning Center Course at the national IT conference, workshop at annual conference in 2002; Association for Gender Equity in Leadership Education, 2002; Cisco Networkers National Conferences in 2001; Women and the New Economy, US Department of Labor, Region IX Women's Bureau, 2001. Keynotes: Cisco Learning Institute National Conference -- Workforce of the Future, 1999; National Coalition on Sex Equity in Education, 1998.
Ms. Milgram served as an advisory member of the IT Advisory Consortium, IT Career Cluster Initiative, of the Education Development Center; and is a former board member of the National Association of Private Industry Councils; the Montgomery County (MD) Private Industry Council; the Federal Committee on Apprenticeship; Girls Inc. of the Island City (where she also chaired the Board Development Committee); the Technology Committee of the Alameda Chamber of Commerce; and the editorial Advisory committee of the Skills USA's newsletter.
In 1992 Ms. Milgram testified before Congress as an expert witness on sexual harassment of women in nontraditional occupations. In 1993 she testified before Congress on the School-To-Work Opportunities Act about the absence of young women from many U.S. Department of Labor school-to-work demonstration sites. Ms. Milgram spent a year on Capitol Hill in the office of Congresswoman Connie Morella (MD), as a Congressional Fellow on Women and Public Policy. She developed two bills on nontraditional employment. The Women in Apprenticeship Occupations and Nontraditional Occupations Act (PL 102-350), authored by Ms. Milgram on behalf of Congresswoman Morella, was signed into law in 1992. The Commission on the Advancement of Women and Minorities in Science, Engineering, and Technology Development Act (PL 105-255) was signed into law in October 1998.
A nationally recognized expert on women and workforce development issues, Ms. Milgram has been quoted in The Washington Post, The Chicago Tribune and numerous education journals and has appeared on CNN, Fox Morning News and C-Span. Ms. Milgram was one of two guest experts on an hour long program on National Public Radio for The Merrow Report-"Girls and Technology: Closing the Gender Gap."
Ms. Milgram graduated cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania and received a Masters degree from the University of Maryland, where she was valedictorian for her school.
