By Rebecca Wyatt, OU Web Writer

In an effort to encourage female participation in engineering, DaimlerChrysler recently presented four female Oakland University students with $3,000 scholarships. Marcia Dodich, senior electrical engineering major; Elizabeth Olar, junior mechanical engineering major; Jenessa Betts, sophomore computer science major; and Nichole Swann, freshman mechanical engineering major, were recommended to receive Chrysler Foundation scholarships based on their academic achievement and community involvement.

John Felice, SECS ’76, vice president of advanced manufacturing engineering for DaimlerChrysler, met with the recipients, gave them advice on how to succeed and listened to their plans for the future.

Felice said the trend is toward global business and global engineering and the students are preparing themselves in the right ways to succeed in the global marketplace.

“People like you are important to what’s going on in the world,” Felice said. “You are an outstanding group of individuals scholastically and in what you want to do.”

Dodich, who will graduate at the end of the semester, plans to participate in the Chrysler Institute of Engineering program and come back to OU for her master’s degree in electrical engineering. After interning with Chrysler for two summers, Dodich is certain she would like to work there.

Olar wants to pursue global engineering. A trip to China with her engineering class during the spring semester helped her realize that desire.

“It sparked a passion in me for sure,” said Olar, who already works for Borg Warner. “I will take any international experience I can get because that’s where I want to go.”

After reading a book about it this summer, Betts is really interested in network security and plans to pursue that avenue in computer science.

Swan, an incoming freshman from Dayton, Ohio, participated in community service and student activities throughout high school and is majoring in mechanical engineering at OU. She also is a member of OU’s women’s golf team. 

SECS Dean Pieter Frick said he is really proud of the accomplishments of the scholarship recipients and hopes they continue to succeed, adding that the school is doing all it can to encourage female students to study in SECS and to retain the female students it has.

“I’m really proud that 30 percent of the faculty is female and 23-24 percent of the student body is as well,” said Frick, citing that is double the national average.

For more information on SECS, visit the School of Engineering and Computer Science Web site.