IISR’s Women in STEM and Sport Project

A major focus of the Institute of Interdisciplinary Sport Research (IISR) is the promotion of Women in sports science and sports management. The IISR seeks to lend its hand in driving research on and creating opportunities for women and allies of female empowerment. The institute has recently taken on an initiative called “Women in STEM and Sport,” where it exposes high school girls that have a passion for sports to different STEM (Science, Technology, engineering and mathematics courses) careers. The project focuses on careers in the sports industry, ranging from roles in technical design to sports medicine.

This month, the institute collaborated with St. John’s Athletics to offer Queens Satellite High School girl’s volleyball team a facility tour of the University. The girls toured all our sporting facilities, including our new eSports labs and our athletic training rooms, all the while receiving valuable information about the different career paths that student athletes can pursue in various fields of study. The Associate Vice President for Athletics, Kathleen Maheen, honored us by leading the tour and provided some of her student athletes for a panel discussion with the girls. The SJU student athletes shared information and personal accounts on the realities of playing at the collegiate level. They answered the girls’ questions on how to prepare for college and what to expect when transitioning to college. They also gave valuable advice on time management and study skills. The IISR staff gave a brief career discussion on the different careers in sports and the unique pathways students could take to go into those careers.

“I can see myself coming here!” exclaimed one of the girls on the volleyball team. It was shocking to learn that only 1 of the students had ever been to our campus before; an astonishing statistic for a team full of juniors and seniors that attend high school only 10 minutes way away from our Queens campus. This pilot tour only further demonstrated the need for exposure for girls within the Queens County community.  

The Women in STEM and Sport project, will focus on 3 main objectives. Firstly, we aim to increase exposure and awareness of college athletics programs in the greater New York region, as well as highlight the unique STEM career pathways each institute offers for college athletes. Secondly, we aim to inspire and offer mentorship to the girls through networking and hosting guest speakers that possess STEM roles within the sport industry. Our third objective is to offer academic enrichment for the girls by designing a science lesson that employs sporting terminology and examples to help demonstrate core concepts in science. The lesson is meant not only to bolster their knowledge of core concepts but also to build confidence by affirming the fact that they are naturally good at science and use it frequently in play.

Following the success of the pilot facility tour, the Institute is committed to a jam-packed spring of impact for Queens community’s young women in sport.