More women pursuing lead on Illinois family farms

More than 20 years ago, Laura Sellmyer’s dad and uncle expected one of her two brothers would be the next generation farmer.

But, it didn’t turn out that way. Laura took over her family’s Livingston County farm — 1,500 acres of corn and soybeans.

As a student at Illinois State University in Normal, she started taking agriculture classes and ended up with an ag business degree. She knew she wanted to farm.

“It was a big challenge. I came in not knowing if I would be able,” she recalls.

Her father worked for the FSA and had farmed with her uncle Bill. Her two brothers had been helping with the farm since they were kids, but she had not.

“My dad and uncle had no concept of a woman farming,” she says of when she first approached them after college for a job. But, she proved herself. Read more in Illinois Farmer Today.

Video game camp teaches young girls coding

When 11-year-old Vani Subramony grows up, she wants to be an engineer or video game designer.

The Sycamore Middle School student was one of 11 girls who attended Northern Illinois University’s Girls Video Game Camp, a five-day crash course on what goes into making video games.

“I knew a lot about video games, but not how to make them,” Subramony said.

The girl-specific camp has been running for about five years and is intended to empower young girls interested in science, technology, engineering and math fields, camp leader Suzanne Jackiw said.

By Friday, each of the girls had designed, programmed and written the coding for their own three-dimensional virtual world and game using a coding program called Game-Maker: Studio. Now, nearly all of the girls want to pursue a career in technology, camp leader Rebecca Griffith said. Read the story in the daily chronicle.

Illinois State chosen to help boost women in economics

Illinois State University has been chosen to take part in a national initiative to boost the number of women in economics majors across the country.

Known as the Undergraduate Women in Economics Challenge (UWE), the three-year project will implement strategies for women in introductory economics courses designed to encourage them to stay in the major.

Spearheaded by Harvard University and funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the program is administered by the National Bureau of Economic Research.

“The hope is to see a marked difference in the proportion of women who enter the major, a difference in GPA, a reduction in time to complete the major, or other markers of success,” said Illinois State’s Department of Economics Chair David Cleeton.

One of 20 schools chosen—alongside Yale, Princeton, and Brown universities—Illinois State will begin “interventions” in several sections of the Principles of Economics course this fall. Read more of the story by Rachel Hatch.