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Helen Hancock
Shoreline’s EYH Conference and Hancock still displays a commitment to supporting the role that the conference plays in getting young women to find math, science and technology as not only attainable fields for careers, but to help them find passion in them. When she was a student at the University of Florida in 1962, Hancock was one of only two women in a physics class of 300. “I was compelled to go and study math,” she says, “but I went into academia because I didn’t feel comfortable going into a world dominated by men.”
Hancock stressed the importance of young women having the opportunity to actually see and talk to women who are working in math, science or technology — jobs they might see themselves doing someday. She also stressed the importance of women of color making presentations so that young women of color could see firsthand the career possibilities that lie ahead and actually “imagine doing that type of work.” Shoreline’s first EYH Conference (approximately 250 girls) was held on a Saturday, but this did not encourage participation from a broader, diverse audience. They then changed the timing to be during the week so girls could be bussed from the schools to the College. In the last few years, the average EYH attendance at SCC is approximately 800. Hancock says that Shoreline Community College continues to host EYH Conferences because “we need to. I am so pleased to see that we are still doing EYH at Shoreline.”
EYH™ - The Flagship Program of the Math/Science Network
Today, EYH conferences are held at over 105 locales. Over 575,000 young women have participated in the these conferences. Many of these conferences conduct concurrent programs for parents and educators so they may more effectively support young women and their technical aspirations. A typical conference takes place on a Saturday at a local college or university and is attended by 200-500 young women from nearby middle schools and high schools. The schedule generally includes a keynote address encouraging girls to persist in mathematics and science courses, and two varieties of workshops. In 2003 many conferences will hold their programs on March 8th in honor of International Women's Day. In some of the workshops, young women participate in hands-on learning experiences led by women scientists, mathematicians, and engineers. In other workshops, role models share career awareness information and discuss job satisfactions, necessary education, and descriptions of a typical day on the job. The Math/Science Network licenses and coordinates the network of EYH conferences. It initiates local sites and provides them with technical assistance and conference and planning materials, as well as support services such as coordinated publicity and public relations posters and buttons. The Network also provides a "networking" link between sites. History of the Math/Science Network
In 1978, the Carnegie Corporation awarded the Network a two-year grant to establish a formal organization at Mills College for the purpose of coordinating existing activities and resources, consolidating existing materials and information, and providing technical assistance to others wishing to institute Network programs. The Math/Science Resource Center was founded in 1980 as part of a renewal grant, and its professional staff have been working with the volunteer members ever since. In 1982, the Math/Science Network became an independent, non-profit educational organization. The members of the Board of Directors of the Network work in education, government, industry, research, and self-employment. The Network offices were located on the Mills College Campus until the Spring of 1988, when they relocated to Berkeley. In the Summer of 1994, the Network returned to Mills at the invitation of the College and occupied offices in Mills Hall, a newly-renovated building designated as an Historic Site. Who To ContactStacey Roberts-Ohr, National EYH
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Mathematics instructor Helen
Hancock has been on the EYH planning committee since the first conference at
Shoreline Community College in 1985. Hancock, along with other female science
instructors, was very aware that only a small, probably around 10 to 15 percent
of math and science students were female and they wanted to raise that number.
(Currently about 30 percent of the students in Calculus III are women). Hancock
was one of only seven or eight female faculty members along with the director of
the Women’s Center to plan the first few EYH conferences at the College. They
wanted the young girls to have the chance to talk to other women who were
working in the sciences. They wanted the students to hear women talk about how
they made the decision to go into a science workplace, how they got there, how
much they liked their jobs and if they were compensated fairly. They wanted the
girls to hear the passion the women felt about their jobs and how comfortable
they were working in a male-dominated workplace. 
Hancock went to high schools
for many years to talk to faculty about working with the young female students
to help them feel confident in the sciences. She wanted to make sure that those
girls who were too shy to ask questions in their high school science classes
would have the opportunity to come to an EYH Conference and discover that they
might actually like science. “Learning doesn’t just take place in a certain
environment,” says Hancock. 
Expanding
Your Horizons in Science and Mathematics™ conferences are designed to nurture
girls' interest in science and math courses and to encourage them to consider
science and math based career options such as engineering, computer science and
biometrics. The Math/Science Network created the first EYH conference at Mills
College in 1976.
The
Math/Science Network started in 1974 as an informal group of women scientists
and educators in the San Francisco Bay Area who were concerned about low female
participation in math courses. They began planning coordinated efforts to
strengthen their individual programs and establish mutual support on a volunteer
basis.