Female Engineering Program to Open

Hoping to add more women to an overwhelmingly male-dominated profession, Smith College officials voted to open the nation’s first engineering program at a women’s college. Smith officials said women represent about one in six college engineering students and less than one in 10 professional engineers nationwide. Classes are expected to start this fall. About 2,700 women attend the prestigious all-women’s school in Northampton, Mass. The college’s board of trustees voted to approve the program, which will be named after the late Jean Sovatkin Picker, a 1942 graduate.