{"id":2398,"date":"2021-06-23T07:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-06-23T06:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/engineering\/?p=2398"},"modified":"2022-01-20T10:36:46","modified_gmt":"2022-01-20T10:36:46","slug":"international-women-in-engineering-day-2021-our-female-engineering-heroes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/engineering\/international-women-in-engineering-day-2021-our-female-engineering-heroes\/","title":{"rendered":"International Women in Engineering Day 2021: Our female engineering heroes"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\"><em>Taking place on 23 June every year, today is International Women in Engineering Day. This year, #INWED21 celebrates female engineering heroes. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As the old saying goes, not all heroes wear capes and in engineering terms, women from around the world have been delivering engineering heroics throughout the years. Female engineers have gained a bigger profile more recently thanks to their work during the pandemic, wither everyday heroics helping to save lives and livelihoods.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>When we think about our female engineering heroes at Canterbury Christ Church, we are extremely lucky to be spoilt for choice. Our engineering subject area has a fantastic gender balance with almost 40% of engineering academics being our very own female engineering heroes. From the Head of School, Dr Anne Nortcliffe, through to lecturers, researchers and our engineering students, we feel the impact of female engineers every single day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Another of our female engineering heroes, Deputy Vice-Chancellor Professor Helen James, has recently been <a href=\"https:\/\/www.canterbury.ac.uk\/news\/news.aspx?id=9a51f4f4-5614-4459-afcb-7911d96f4d42\">awarded an OBE for services to Higher Education<\/a>. In particular, for championing women and diverse students into science and engineering, as well as helping those from disadvantaged backgrounds to access Higher Education, both regionally and nationally. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/engineering\/international-women-in-engineering-day-2021-our-staffs-heroes\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Read about our academics&#8217; female engineering heroes<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We have another female engineer hero here at Christ Church whose impact is still being felt. <strong>Verena Holmes <\/strong>was a true pioneer for women in the engineering sector and who we named our brand new, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.canterbury.ac.uk\/study-here\/student-life\/our-locations\/canterbury-campus\/verena-holmes-building\">multi-million-pound flagship building after<\/a>. Recently opened we can\u2019t wait to welcome the next generation of engineers through its doors to learn the skills that helped its namesake create such impact.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe title=\"Brand new building at Canterbury Christ Church University drone tour!\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/gkYgxd8lZqY?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>But who was Verena Holmes \u2013 our female engineering hero?<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Born in 1889 in Ashford \u2013 just down the road from <a href=\"https:\/\/www.canterbury.ac.uk\/study-here\/student-life\/our-locations\/canterbury-campus\/canterbury-campus\">our main campus<\/a> \u2013 Verena Holmes entered a man\u2019s world. Women didn\u2019t even have the right to vote, so the idea of taking up a career in engineering was incomprehensible. But after leaving school the First World War brought a life-changing opportunity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Holmes worked making propellers \u2013 engineering on a practical level \u2013 and took classes at Shoreditch Technical Institute. Undertaking an apprenticeship in form-fitting and drafting alongside studying for a BSc(Eng) degree at Loughborough Engineering College would put the most driven students today to shame, but Holmes did both, graduating in 1922. Oh, and along the way \u2013 in 1919 \u2013 she set up the Women\u2019s Engineering Society alongside Caroline Haslett and Claudia Parsons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>She was a dab-hand at not only wielding a spanner, but also in the design of locomotive and marine engines. She ended up holding patents for twelve inventions of her own design. Through this innate ability, as well as no shortage of tenacity, Holmes became the first woman member to be elected to the Institute of Mechanical Engineers in 1924.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>During World War Two, she worked on naval weaponry and became adviser to the Minister of Labour, Ernest Bevin, in 1940 and was influential in setting up the Women\u2019s Technical Service Register in 1942. This was a training course which helped educate women munitions workers during the conflict.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>After the war she founded her own engineering firm and continued to champion opportunities for women in engineering, dying in 1964 having permanently changed the face of the discipline and the place of women within it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As you can tell, we\u2019re slightly in awe of Verena Holmes\u2019 achievements, and through our staff, facilities and continuing celebration of all women in engineering, we hope to empower future generations to achieve success like she did.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>If you want to get involved in International Women in Engineering Day 2021 and share your female engineering heroes, jump over to <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/CCCUEdgeHub\">Twitter<\/a> and use the hashtag #INWED21. The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.inwed.org.uk\/\">official INWED website<\/a> has lots of resources to help you get involved \u2013 and don\u2019t forget to tag us so we can share your posts!<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This year, International Women in Engineering Day celebrates female engineering heroes. We celebrate ours at Canterbury Christ Church University.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":215845,"featured_media":2406,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[286,26,21],"tags":[265,258,254,266,262],"class_list":["post-2398","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-engineering","category-blog","category-stem","tag-female-engineers","tag-international-women-in-engineering-day-2021","tag-inwed2021","tag-verena-holmes","tag-women-in-engineering"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"authorName":"White, Benjamin (b.white276@canterbury.ac.uk)","featuredImage":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/engineering\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/629\/2021\/06\/verena-holmes-engineering-9-4000x2496-1.jpg","postExcerpt":"This year, International Women in Engineering Day celebrates female engineering heroes. We celebrate ours at Canterbury Christ Church University.","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/engineering\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2398","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/engineering\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/engineering\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/engineering\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/215845"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/engineering\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2398"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/engineering\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2398\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2506,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/engineering\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2398\/revisions\/2506"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/engineering\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2406"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/engineering\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2398"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/engineering\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2398"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.canterbury.ac.uk\/engineering\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2398"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}