Nonprofit leader on encouraging underprivileged girls, women to pursue STEM: 'We’re trying to teach them how to eat for a lifetime'

A Houston-area nonprofit organization is focused on fostering an interest in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) among underprivileged girls and women, per a report from Houston CBS affiliate KHOU. 

Former educator and singer Loretta Williams Gurnell, KHOU reported, found inspiration to establish the SUPERGirls SHINE Foundation in a song she recorded more than a decade ago and her interactions at professional development training sessions. 

“The women and fathers would bring their daughters,” Gurnell, the organization’s chief executive officer (CEO), recalled in the report. “And so I would talk to the girls. I would encourage them – talk to them about STEM and education.”

Gurnell’s conversations and the song in particular – titled “Superlady” – made her wonder about one thing. 

“And so the concept came,” Gurnell said, KHOU reported. “How can we be Super Ladies without raising up Super Girls?” 

She added that she noticed the STEM field didn’t have anyone who looked like her or the girls she talked to, motivating her to start SUPERGirls SHINE.

The station reported that the Pearland-based foundation seeks to boost the presence of minority girls and women in STEM through an array of opportunities, including but not limited to internships, scholarships and mentorship. 

It’s Gurnell’s hope that those who participate serve as examples to their peers, using an ancient Chinese proverb for reference. 

“If you teach a subject, I learn it for a day … We’re trying to teach them how to eat for a lifetime,” she told KHOU. “So we have to teach them how to fish.”

In a 2021 report from the National Science Foundation (NSF), physicist Dr. Julia Phillips said the exact reason for uneven distribution of educational results in STEM is unknown but added underprivileged students are taught by teachers with little to no background in their subject matter. 

“Students from low socioeconomic status and minority backgrounds also tend to have teachers who are not originally educated in the fields that they teach, and that's particularly true in science,” Phillips said in the report. 

On SUPERGirls SHINE’s website, its mission statement emphasizes early exposure to the field.