There are those who wring their hands about the lack of diversity in the commercial AV industry — and in STEM fields broadly — and there are those who do something about it. Here, we celebrate the doers among us, highlighting a remarkable partnership between Rosie Riveters, Colorado Women in AV, IT and Security (COWAVITS), and the Aurora Public Schools in Colorado. Together, these partners brought to life a fun, interactive STEM lesson for fourth-grade students across numerous schools in the district. The project perfectly aligned with existing curriculum units, and it allowed the district’s diverse population to experience the challenges and triumphs of productive struggle — the journey from “I can’t” to “Look what I did.” It’s a case study that is also a guide map revealing to us how to diversify the AV community of tomorrow.
Rosie Riveters Makes a Difference
If you’re active on LinkedIn, you’ve almost certainly seen coverage of Rosie Riveters’ activities. The 501(c)(3) non-profit organization strives to do something about persistent societal inequities — namely, just 28% of the STEM workforce is female, and only 5% is composed of women of color. Rosie Riveters seeks to remediate these disparities by engaging with school-age children (those between four and 18) to spur interest in STEM fields. “Early engagement is the name of our game,” Brittany Greer, executive director and founder, Rosie Riveters, declares. Since the organization’s founding in 2016, it has served nearly 30,000 kids, and the pace is only increasing. Indeed, since this past January 1, Rosie Riveters has served more than 9,500 kids. The organization serves all genders and gender identities, recognizing that all of us have a role in diversifying the STEM workforce.
Rosie Riveters has 123 different STEM activities, projects and kits in its repertoire, all emerging from its custom-built Rosie Labs program for schools. All the activities are hands-on and interactive, which, Greer says, reflects the organization’s commitment to “…early engagement, continued engagement and innovative learning, which is our productive struggle approach.” Rosie Riveters regularly partners with likeminded organizations — everyone from public schools to the Girl Scouts — highlighting an understanding that, if accessibility is the goal, partnerships are the avenue for making that happen. Notably, Rosie Riveters’ partnership with AV industry luminaries Erica Carroll and Jennifer Goodyer established the organization’s connection to the commercial AV industry specifically. Over many months, that relationship has yielded numerous proactive initiatives to diversify the AV workforce.
COWAVITS’ Remarkable Efforts
COWAVITS, led by Christie Mitchell as president, is the other partner organization behind the remarkable collaboration with Aurora Public Schools. According to Mitchell, “COWAVITS began as a grassroots effort locally, assembled out of passion and enthusiasm from Colorado Women in the AV Industry. What started as a handful became a driving force, growing to over 100 members in under two years. Additionally, the security industry was added to our name to reflect the newest active members of our group.”
Citing persistent gender-based disparities in the commercial AV industry, she continues, “It is beyond obvious there is a gap to be filled, and women everywhere are answering that call. Organizations like WAVIT and AVIXA are driving this conversation at scale. We are no longer looking for a support mechanism but rather an overall shift in perspective that unites the 88% of men in our industry with the 12% of our women; [this will create] a legacy of change, growth and opportunity not just in AV but within all of our local communities. COWAVITS members look forward to the future with WAVIT and AVIXA as we continue this conversation together.”
COWAVITS had already forged a connection with Aurora Public Schools and was looking for ways to collaborate. The organization helped recruit Greer and Carroll of Rosie Riveters to participate in the burgeoning initiative. “We made this one giant initiative from COWAVITS and Rosie Riveters with Aurora Public Schools,” Mitchell enthuses. The team quickly settled on the idea of harmonica kits, which the students could assemble, play and measure the sound waves from.
Volunteers from COWAVITS, including its president, Christie Mitchell (center), not
only participated in harmonica kit packing parties but also went onsite to work with
Aurora Public School students directly. COURTESY COREY CHRISTIANSEN AND CALANDRA ANTHONY.
Packing Parties
The first packing party for the harmonica kits took place in August 2023, with another occurring late this past winter. Volunteers on behalf of Rosie Riveters and COWAVITS carefully packaged hundreds of harmonica kits, each equipped with tongue depressors, rubber bands and straws. Mersive Technologies, the Lakewood, Colo.-based company for which Carroll worked at the time, generously provided the space for the packing parties. “We’re building confidence one STEM kit at a time,” Carroll smiles, putting into words the spirit that inspired all those volunteers.
It’s worth mentioning that the Aurora Public Schools program ended up being far grander than originally planned. According to Junho Doo, employer engagement coordinator, Aurora Public Schools, the initial vision had been for only about 200 harmonica kits. “This blew up into something a lot bigger than that,” he said with a laugh. “The school district was really, really excited about it,” Mitchell agrees, saying Aurora Public Schools wanted to embark on a district-wide project. The volunteers, therefore, packed and distributed approximately 850 kits for nine different schools in the district, with approximately four participating classrooms per school. Doo emphasized the involvement of Aurora Public Schools’ instruction and curriculum department, which sought to align the STEM initiative with an existing curricular unit. With the fourth graders’ sound waves unit, they found an inspired pairing.
To create an interactive STEM lesson as ambitious as this, it took not only inspiration but also generosity. Mersive Technologies created a sound wave app. Shure generously donated headphones, with longtime associate Althea Ricketts playing a critical role. Other key sponsors and supporters included Advisist Group and its chief advisist, Bradford Benn; Legrand AV; Liberty AV Solutions; LINX; and AVI-SPL.
Jewell Elementary School, part of Aurora Public Schools, was one of several schools in the district to benefit from the harmonica-making and sound waves lesson, melding music-making with STEM learning. Courtesy Corey Christiansen & Calandra Anthony.
Getting in the Classroom
Several months ago, Rosie Riveters, COWAVITS and their volunteers finally got in the classroom in Aurora Public Schools buildings, including at Altura Elementary School, to deliver their interactive lessons. Using the carefully packed kits, the fourth-grade students built their harmonicas — made of popsicle sticks, rubber bands and other simple components — and then measured their sound output, in decibels, using the Mersive sound wave app. “When you blow between the popsicle sticks, you can see the rubber band vibrate,” Carroll explains. “And the harder you blow, the more it vibrates.” It was a perfect method of making science instruction tactile, interactive and “real” for the inquisitive girls and boys.
Plus, the experience was fully gamified. Greer from Rosie Riveters suggested having a leaderboard, where the sound measurement numbers would pop up as though on a scoreboard. The Mersive app measured each classroom’s collective harmonica sound, with the loudest class receiving a set of Shure headphones. Teachers throughout the district, including Mr. Davis and Mr. Darnell, easily leveraged the project, which, like all Rosie Riveters STEM activities, has been tried and tested in classrooms across the country. “This is designed, truly, to be plug-and-play,” Greer states. “We are not asking you to do hours and hours of prep to implement this.” Doo mentions that Rosie Riveters even provided teaching instructions and resources for the instructors.
According to Doo, Aurora Public Schools is a data-driven operation, and that includes data on students’ career interests. “Arts/AV is something that our students have gradually been getting interested in, and it’s evident in our younger students,” he explains. What’s noteworthy — and worth celebrating — is the fact that, right now, more female-identifying students are showing interest in Arts/AV than male-identifying students are. The 60/40 split might augur well for the future not only of the commercial AV industry but also STEM fields more broadly.
Shure generously donated headphones to this initiative, with longtime associate
Althea Ricketts playing a central role in making that happen. PHOTO COURTESY OF COREY CHRISTIANSEN & CALANDRA ANTHONY.
A Difference ‘Face’ of Technology
A real benefit of volunteer-driven programs like those that Rosie Riveters and COWAVITS deliver is that students (and their parents, for that matter) see a different “face” of the technology world than popular media commonly shows. These programs break down outmoded assumptions and can recalibrate students’ career expectations. Carroll shares an oft-quoted observation, commonly credited in modern times to Sally Ride: “You can’t be what you can’t see.” Well, earlier this year, students in Aurora Public Schools saw women and men of all backgrounds and demographics engaging with creative technology, learning and having fun.
And fun is a big part of our story — not only for the students but also for the instructors and the volunteers. All of us, as AV professionals, can get caught up in the day-to-day grind of our jobs, Mitchell acknowledges. And she believes, for COWAVITS volunteers like her, classroom STEM programs are the perfect antidote. “You step out of [the everyday] and you step into that school,” she reflects joyfully. “And I saw 20-some volunteers remember their inner child and what it was like to be a tactile learner where you could touch it, hear it, see it and feel it.”
It’s a potent reminder to carve out time to volunteer — especially by serving kids in our public schools. “It brings out a really special component of who you are and the pride of what you do,” Mitchell adds, “instead of another copy-and-paste email sent in the day.”
COWAVITS marshaled a large group of volunteers to support this partnership with
Rosie Riveters and Aurora Public Schools, everyone working in support of spurring
interest among children in STEM and AV. COURTESY COREY CHRISTIANSEN & CALANDRA ANTHONY.
Long-Term Commitment
Greer emphasizes that Rosie Riveters doesn’t merely swoop into a district, run a program and sweep out; instead, the organization embraces long-term commitment. To that end, it has applied for another grant application to continue programming for Aurora Public Schools. “It’s not just a one-and-done thing,” she says. “It’s evolving. How do we expand it? How do we do more of it? How do we make this happen in a continued-engagement model?” It’s all in service of the organization’s long-term goal of making STEM-related careers part of everyone’s story — part of the narrative that guides kids’ trajectory as they approach graduation, apprenticeship, trade school or college. “These [careers] are for you,” Greer declares, boiling Rosie Riveters’ message down to its simplest takeaway. “These are opportunities that you can access. These are things that you can aspire to. These are horizon lines that you can aim for.”
It’s a resonant message for Carroll, who says young people often apply to work at McDonald’s because that is what they see every day. In her work with Rosie Riveters, she aspires to raise students’ consciousness to other businesses and organizations in their local community, thus planting a seed for when they go out into the world and look for a job. “What we’re doing, hopefully, is making a change for two generations from now,” Carroll says. “Eventually, this new wave of young professionals will be confident enough in their technical ability and present themselves.”
Clearly, Rosie Riveters’ work with Aurora Public Schools — and education institutions across the country — has only just begun. “We’ve been speaking to Junho and others on the team about working with the STEM teachers and being able to resource them with additional projects and activations and kits,” Greer enthuses. She adds, “I really feel like this district gets it.”
The collaborators for this initiative quickly settled on the idea of harmonica kits,
which Aurora Public Schools fourth-graders could assemble and play, and whose
sound waves they could measure. PHOTO COURTESY OF COREY CHRISTIANSEN & CALANDRA ANTHONY.
The Next Chapter
According to Mitchell, COWAVITS is likewise excited to write its next chapter with Aurora Public Schools. However, a round of fundraising will have to precede the next big initiative. “We have a pretty good idea and a vision for how this works and how to make it even better next time,” Mitchell says. Her colleagues and she plan to fundraise through the fall and winter, and then perhaps roll out a new kit and a new lesson by next spring.
Raising money and getting these initiatives off the ground may be hard work, but it’s also good work. “There is an opportunity to do something incredibly fulfilling and worthwhile within our communities,” Mitchell beams. “And it is very little effort if it means putting a smile on a kid’s face.” Doo feels the same way, saying, “To have people come in and just share life and share experiences and make these connections for our students has been incredibly beneficial and just wonderful to see.” He sings the praises of each volunteer and participant for “…the flexibility and the willingness of everybody who wanted to participate and bring this to life.”
And even if diversifying the STEM field and infusing the commercial AV community with wildly talented young women doesn’t tug at your heartstrings, there’s also the purse strings to consider. As Greer observes, “Diversity benefits everybody. It is innovation. It changes the game of what your productivity is. It changes the game of what your returns look like. If your team is diverse, you have better and more exciting outputs.” It’s a reminder that, as incredible as the #avtweeps community and our technology is, the upside potential is truly without limit.
This collaboration between Rosie Riveters, COWAVITS and Aurora Public Schools is a beacon of what passionate collaborators can achieve when they align behind a shared vision and allow genuine inspiration to guide their steps. Join the mission by visiting RosieRiveters.com or going to AVGives.com.
