The absence of women leaders in engineering enterprises has long been recognized and unaddressed – until now.  

In July, Jeanine Armstrong Gouin ’87 (ENG) – who is both a UConn Trustee and president of an environmental consulting firm – announced that she has endowed an initiative to begin tackling the challenge. She has made an undisclosed gift to endow the Jeanine Armstrong Gouin Initiative for Women in Leadership at the UConn College of Engineering.

Gouin, a Civil Engineering graduate, is president of the U.S. division of SLR International Corp. and oversees nearly 500 employees in 27 offices throughout the US, including more than 50 UConn graduates. Throughout her career she has observed the void of women in managerial and executive positions, with many women engineers leaving the profession entirely after just a few years. The pattern is continuously repeated but has never been systematically addressed. Now Gouin will begin working with faculty and leading an external advisory board to launch the program. 

“We struggle to keep women in the profession, and particularly, we struggle to recruit them into executive and management positions,” UConn Foundation President and CEO Amy Yancey said, reflecting on Gouin’s gift. “There’s plenty of talent, but for a number of reasons, it remains a challenge. Today, we celebrate the beginning of Jeanine’s vision, an initiative for women in leadership in the UConn College of Engineering.” 

Gouin’s gift to UConn Engineering, announced and celebrated at a July 29 event on the UConn Storrs campus, will provide financial support for leadership programs and activities that are available to all engineering students, not just women. The focus of the programing is on empowering women engineers to become confident leaders, but the programming will operate on an “all-comers” participation policy, with men equally welcome as women to participate in the programming activities.

“Trustee Gouin, thank you so much for your gift in support of women in leadership,” UConn Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs Anne D’Alleva told the group. “I’ve witnessed your passion for UConn and the College of Engineering, and your true desire to make a difference on the UConn Board of Trustees, while also serving as an executive in the world of engineering. That same care and thoughtfulness is represented in this gift.”  

Former Dean Kazerounian, who returned to the faculty the day after this celebration, said “We are profoundly grateful to Jeanine Gouin for her generous gift, which not only honors her remarkable achievements but also inspires the next generation of women leaders in engineering. Her commitment to fostering empowerment within our field is a beacon of hope and a call to action for all of us.” 

Gouin acknowledged their thanks and talked about the challenges she’s faced in her career, and how they influenced her decision to find ways to give back to the College.

“I had the good fortune to be born as daughter number five to parents who didn’t think it was ‘weird,’ that I wanted to be engineer,” she said. “My parents taught me, through their actions, that kindness, compassion, respect, and integrity were far greater accomplishments than any amount of money that I could ever earn in my lifetime. There has never been a better time than right now to be a woman living on this Earth. And yet, so often, I look around rooms of leaders, executives and CEOs, and there are just so few women among us… in some cases, all that’s needed is a little encouragement.” 

Gouin has been twice elected an alumni representative on the UConn Board of Trustees and will have served for eight years if she steps down when her term expires in 2025. She was named as an Honoree of the Connecticut Women’s Hall of Fame in 2019; was named to the Connecticut Technology Council’s Women of Innovation in 2017; and was inducted into the UConn Academy of Distinguished Engineers in 2014. 

For more information about donations and gifts to the College, visit UConn Engineering. 

[Editor’s Note: This story was updated on Aug. 30 to clarify that the programs and activities funded by the Jeanine Armstrong Gouin Initiative will be open to all students, regardless of gender]