About
The EYH Network, (formerly the Math/Science Network) started in 1974 as an informal group of women scientists and educators in the San Francisco Bay Area who were concerned about low female participation in math courses.
Currently Expanding Your Horizons conferences are held in 31 states and in Europe and Asia.
EYH was first introduced to the Flathead Valley in 1983 by the American Association of University Women (AAUW). The sessions took place at Flathead High school for girls in 6th through 12th grades. Later, a committee of community members centered out of Flathead Valley Community College (FVCC) hosted the event. When FVCC began a rapid expansion of their own, the committee reached out to other community groups to continue the program.
The Soroptimist International clubs of Bigfork, Kalispell, Polson, and Whitefish, being service organizations with the mission to improve the lives of women and girls, responded to the call to action. We have been organizing and fundraising for the Flathead EYH program since 2007.
We had 75 girls, in grades 6-8 registered to our first event held on a Saturday at Columbia Falls Middle School. We found it difficult to reach girls that had conflicting weekend sports and community activities or transportation problems. So the next year we held the event at FVCC on a school day. The middle schools are happy to make this an excused field trip day because of the powerful math and science experience the girls receive. We hold the event on the Tuesday after the Spring semester at FVCC is over so more classrooms are available and the campus is not full of college students. We had a limit of 200 girls the first year at FVCC and had to turn girls away, so the next year we limited enrollment to girls in 7-8 grades only and opened it up to the maximum capacity of the community room at the college (300 students).
Our program is registered through the EYH Network and is one of only 2 sites in Montana.