IN THE wake of comments by Harvard University President Larry Summers earlier this year about female professionals in the sciences, questions arise pertaining to the state of enrollment in engineering schools across the country. Why are there so few women in science programs? How should universities and our society in general respond to the statistics? What, if anything, should be done to achieve parity with males?
Summers hypothesized that there were few females in "tenured positions in science and engineering at top universities and research institutions" due to a number of different factors: familial commitments, innate differences between men and women at the far ends of the spectrum and taste differences and socialization, among others. Some feminist groups such as the National Organization for Women derided Summers, calling for his resignation because he dared to explore the topic. To the contrary, Summers was right to examine an issue that is relevant to all universities, including ours, which has found the delicate balance between encouraging female prospective students and avoiding any artificial means of bolstering female enrollment.
Currently, women comprise 25 percent of the University's Engineering School student population. Engineering School Associate Dean Paxton Marshall noted in an e-mail that this is above the national average of about 19 percent. When questioned in a phone interview about the higher female enrollment, Marshall stated, "I wouldn't say that we specifically focus on women, but we certainly do some things" -- things such as visiting high schools, hosting week-long summer residential programs and organizing overnight visitation sessions for high school girls during the engineering open house, which are all laudable programs designed to inform women of opportunities available to them.
Marshall was careful to clarify that the Engineering School does not "target" any specific group, because he doesn't "see any reason to think that in terms of abilities to do engineering that women are any less capable than men."
Feminist groups such as NOW typically advocate complete equality for women, which would imply a 50-50 split in admissions, and could be achieved more rapidly through affirmative action measures. NOW's Web site justifies affirmative action for women in science because "[w}omen still face barriers in schools." The Web site of the Feminist Majority Foundation mentions another statistic on women in science programs to prove that inequalities remain, which they consider a violation of Title IX.
A narrow objective like this one based solely on numbers misses the boat. This wholly discounts the preferences of males and females in majors and career paths. Applying this argument would translate into a complete overhaul of academic areas typically dominated by females, such as education or nursing, which compose of 87 percent and 97 percent women, respectively, at the University. Ironically, the Feminist Majority took pride in the fact that over 75 percent of veterinary students were women. Why are we not concerned with more men entering these fields, which have larger percentages of females than the Engineering School has males?
The Engineering School doesn't fall into this trap. Marshall stated plainly, "I don't think there should be quotas or targets," a practice that the Engineering School doesn't engage in.He reasoned, "Our country and society needs talents of all kinds of people."
Additionally, this gender gap isn't as large when you look beyond the general numbers and scrutinize specific fields in science; you find a slightly different story than the 75-25 ratio. Politics Prof. Steven Rhoads observes that women tend to be more interested in scientific fields that are organic. In an e-mail response, he asserted, "It is incorrect to say that women are not thriving in science. In 2002, women earned 45 percent of doctorates in biology and 67 percent of those in psychology... Men seem more interested and talented in the more spatial, abstract and mathematical sciences and relatively less interested in the biological sciences."
In the engineering realm, Marshall agreed that women "seem attracted to biomedical and systems engineering," but he remarked that he would probably attribute this to "cultural factors" rather than biological differences.
The jury is still out on whether or not biological differences in preferences, cultural factors or a combination of both account for the gender disproportion in the sciences as a whole, and much controversy will most likely continue to be generated in the future. However, the issue remains one that is important to study in an unbiased and methodical manner. In the meantime, a policy of reaching out to females who might be interested in science while refusing to cater to demands for a mere numeric equivalence is a fitting one that our University strives to achieve, and, overall, does.
Whitney Blake is a Cavalier Daily associate editor. She can be reached at wblake@cavalierdaily.com.
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