Female faculty offer opinions on Harvard president's statements

The debate still lingers, even though it's been more than two months since Harvard president Larry Summers made his controversial remarks on women in science and engineering at a January National Bureau of Economic Research conference.

Just two weeks ago, the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Harvard passed a "no confidence" vote citing long-standing dissatisfaction with his management style and, to a lesser extent, his conference remarks.

So what do the women at Tech think about the controversy? We spoke to several female faculty to see what they thought were the real issues behind Summers' statements.

Enough research

It was Summers' remarks about a difference in "intrinsic aptitude" between men and women in science and engineering that drew the most criticism from the media and peers.

And it's not hard to see why, said Nancy Nersessian, a joint professor in the College of Computing and the School of Public Policy.

While Summers said he was making "some attempts at provocation," Nersessian and other female faculty felt that his statements ignored decades of research on the topic.

"The question is, being provocative about what?...it was very unclear exactly what he was trying to do," Nersessian said. "It was a combination of...ignorance of the empirical research that has been done and kind of this sense of arrogance that he could from the top of his head address a group of women researchers."

Many also felt that as president of Harvard, Summers should have been much more aware of his position and his choice of words.

"I'm just surprised that someone in his position would make such a comment," said Enid Steinbart, director of Advisement and Assessment in the School of Mathematics. "Where we are is not where we want to be, and it's not inevitable that we're continually going to be so underrepresented in the math and sciences."

Mary Frank Fox, an NSF Advance Professor in the School of Public Policy and co-director for the Center for the Study of Women, Science and Technology, has done research on the subject of women in science and academia for over 30 years.

"I was struck by the issue being raised in such a way as to suggest that what we need is more research on this topic of different abilities," she said. In her research, Fox has found that women in the science and engineering disciplines in fact had higher IQs, grades and other performance indicators that would refute the "intrinsic aptitude" claim. "They were able to...overcome social barriers to stay in [these fields]...that's something that has been demonstrated again and again," she said.

Society vs. genetics

All the faculty members interviewed also emphasized their belief that social and environmental factors were much more important to a woman's success in science and engineering than aptitude.

"[There is] compelling evidence of the power of small differences in how we treat boys and girls, men and women," said Mahera Philobos, an academic professional in the School of Civil Engineering and the director of Women in Engineering. "Those differences, I would argue, provide a better hypothesis than innate sex differences to explain the gap between the numbers of men and women in academic jobs in the sciences."

For Nersessian, who earned undergraduate degrees in physics and philosophy and whose background is in cognitive science, social factors played a role in her own advancement as well.

"I never found being a woman an impediment to studying science," she said. "But I also realized...why am I not a theoretical physicist: because even though I did well, none of my professors really ever encouraged me to go to graduate school in physics."

For Steinbart, the idea of a "critical mass" that makes an environment more conducive to women was a factor when she was applying to graduate school. "I didn't necessarily want to go where I would be one of two or three female grad students in the program...there's kind of a magic number: you don't have to be in the majority, but once you get up to...a sizable minority, that just feels more comfortable."

Women in academia

Another issue brought up by Summers that was addressed by faculty was the issue of women not wanting to work in a "high-powered, intense" workplace.

"That's extremely misleading," Philobos said. "First of all, no one [set] this as a condition for advancement. If this is true, then that concept should be changing, not the other way around."

Steinbart agreed, and said that when it comes to academia, "there are certain things that the workplace can do," such as flexible hours and being able to take time off from the tenure clock without penalty for raising a child.

Steinbart also said in the recruitment process, diversifying the faculty was not an issue of lowering standards. "It's not, 'Because we don't lower standards, that's why we don't have any women,'" she said.

In fact, in an article she published in February, Fox found that women in science who have children publish as much or more often than women in science who have no children.

Philobos also talked about the efforts of the administration to increase women students and faculty. "There is a long way to go, but we have accomplished a lot on this campus, and I'm sure it has a lot to do with the administration," Philobos said.

However, according to Wendy Newstetter, director of Learning Sciences Research for the School of Biomedical Engineering, Summers' comments can serve as a reminder to Tech to be mindful of the gender gap. Based on conversations with former faculty and personal experience, Newstetter discussed the possibly of implicit discrimination against women in the workplace, "in the way that people are treated, the way people are either included or marginalized," she said.

"Georgia Tech would be deluding itself if it were to imagine that this kind of systematic marginalization...is not going on here," she said.

More statistics

Instead of focusing on the low number of women in science and engineering, some faculty pointed out the need to look at other statistics.

"I don't think it's an issue of just numbers of women in science, it's what happens to you when you get your degree," Fox said. "I think that we now have stood the test of time...we have pretty significant groups of women of some of the scientific fields such as the life sciences...and even chemistry."

This may be due to an attraction to "new sciences," Newstetter said, pointing out that during the early days of computer science and information technology, the percentage of women in computing was much higher than today.

This is clearly the case with biomedical engineering, which, according to Newstetter, is one of the few engineering majors at Tech that is 50 percent women.

The school's first Ph.D class, in fact, was all female. Interestingly, Newstetter noted, though a number of students from that class are close to finishing their Ph.Ds, "Of those that I have talked with, none of them are planning to go into academia," Newstetter said.