Institute aims to remove barriers to woman scientists.
Williams Wendy M.
In late 2009, Stephen J. Ceci and I founded the Cornell Institute
for Women in Science (CIWS) with funding by the National Institutes of
Health to seek answers through empiricism rather than social activism
concerning the lack of women in science. Women are underrepresented in
many fields of academic science, particularly computer science, physics,
engineering, chemistry, economics, and mathematics, where they comprise
less than a third of assistant professors and less than 12 percent of
full professors. CIWS relies on original research by its own members and
other scholars to develop strategies to address today's issues
affecting women in science.
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It soon became clear that the usual culprits--sex discrimination in
hiring, promotion, and grant and manuscript reviewing--no longer
accounted for the current dearth of women in academic science. In fact,
according to a National Research Council report from 2010, if women
today apply for tenure-track jobs in science, technology, engineering,
and mathematics (STEM) fields, their chances of being interviewed and
hired top those of men. CIWS research showed that young women scientists
in college, graduate school, and postdoctoral years choose not to apply
for tenure-track jobs due to the incompatibility of high-stakes research
professorships with the biological clock.
University policies dating from the era when men with stay-at-home
wives populated the academy place women in the unfortunate situation of
having to produce a significant portfolio of scholarship to be reviewed
favorably for tenure--all at the exact same time as birthing and rearing
small children. CIWS has found that changing the policies that create a
decade-long impossible squeeze for women scientists must be a major part
of the focus of efforts to attract more women scientists into the
academy.
With fully half of its efforts directed toward outreach, education,
and extension work, CIWS aims to effectively inform university
administrators, professors, and young women scientists themselves, as
well as their parents and teachers, about the challenges. CAWS has
produced and released a video series on its YouTube channel with
educational and inspirational videos profiling women in science ranging
in age from 8 to 68. Profiles include the 14-year-old winner of the
national Google Science Fair, an exhibitions curator at Ithaca's
Sciencenter who earned one of the first Ph.D.s in physics at Cornell
bestowed to a woman, a 26-year-old international energy engineer, and a
portrait of three young girls talking about how they discovered their
love of science.
Each video, empirically validated to enhance women's interest
in science, is accompanied by an extension-education module appropriate
for middle and high school on up. The modules provide relevant summaries
of background literature and references, and offer key questions for
classroom discussion to help students reason creatively with the issues.
All CIWS materials--including the entire curriculum, all scientific
publications, and media interviews--are available free for public
download. The College of Human Ecology, with its mission to unite
research and outreach, has provided the perfect home for CIWS and its
work to translate empirical research on women in science into
meaningful, high-impact policy change.
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For more information:
CIWS
www.human.cornell.edu/hd/ciws.cfm
Woman in Science YouTube Channel
www.youtube.com/user/womeninscience1
BY WENDY M. WILLIAMS, PROFESSOR OF HUMAN DEVELOPMENT
