http://www.latimes.com/technology/la-me-caltech20jun20,1,2833071.story?coll=la-headlines-technology
Caltech to Harvard: Redo the Math
All six members of the '05 chemical engineering class are women, a first
for the Pasadena school.
By Valerie Reitman
LA Times Staff Writer
June 20, 2005
Caltech's 2005 chemical engineering class makes a strong case against
Harvard President Lawrence Summers' controversial hypothesis that men are
innately more proficient in math and science.
The six-member class is made up entirely of women, a first in the Pasadena
research university's history. Except for one graduate who wants to study
law, all are planning to pursue doctorates in engineering.
About 35% of the 217 Caltech graduates awarded diplomas on June 10 were
women, up from 25% in 1995. The 114-year-old university, among the world's
most renowned science and technology institutes, began admitting women in 1970.
"For a long time, engineering was very much male-dominated," said Rick
Flagan, chairman of Caltech's chemical engineering program. "We've reached
the point where you can have a class that's all women."
Interest in math- and science-related majors among women is on the rise at
universities across the country. They earned 58% of the undergraduate
degrees in life sciences, such as biology and chemistry, 47% in math and
40% in physical sciences, according to 2000 figures, the latest available
from the National Science Foundation.
Those percentages have continued to increase in the last five years, says
Jong-On Hahm, director of the National Research Council's Committee on
Women in Science and Engineering.
The uptick is largely attributed to Title IX, the 1972 law that bars
discrimination against women in academic, athletic and professional
programs that receive federal funding, Hahm said.
For example, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton has spoken of writing as a child
to NASA asking how she could become an astronaut after watching the first
men walk on the moon, only to be told the program didn't accept women.
Despite much progress, engineering still appeals to fewer women than other
math and science fields. Just 19% of undergraduates earning engineering
degrees in 2000 were women.
Revising Caltech's curriculum is credited with helping to raise enrollment
of both sexes in the chemical engineering program. Next year's class
includes seven women among 16 seniors.
Department faculty began updating the curriculum about five years ago to
make it more relevant to the types of jobs graduates, particularly women,
wanted to pursue.
The traditional academic track focused heavily on chemical processing. The
new program has a broader reach that includes biochemistry, environmental
engineering, aeronautics and semiconductor research.
Hahm says Caltech's approach is noteworthy because women often want jobs in
which they can see the direct results of their work rather than simply
focusing on theoretical research.
Shannon Lewis, 22, a member of the Caltech class of '05, said that's why
she chose chemical engineering as her major. Although she loves working in
the lab, she said, "It's easier to stay motivated if you see a purpose to
your work."
Lewis said she is headed to the University of Texas at Austin to do
postgraduate work in materials science and engineering, with plans to focus
on semiconductor research. Such ambitions run counter to Summers' hypothesis.
Speaking at an academic conference in January, the Harvard president
sparked controversy when he suggested that men were more biologically
suited to pursue careers in math and science than women.
"Particularly in some attributes, that bear on engineering, there is
reasonably strong evidence of taste differences between little girls and
little boys that are in fact not attributable to socialization," Summers said.
Responding to critics, including women from the Harvard faculty, Summers
apologized for his remarks, acknowledging that his comments sent "an
unintended signal of discouragement to talented girls and women."
Flagan said he sees no difference in ability, interest or aptitude between
male and female students at Caltech. The women "tend to be every bit as
competitive, as rigorous in thinking and as demanding in what they expect
in teaching and the kinds of things they want to do," he said.
Students cited summer science programs, good teachers and mentors and
summer jobs for encouraging their interest in science.
When the private all-girls Catholic high school Lewis attended did not
offer a calculus-based physics course, the Caltech chemical engineering
major took it at a nearby boys' school, showing up in her plaid-skirt
uniform and knee socks.
She also worked several summers at a U.S. Army lab that developed
night-vision goggles for the military. That was where she met her mentor,
John Dinan, who urged her to attend Caltech, which his son attended.
A summer science program inspired graduate Michelle Giron, 21, who attended
Mayfield Senior School in Pasadena. She credits science teacher Jack
Blumenthal and other instructors with trying to get more girls interested
in science, math and engineering careers. Blumenthal helped her get an
internship at Caltech. Continuing her studies, Giron has enrolled in a
doctoral program in chemical engineering at Cornell University beginning in
the fall.
Others in Caltech's 2005 graduation class include Maryam Ali, Haluna
Gunterman, Victoria Loewer and Joan Karen Sum Ping.
Radio commentator and writer Sandra Tsing Loh, this year's commencement
speaker, said her father, a scientist and a Caltech alumnus, played a big
role in her decision to pursue a degree in physics at the prestigious
university. Faculty and alumni have collected 31 Nobel prizes, mostly in
physics and chemistry.
Tsing Loh, 43, said her father impressed upon his children that it was the
"highest honor to win the Nobel, and physics the highest of the sciences
so please win one." Their devotion was such that the family would handicap
possible Nobel Prize winners each year the way others anticipate the
Academy Awards.
But Tsing Loh ultimately found her calling in graduate school at USC, where
she studied liberal arts. Her disappointed father, she said, considered
that the "equivalent of pole-dancing."
=================================================
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Associate Professor Fax (713) 743-3927
Political Science Internet: antunes at uh dot edu
University of Houston
Houston, TX 77204-3011
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