Approximately 50 people were present at the Cambridge, Mass., conference entitled "Diversifying the Science and Engineering Workforce: Women, Underrepresented." The conference included a luncheon talk given by Summers in which he discussed the lack of high-ranking women in math and science at universities.
Summers discussed the theory that fewer women than men are in the math and science fields because women with children are reluctant to work long hours. However, Summers caused controversy and upset individuals when he suggested that men and women may have different innate abilities. "I was profoundly upset," Nancy Hopkins, a professor of biology at MIT, told The Chronicle of Higher Education.
However, Summers told The Chronicle that his comments were misconstrued. "Nothing I said or believe provides any basis for either stereotyping women or for fatalism about our ability to draw more women into scientific careers," he said in The Chronicle.
Tristan Hedrick '05 also expressed belief that Summers' comments were misinterpreted. "He wasn't saying that women can't be better or even be as successful in the sciences," she said. "He was just going with the statistics."
While some professors were disturbed by Summers' proposed theory, others commented that the Harvard president may be right and praised him. "I think Summers has more courage than any university administrator I have encountered," Doreen Kimura told The Chronicle. She argued that some researchers have found that boys' brains function differently from those of girls.
However, Assistant Professors of Biology Ethan Clotfelter and Jill Miller challenged the argument that males and females have differences in quantitative theory. "Neither of us [Professor Miller or I] believe that there are intrinsic sex differences in quantitative performance," Clotfelter said. "Instead, differences in the way young boys and girls are taught, consciously or unconsciously, account for the disparities sometimes observed between the sexes."
President Anthony Marx said that the College is doing a better job than Harvard regarding women in math and science. "On the substantive issue of women on the faculty, which is the issue to which Mr. Summers was referring, I am brought to say that Amherst's record is roughly twice the record of Harvard at the moment," he said. "Since 1994-95, 16 women and 16 men have stood for tenure. Thirteen of the women, so 81 percent, were tenured, nearly twice the rate of Harvard. Fifty-nine percent of all additions to the tenured rank were then women. Our current tenured faculty is now 35 percent women which is roughly twice the percentage of Harvard, with an even higher rank amongst the junior faculty suggesting that we will continue to grow in the direction we aspire to."
Marx is even more optimistic about the future. "Given the baseline of where Amherst College itself was 30 years ago when it had one tenured woman faculty member, I think there is not cause to believe that we have done everything we need to do, but certainly there is cause to believe that we are going in the right direction. I am not sure that Harvard's current numbers show that they are on the same trajectory."
Professors are also responding to Summers' comments with statistics from science departments at the College which show that there are comparable numbers of male and female science students and majors. Assistant Professor of Chemistry Karena McKinney said that her classes are often composed of equal numbers of male and female students and sometimes contain more female students. "I've taught Chemistry 11 most of my time here, and in that class there are usually more women than men," she said. "I have not been here long enough to speak to the historical trend, but in the recent past that has been the case in terms of Chemistry 11."
McKinney believes the chemistry department is doing a wonderful job in providing opportunities to both female and male students. "The number of female chemistry majors is about equal to the number of male majors," she said. "So we are doing a pretty good job having women enrolled in chemistry." McKinney added that female and male students have equal success in postgraduate work.
At the College, there are more female chemistry students than male students engaged in senior honors theses. "The chemistry department has five senior honor thesis writers, three of whom are women," McKinney explained.
Interestingly, the chemistry faculty also has a nearly equal gender distribution. "The chemistry department has nine faculty members of whom four are women," said McKinney. "It is a pretty gender-neutral atmosphere."
Professor of Biology Stephen George echoed McKinney's comments about equal access to science opportunities for women at the College. George said there tend to be an equal number of men and women enrolled in biology classes. "There are usually as many women as men in my classes," he said. "This semester I am teaching bio statistics and I have way more female students." George added that there are a few more female biology majors than male majors.
In physics classes, Professor of Physics Robert Hilborn said that there are more females than males in Physics 16 and 17, although the class is largely composed of students pursuing biology and pre-med. According to Hilborn, in Physics 23 and 24, which are mostly taken by physics and math majors, the male-to-female ratio is 50-50. Hilborn also said that in upper level physics there tended to be more men than women, but the reason is unknown.
George stressed that the College is making strides to achieving an equal number of female and male science professors. "Today we still have fewer female science professors because 30 years ago there were fewer women in the pool," he said. "But now when we do a faculty search we have about as many female applicants to consider as male applicants."
George disregarded Summers' comments. "What he said was a silly, silly thing to bring up," said George. "No individual is helped by that."
Hilborn was also disappointed with Summers' comments. "As a graduate of Harvard, I wish Larry Summers would think before he made some remarks," he said. Hilborn added that Summers is known for his provocative comments. "This person likes to put forward controversial remarks," Hilborn said.
Neuroscience major Ashley Pecora '06 said that her classes are predominantly female. "Based on memory, I would say women dominate men in most of my science classes [in a ratio of] about 60 to 40," she said.
Liz Staunton '05, a math major, said that there is a gender difference in her math classes. "I think that the ratio of men-to-women in most of math classes is probably 65 to 35," she said. "It is probably close to the same ratio for math majors."