ABSTRACT:Lisa Trie in the "Stanford Report" of 15 February 2006
wrote: "ACCORDING TO [LONDA] SCHIEBINGER, WOMEN EARN 46 PERCENT OF
UNDERGRADUATE MATH DEGREES IN THIS COUNTRY BUT REPRESENT ONLY 8
PERCENT OF MATH PROFESSORS." The puzzle at to what Schiebinger
meant, discussed on the RUME list, may now have been solved by
Marjorie Olmstead, who pointed out that Donna Nelson's "Diversity
Surveys" show that at the "Top 50" departments, as ranked by the NSF
based on total research expenditures in mathematics, women comprised
8.3% of the mathematics faculty in 2002.
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In an earlier post [Hake (2006)] on this subject I wrote [bracketed
by lines "HHHHHH. . . ."; see that post for the references:
HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
As reported by Rick Reis (2006) in Tomorrow's Professor, Message
#717, "Proof and Prejudice: Women in Mathematics," Lisa Trie (2006)
in the "Stanford Report of 15 February 2006 wrote:
"According to [Londa] Schiebinger, women earn 46 percent of
undergraduate math degrees in this country but represent only 8
percent of math professors."
I relayed a portion of Trei's report to Math-Learn, Phys-L, PhysLrnR,
POD, and RUME, including the above statement attributed to
Schiebinger.
But in a recent RUME (Research in Undergraduate Mathematics) post,
Cathy Kessel (2006), President-Elect of the Association for Women in
Mathematics <http://www.awm-math.org/>, wrote:
"I wonder if some context got lost from Schiebinger's statement, maybe
she meant something like 'professors at research 1 universities'? "
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
And on Apr 26 19:10:08 EDT 2006, Patricia Hale, in the Math Dept. at
Cal Poly Pomona posted on the RUME list:
"Another possibility is that [Schiebinger] simply meant only 8% of
full professors. The AMS data for 2004 indicates that 16% of tenured
faculty are women (combining Groups I, II, III, Va, M & B). I am
pretty sure the percentage for full professors is lower than the
percentage for Associate and Full combined."
Londa Schiebinger has not responded to a 26 April 2006 request for
clarification. I wonder if anyone has any further ideas on what Londa
Schiebinger might have meant?
HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
The puzzle of what Londa Schiebinger meant may have been solved by
Marjorie Olmstead. In a WIPHYS digest of 23 May 2006, she wrote [my
CAPS and insert at ". . . [.....]. . ."]:
The URL
<http://cheminfo.chem.ou.edu/faculty/djn/diversity/mathdiv.html>
brings up a table from an article by Donna Nelson (2002) published in
AWIS Magazine <http://www.awis.org/pubs/mag.html>. To interpret the
table it's necessary to read the note at the top: "The decimal places
show the number of people that are female, for example the total is
2083.173; this means there are 2083 people, 173 of whom are female."
I have copied the AWIS entry from Mallow & Hake (2002) (updated on
6/01/06) into the REFERENCE list.
Regarding the 8.3% of female math faculty members, Nelson (2002) wrote:
"This percentage is lower than that for chemistry (10.7%) computer
science (10.6%), chemical engineering (10.5%), and civil engineering
(9.3%), but higher than that for physics (6.6%), mechanical
engineering (6.7%), and electrical engineering (6.5%)."
REFERENCES
AWIS. 2006. Association for Women in Science; online at
<http://www.awis.org/> : ". . . dedicated to achieving equity and
full participation for women in science, mathematics, engineering and
technology. . . . AWIS has over 5,000 members in fields spanning the
life and physical sciences, mathematics, social science, and
engineering. Over 50% of AWIS members have doctorates in their
respective fields, and hold positions at all levels of industry,
academia, and government." See especially:
a. AWIS Magazine <http://www.awis.org/pubs/mag.html>.
Hake, R.R. 2006. Women Earn 46% of Undergraduate Math Degrees but
Represent Only 8% of Math Professors ?? online at
<http://listserv.nd.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0605&L=pod&O=A&P=12495>.
Post of 20 May 2006 16:15:30-0700 to Math-Learn, Phys-L, PhysLrnR,
POD, RUME, WIPHYS.