Women and men from all over the world converged on Jefferson Lab November 16 for the Women in Science and Engineering Workshop. Attendees from a broad array of careers participated, from physicists and engineers to computer scientists and administrators. In all, more than 120 people came together to talk about the challenges faced by women in the science and engineering disciplines.
Jefferson Lab Director Hugh Montgomery kicked off the workshop and also fielded probably the most interesting question of the day. One attendee wanted to know if he'd be present for the full workshop or if he was planning to bail out early. Mont pulled out his pocket calendar and confessed to two other meetings, but both scheduled during workshop breaks.
Following Mont, the charge to workshop participants was summed up by a quote attributed to Meg Urry, a Yale physics professor: "Change is within reach, but it requires action." It was issued by Latifa Elouadrhiri, a JLab staff scientist and workshop organizer.
Elouadrhiri also explained the impetus behind the workshop, organized by the Committee on Women in Physics and Engineers at Jefferson Lab. The ad-hoc committee seeks to increase participation of women in physics and engineering in general and at Jefferson Lab, in particular, by encouraging more girls and women to enter these fields and by supporting women already in the field at Jefferson Lab.
According to Elouadrhiri, the purpose of the workshop was education. The committee wanted to learn about best practices at other institutions and seek advice from experts, which included not only the speakers but all workshop attendees. Eventually, the committee hopes that the knowledge shared at the workshop will lead to steps that will increase the number of women in science and engineering as a whole. In particular, the committee sought to encourage immediate action at the lab, in hopes that it would spread to the lab's user institutions, workshop participants' institutions and beyond.
Workshop participants were presented with a wealth of data regarding women's participation in the Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics fields. The three most-cited reports were the 2007 APS Gender Equity Conference, Broadening Participation at the National Science Foundation: A Framework for Action, and Gender Differences at Critical Transitions in the Careers of Science, Engineering, and Mathematics Faculty. These reports offer hard data on gender differences in the STEM fields, as well as recommendations on steps that institutions and individuals can take to counter the trends.
In addition to the bounty of hard data, there were also many anecdotes, and many were shocking. Listed under "egregious remarks" were those from The Dual-Career-Couple Survey of physicists beset by the so-called two-body problem, where a physicist and a highly educated partner were both looking for employment.
The two-body survey was conducted in 1998. There were 620 respondents, and many took the time to write in comments concerning finding employment for a dual-career couple, which included: One professor suggested to my husband at his interview that one way to solve the two-body problem was to divorce me; told candidate that spouse shouldn’t be working anyway; and if women in physics want jobs, they shouldn’t marry scientists.
Perhaps the most surprising revelation for those new to the gender equity arena is that the scientists, engineers and others guilty of perpetuating the problem may not even realize that part of the problem stems from their own bias.
One study presented by Kathleen McCloud showed bias in committees that select musicians for orchestras. When the judging committee could see the auditioners, fewer women got jobs. When orchestra auditioners were behind a screen, the percentage of female new hires for orchestral jobs increased 25-46 percent. Another study showed a clear effect that the name listed on a resume had on the likelihood of a job hunter getting a callback for an interview. More on implicit bias can be found at the Project Implicit website.
Hard on the heels of this day of hard data, anecdotes and action plans, the Committee on Women in Physics and Engineers at Jefferson Lab had also planned a follow-up day of meetings to discuss recommendations for what Jefferson Lab could do to meet the committee's goal.
As for Jefferson Lab’s director, he did attend every session - which meant he must have been a little late for his other meetings. At the closing reception, he was engaged in a conversation with one of the organizers, who was also leading the recommendations committee the following day. Perhaps change was not only in the air, as at least one person who could mandate change at the policy level was anxious to consider the recommendations and was equally ready to act on them.
