Empowering Women in Physics and Astronomy

First Meeting: Wednesday, May 8, 2002; Dupont 133, 4:30-6pm

- Why are we here?

- We see a problem in classroom dynamics and the way that people feel as physics majors. Does this extend to both men and women?

- What do we want to do about the problem? What is the problem? Is it classroom dynamics? Is it the way we feel as physics/astronomy majors? Is it the personalities of specific people, that have nothing to do with physics? Does physics/astro draw the sorts of people who “cause” these sorts of problems?

- Do men and women deal with these things differently?

- Jenny: women tend to blame themselves for failure; men tend to blame the system

- David: is this the same for all majors? Do history majors have the same trouble that physics majors do, or is it just more difficult to be a physics major in general, both for males and females?

- In the sciences, things are more subjective, so it’s easier for people to think that they are just dumb when they get a “no” on their homework, instead of just thinking that the prof didn’t agree with them or something on a paper.

- Should we include male students to “raise their consciousness?”

- How can we make this a safe space for women while still allowing men to realize that there is a problem and maybe soliciting their help on how to fix it?

- Should we have a few closed meetings and a few open ones?

- Should we call this a “Gender Issues” group? But isn’t “Gender Issues” a catchword for “women’s troubles?”

- What’s the difference between undergraduate troubles and career/graduate issues? At what point should we start caring about the problems that women are facing?

- If we start in physics 3&4, then we won’t necessarily be addressing women who are planning on being physics/astro majors; should we start talking to people in physics 7, to try to keep women from dropping out?

- Do more women drop out after physics 6 and physics 7?

- Everyone needs to know about these issues, but do we want to make this group try to cater to everyone?

- If you try to make it do everything, you’re going to lose your focus. While you can make it clear in some mission statement that anyone who thinks this will help is welcome, don’t try to make it do everything. Include people who care about these issues, not only people who are these issues. (empowering women in astronomy and physics?)

- Physics 7 girls would like to talk to physics 8 and above students.

- Like physics clinic, should someone be in cornell at a specific time? Should we have coffee at a certain time each month?

- Should it be more specific than just a group, to make people (freshmen especially) think that they are as important as anyone else, and that they have a specific person to talk to?

- Or should we just rely on the structure of the group to keep us together?

- But then the same few people will come, and we won’t catch anyone who has a passing interest but not a burning commitment or a huge problem. We need to attract people who not only have a problem, but people who are just interested, and as many people as possible, so that they feel important and essential.

- Sending people in to talk to the freshmen classes about what we’re doing.

- Should there be a mentorship program for both men and women? But the men won’t have had the same experiences as women. Do you want to only have same-sex mentors? But could that just let the problem fester by closing people off?

- Should the dept. take care of everyone, including men, and just let this group take care of the women?

- Would mentoring be working on homework, or just talking? It might be better to not work, because then it would encourage more upper-class women to just be willing to talk.

- One to one ratio? Sophomores to seniors and juniors to freshmen, to keep continuity?

- Maybe not helping people with their work, but having time when people get together to study their own thing, but in the same space.

- Tutors vs. physics clinic: clinicians have to know everything, and individual questions might get lost, and you feel bad monopolizing clinicians’ time, whereas with a tutor, you feel like you’re allowed to make them pay attention only to you and they’re supposed to know specifically your subject matter.

- Women are generally more likely to think, “well, I shouldn’t bother someone (clinician, professor, etc) with my questions. How can we make people feel more comfortable about coming for help?

- Emailing clinicians with specific questions before clinic? Or just make people feel more comfortable about talking to professors and other students?

- Can we have a fieldtrips and speakers? Should they be directed specifically to women? Scientists who are sociologists who have written about women in science?

- Could we say that “2 out of the 6 speakers have to be….women, minorities, etc?”

- Speaker idea: Meg Urry from the Yale Center for Astronomy and Astrophyiscs

- It’s always good to meet someone who is in the same boat as you. I think we should concentrate on women and making them feel more comfortable, and make sure that they have as many opportunities as possible to meet people like themselves (i.e. older female physics students).

- Changing to structure of the colloquia to facilitate more people talking to each other.

- Could we have grad students come to talk to us? Could we go visit grad school programs? Network with other student (graduate) groups?

- Knowing that we are not alone is what I feel is the most important thing. We are not crazy; we are not stupid; and it’s not all in our heads.

- Set up an email list to keep people informed.

- “Kate is a fabulous individual”

Thank you to Kate Baker for transcribing the meeting.

Salient conclusions and directions for immediate attention:

- Many if not a majority of future meetings will be open to male and female students as well as professors. Efforts begin now to inform male students of the purpose and goals of the organization.

- Extra copies of the four-page handout distributed at the meeting are available on the counter in the phys/astro department office.

- John Boccio suggests developing a website over the summer. The webpage will contain notes from all meetings, a mission statement (as soon as one is formulated), dates for various events, goals for the organization, and ways to get involved and help out. It will be linked from the main Swarthmore Astro/Physics Webpage. Anyone interested in helping either on campus or long-distance, please contact Robin Smith (rsmith1). We need students with or without web page building experience, and links to relevant websites are welcomed from professors.

- Significant effort needs to be made to undertake organization of the mentorship program this summer. Upperclass majors will be assigned to same-gender groups of physics 6 and 8 students, with whom they will meet for dinner, coffee, or study time together (during which the upperclass student is NOT expected to help the others on physics homework).

- Communication with Amy Bug to discuss possible women in astro/physics to invite for the fall colloquium series must begin immediately. Anyone with suggestions for speakers or an interest in participating in the speaker selection process should contact Robin.

- Anyone interested in playing a somewhat more formal role in the organization (possibly as event coordinator, meeting transcriber, co-leader, etc) should please contact Robin or Kate (xckb13@hotmail.com).