Targeting the odd woman out: Advance grant helps women in science and math

By Rebekah Bradway

October 15, 2007 | "Do you think she knows what class she's in? Should we tell her?"

The two 20-something guys whispered like seventh-grade girls after hearing a rumor: quiet enough to make it seem like they were only talking to one another, but loud enough for the victim of the words to hear every syllable, no matter how false or demeaning.

A couple other boys joined in the questioning, but not for long before Katherine Berg took her seat in her MAE 6050: Experimental Methods in Structural Engineering class. As a graduate student in mechanical engineering, Berg said she's very used to hearing the men in her male-dominated classes voice their disbelief about her being in the same classes as them.

"I feel like a lot of people feel like they can question what I want to do," Berg said.

As the only woman in all of her four engineering classes last semester and both of them this semester, Berg said being one of only about three women in the master's mechanical engineering program can be frustrating at times.

"I feel like I have to prove myself to the guys, that I almost have to be better than they are for them to see me as an equal," Berg said.

Ronda Callister, associate professor in the management and human resources department, agrees that being a woman in the math and science fields can be extremely discouraging for both female students and faculty members.

"It can be a difficult environment where you are the only woman," she said. "It makes you question every day what you are doing because it's so dominated by men."

Callister studies impacts of gender on careers and currently supervises research dealing with Advance, a $3 million grant from the National Science Foundation regarding women faculty in the science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields. Through the grant, Callister works with professors in USU's colleges of Agriculture, Natural Resources, Engineering and Science.

"The NSF noticed that women were not getting as many promotions, and they weren't sure why," she said. So the foundation gave grants to institutions that had plans of researching and minimizing the employment disparity.

Before Advance, USU women faculty were getting promoted to full professor from associate professor status in very small numbers, with only about one promotion every four years. Since the grant, however, there have been two promotions a year for women in science and math.

"When you look at it historically, you can see there's a difference," Callister said. "There's been an improvement, but it's modest and slow."

And while the additional promotions may not be in huge amounts, Callister believes they still make a difference. She said women professors are helpful because female students in the programs can ask them how they did it and became successful.

But even with these improvements, Berg said she has had little influence on her goals from any women professors.

"I had one woman professor back in 2002, and she left the university while I was on my mission," Berg said. "There is another woman professor in mechanical engineering, but she's the assistant dean, and she only teaches one class."

So with such few female role models in engineering, Berg said male students feel they sometimes have more of a right to be dominant. She said not only do they question her abilities, but some males try more than once to tell her how to go about her future.

"I had one boy a couple months ago tell me that I shouldn't have children for at least five or six years because it would be a waste for me to throw away my education on children," Berg explained. She said the male student tried to tell her she needed to work and earn a down payment because she was more valuable than her husband and that her husband, a civil engineering graduate student, should be the one to stay home and raise their children when they had them

"It made me really angry because there's no way he would've turned to a male student and told a male student what to do," Berg said. "I don't think it's fair because I'm a different gender that people try to tell me what to do with my future -- not professors, these are fellow students."

Berg said programs like Advance and the Society of Women Engineers, of which she is a member, help encourage her to continue on her path, even with the discouragement of her peers. She said she can see the causes of the discrimination coming from the way society teaches girls and boys to grow up differently.

"I really do think that women are not encouraged early on to look at the sciences. You get little girls kitchen sets; you get little boys chemistry sets," Berg explained. "Women aren't as predisposed in nature to look at mechanical things in life, because that's not what girls are expected to do."

She said when she first came to USU as an undergraduate, she took both engineering classes and classes dealing with other majors, such as political science, but the other fields were not as stimulating to her.

"They all just seemed terribly boring. I didn't feel like they would be as challenging, and I didn't think I would be as proud of myself when I finished," she said.

And Berg said while she knows after she graduates she will be in a position where she can support her family if needed, being a full-time engineer is not her main goal in life. She said her ambition to be a mother one day is constantly looked down upon because people believe she cannot still be an engineer like she has worked toward becoming, and she agrees she cannot fully do both.

"For women in engineering, there really are no answers to being a mother and a part-time engineer. It's all or nothing," she explained, describing how it can be hard for her to defend her goal to become a mother to other male engineers.

In order to help women in the sciences who also want to be mother, Callister said a change has been made in requirements regarding tenure for those hired at the university. Normally an assistant professor has six years before getting tenure as a promoted associate professor, Callister said, and at that time, assistant professors either have to get tenure or cannot be employed anymore.

But with the code change, major life changes, such as pregnancy, now can allow for an extension in tenure, giving women who choose to have children more time to transition to being both a mother and a professional. And while the process can only be extended by one year twice, leading to an eight-year tenure process, Callister said it is beneficial to women in the STEM colleges.

Another benefit for women faculty provided by Advance is simple information about how to go about promotions. Callister said in general, men are more likely to ask for promotions, while women report lower job satisfaction and higher likelihood to quit. However, women's dissatisfaction disappears when department relations are good. And by providing information for women to Advance in their careers, the women are more likely to feel motivated to do so.

Callister also said women faculty in any field can take advantage of Advance. "We're available for everyone," she said, "but we're focused on the STEM colleges."

"We know who (women STEM professors) we are, we know where they are, and we have the program where they can come talk to us."

And while Callister and Berg agree there is still significant salary bias in the workforce favoring men, they both believe women can definitely succeed in science and math fields, especially with programs like Advance to lessen gender discrimination.

"Not only do we work with promotions, but we also spend a lot of time on the hiring (of women professors)," Callister explained.

And with encouraging programs and self-motivation, Berg plans on continuing one foot in front of another on her path to being a mechanical engineer.

"I really, really enjoy learning about engineering," she said. "It intrigues me."

NW
MS