Why All-Women's Schools?

mvljog440 · April 25, 2006, 1:38pm

To futher confuse the issue, look at Wendy Lawrence, Class o '81, Naval Aviator and Shuttle Commander. She graduated from that bastion of male testosterone, the Naval Academy, in the first class with female Midshipman.

Scrowman · April 25, 2006, 2:30pm

My daughter will graduate from MHC next month. (can’t believe it’s been 4 yrs). Her experience was excellent. She got a great education and her self esteem, communication and writing skills were improved exponentially. I can attribute this in large part to her MHC years. I am sure that all women-only institutions at this level do the same for most of the students who are fortunate enough to make the tough decision to attend a single sex college.

recent_alumna · April 25, 2006, 3:04pm

but no place is right for everyone. that’s the message i’m not seeing here. smith was right for me, but i wouldn’t expect it to be a great, or even decent, fit for most women. same with lots of ivys and top LACs, too. why not all-women’s schools, given a plethora of other choices?

BJM8 · April 25, 2006, 3:09pm

Cellardweller defeats his own testimony by this comment. As the OP, I adhere to my original point that this is exactly why all-women’s colleges are a value for young girls. Girls attend schools where the bulk of a teacher’s attention in the classroom is focused on boys, their studies are centered on men and their achievements, they are taught by men (secondary education and beyond) and the bulk of their schools’ budgets (including special ed and athletics) are spent on the boys. It is no wonder that the hopes and dreams of young girls are diminished as they enter adolescence, with doctors settling for nursing degrees, and chemists turning to cooking!

And from Mini…bears repeating:

Interesting, isn’t it, how Smith turns out extraordinarily bright young ladies who become leaders in their field. Women’s colleges, in general, have extraordinary track records of success in teaching math and the sciences: they graduate women in these disciplines at 1½ times the rate of coeducational schools. Women’s colleges and their women-centered pedagogies, curricula, and environments including female role models and leadership opportunities must take the lead as national models not only for the effective education of girls and women, but also to inform, shape, and influence gender-equitable environments in pK-12, and college and graduate school.

ringer05 · April 25, 2006, 3:21pm

I agree with this, completely. Most graduates of women’s colleges can list off names of very prominent alumnae. Name wars would be all too easy :)

As a recent alumna of a women’s college, I would strongly disagree with the statement that graduates of such institutions are largely “science illiterate”. Although I do have friends who slogged through the science portion of the distribution requirements, most of the students I knew were perfectly comfortable with their science courses.

Also, to say that women’s colleges lack “world-class scientists” overlooks many issues. Primarily, it sideskirts the idea that fantastic science instructors may not have invested the extensive amounts of time, research, and publication required to become globally prominent. A lack of prizes and titles doesn’t not necessarily indicate a lack of quality.

BJM8 · April 25, 2006, 3:46pm

Agreed, Ringer05…and don’t forget that Smith has no distribution requirements; unless you count the one writing intensive class. Thus, women who choose to attend and study the sciences have more than enough courses and options to keep them busy. If not, I don’t think they would be turning out the numbers of Ph.D and doctoral candidates as they already do.

TheDad · April 25, 2006, 6:50pm

Of the top of my head, Smith has one of the world’s leading experts in genome sequencing on its faculty.

I have a fairly long and intimate association with UCLA, a pretty good middlin’ high research university and a member of the AAU. Is it possible for undergrads to get involved in research there? Possibly, particularly at the senior level, with lots of intiative and a little luck. A first-semester first-year? Virtually NFW. (Now, as counter-argument, I know of a high school student who worked in one of the neuroscience labs for her last two years of high school but she was a special–and rather extraordinary–case who is now at U/Chicago.)

More to the point, the undergrad teaching at the LAC far surpasses most of what undergrads are getting at the research U’s…many of those world-famous researchers are generally avoiding undergrad classrooms like the plague.

roadlesstraveled · April 25, 2006, 7:46pm

many of those world-famous researchers are generally avoiding undergrad classrooms like the plague.]

I dont know how many, or few, “world-famous researchers” generally avoid the classroom “like the plague”, but that comment is an extreme disserve to the wonderful profs/researchers who do teach etc. I spent Sunday with one of those world-famous researchers, who just happens to be a tenured professor at Yale also. She loves her students and teaching responsibilities, and made numerous comments throughout the day and night to that effect.

CA_girl · April 25, 2006, 7:50pm

Sorry, this is a bit off topic, but can you guys read this thread that I wrote, because it really bothered me after I wandered into the Haverford section of CC…

<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=181002[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=181002</a>

Thanks. and can you guys respond as best as possible?

stacy · April 25, 2006, 9:07pm

to correct cellardwellar: There are significantly more than 67 science majors among the senior class at Smith…as my post said:

[there are 67 majors in] “math, chemistry, biochemistry, physics, computer science, geology, cognitive science, and astronomy. there are also 42 bio majors, 32 engineers, and 23 neuroscience majors.”

So even not counting psych, which has another 67 majors, 164 of the nearly 700 graduating seniors majored in a science. I’d guess that there are several dozen more who, like me, minored in one.

This is not to say that there aren’t science and math-phobic Smithies–there certainly are, and it’s one of the reasons I support having a quantitative skills requirement here on par with our writing intensive one–but Smith does have a group of science majors who definitely exceed the 10% you suggested.

BJM8 · April 25, 2006, 9:35pm

Right Stacy…and a very bright group of women they are! Interesting change of pace talking about profs and undergrads. I think all TD was trying to say was that profs at larger institutions generally teach grad students. At Smith and other LAC’s, these profs are teaching, and love teaching undergrads; huge advantage for their students. Also he is correct in saying that you can find first semester freshmen doing research at Smith; another huge advantage. Tell me of any larger institutions that offer that perk? Good luck naming any?

This conversation needs to be re-centered toward the original question of the advantages or disadvantages of single-sex colleges. Many of us on this board either attend Smith or have daughters that attend or will attend in the fall. We know of the advantages it provides for them, and there are many, but in the larger context of this discussion is the question of why girls seem to get shortchanged in coed schools?

ringer05 · April 25, 2006, 10:34pm

Having spent substantial amounts of time in both coed and single-sex educational environments, one of the biggest differences I’ve noticed is the general pace of the classroom. In high school and, to a lesser degree, in my graduate program (it’s predominantly female), the classes are generally structured with few opportunities for discussion. The questions posed to the class are often intended to have near-immediate answers and little dialogue beyond that. Male students, in my experience, have tended to be the ones to provide those answers, meaning that the women often sit there in silence–sometimes by choice, and sometimes because they can’t find an opportunity to speak up.

During college, however, the single-sex atmosphere meant that there were only women there to answer questions. The pedagogical practices of the professors seemed to work around a slower, more deliberative pace. No one was particularly bothered if a question hung in the air for a few moments before a student replied. My courses also tended to be predominately discussion-based; I doubt this was primarily a function of a single-sex environment, but my undergraduate discussion courses were significantly more engaging and satisfying than the very few similar courses I’ve taken as a graduate student.

Again, this goes right back to the pace of the classroom. In my current coursework, a topic is deemed dead as soon as no one says anything for a few seconds. Rarely will anyone say, “Going back to an issue that was raised five minutes ago …”, yet five-minutes-later is usually when I manage to formulate a well-constructed, coherent argument. The speed of the discussion means that, after five minutes, we may very well have changed over to a new article or to a new student presentation.

Finally, I’ve also noticed that my college professors never condescendingly assumed that the students wouldn’t know something or that they wouldn’t be interested. My graduate professors haven’t been quite so respectful.

cellardweller · April 25, 2006, 11:59pm

Stacy:
I specifically referred to the percentage of students involved in science at Smith and MHC as excluding biology and neuroscience. Psych is not part of the natural sciences by any definition and many neuroscience programs are borderline, often a cross between psychology and biology. The fact remains the overall percentages are relatively low in comparison to most coed LACs and signficantly lower than the Ivies.

cellardweller · April 26, 2006, 1:39am

BJM8:

I don’t mind coming back to your original premise as to why girls are shortchanged in a coed environment. I am making the exact opposite statements that girls can be shortchanged in a single sex environment, especially in the sciences where they may fall even further behind.

You repeat some of the same generalities on single sex education without much supporting information and when contradictory information is provided you blithely ignore it. It may pass as gospel with those who are not familiar but unfortunately facts are stubborn.

The biggest issue for undergraduate students at Smith (or at most LACs) interested in participating in advanced scientific research, and producing publishable work is that the opportunity simply does not exist. The opportunity only becomes available once the student goes to graduate school. Without the early exposure to what world class research really is, many students will lose interest.

As far as the LACs having a monopoly on faculty enjoying teaching undergrads what a bunch of BS! At MIT, Yale or Harvard you have Nobel prize laureates teaching introductory science classes to undergraduates and loving it. As far as student to faculty ratios you can get as low as 2:1 ratio in some departments at MIT that can’t be matched in any LAC. There is also a special type of excitment in being taught by professors who are defining what the leading edge of science actually is and working from primary source material as opposed to a textbook which is often outdated by the time it is published. There is a vast difference between taking a standard class in Genetics which can be quite boring and discussing the latest advances in gene silencing with the researcher who discovered the process in the first place.

For these and other reasons, I do believe that women who have an affinity for science are not served well at an all women’s college or a LAC. If they are talented enough the top research institutions are more than ready to accept them and let them thrive.

What is particularly distressing at Smith is that because of the absence of a core curriculum the majority of students will not take a single science class in college. Not one! (and I am not talking about how to landscape your plants).

The number of PhDs eventually received per 100 students enrolled at Smith is nothing extraordinary. At 6 PhD’s/100 for both Smith and MHC, they lag many coed LACs (Amherst: 7, Williams: 8; Swarthmore: 18!) and Ivies (Princeton: 12 Harvard: 11, Yale: 10, Cornell: 9, Brown: 8). This does not even include Caltech at 42/100 and MIT at 22/100. At most of the coed facilities the number of women PhDs often exceed that of men PhDs.

I have not seen any detailed statistics published by Smith regarding the acceptance rates of premed students into leading medical schools and such data would be informative. I would suspect that the lack of a strong core curriculum in math and science would make the acceptance rate lower at the top medical schools where the requirements in science are greater. Again, one does not need to even have a science major to go to medical school, so rates of acceptance can be high despite a weak science curriculum.

Momwaitingfornew · April 26, 2006, 6:45am

I continue to disagree that women are being shortchanged in secondary school education, but I will concede that it depends on both the school and the class size. In my daughter’s small private school, the valdictorian is a woman, and she is going to MIT. Another top woman (the school doesn’t rank, but I assume she’s number two or three) got into Princeton ED to study computer science. Another of the top three or four will be going to Georgetown to study political science. There is not ONE boy in what is perceived to be the top five of a class of 70. I have no idea where the top boy might fall, but it may be as low as number 10, below the top 10%.

I also have a good public school as a measuring stick since my daughter attended one freshman year. Again, the top five is all girls, and one of those may be attending Bryn Mawr (we haven’t heard yet). At least two of those five plan on studying in the sciences.

Girls are shortchanged in the public schools that have large classes - but I contend that boys are shortchanged as well. In fact, studies have shown that while some classrooms continue to seem more conducive to boys’ achievement, boys still fall behind the girl in learning. Girls are outperforming their male counterparts. If in two separate schools, in two different states, there is not a single boy in the top five (and the top boy may be quite a bit lower; I don’t know), then something is going on.

As it see it, in today’s world, the real problem occurs in college and, most importantly, beyond college. When I was in college, I was told by my freshman advisor that I should not take biology unless I was a premed because the competition was too stiff. It was a weeding out class. Okay, fair enough - except that guys who were not pre-med were not advised to avoid it. I don’t know whether this kind of advising still goes on in college, but I do see women enter college expecting to study science and then graduate with a degree in something else. Of course, the same may happen with men. I don’t know.

Women colleges seem to be making a concerted effort to attract women into the sciences. After all, they have departments in the natural sciences and need to attract majors in a female-only student body. No one will discourage women from taking science.

To get back to Smith specifically, I think that, yes, the lack of distributive requirements will result in some grads having never taken science or math at the college level. However, the type of woman Smith admits isn’t likely to shy away from them completely. I took my daughter and a classmate to open campus. As they were excitedly flipping through the course catalogue, deciding what they could take, their selections naturally fell in all three major areas: humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences/math. Neither plans on majoring in science, but both wanted to take it.

I’ll also say that distributive requirements are somewhat of a joke. There are always classes at schools, even the elite ones, for non-majors. You won’t get hard-core science in the science courses, nor will you get hard-core reading/analysis in the humanities.

BJM8 · April 26, 2006, 8:07am

What are Smith science students researching today?

****** '06 had the opportunity to travel to Kirare Village, Tanzania, to monitor the lymphatic filariasis elimination program, an on-going study overseen by Professor Steve Williams. Lymphatic filariasis is a disfiguring disease caused by the parasite Wuchereria bancrofti, which is spread to humans by mosquitoes. Her work entailed using a diagnostic PCR assay to determine the presence or absence of infection with the parasite in mosquitoes collected from the village houses. She found an 8.6% reduction of the infection rate in the mosquito vector, from 15.6% before drug treatment to 7% following one round of mass drug administration, indicating success in the reduction of transmission rates within the population.

****'06 worked with Ranu sylvatica, wood frogs, to study whether or not they return to their natal ponds to breed, like many other amphibian populations. She collected tadpoles from 20 locations in the Connecticut River valley and used starch get electrophoresis, along with Genepop and IBD software, to examin protein polymorphisms at two loci. Her research found no correlation between population differentiation and the distance between subpopulations. She is currently running cellulose acetate gels on a lithium hydroxide buffer system to examine another polmorphic locus: phosphoglucose isomerase. This research is supported by the Howard Hughes Medical Foundation.

**** '06, a Picker engineering student, worked with Professor Susan Voss on noninvasive detection of changes in intracranial pressure (ICP) through auditory measures. DPOAE, TEOAE and acoustic impedances were measured on five normal-hearing, healthy subjects at four postural positions on a tilting table to characterize how posture, and presumable ICP, affects the different auditory measures. The study indicated that DPOAEs appear to be a candidate for a method to monitor ICP changes in some patients; DPOAE magnitudes changed systematically with posture–and presumably with ICP–within the measure frequency range.

****'06, a mathematics major, worked with Professor Nicholas Horton to study the increasing sophistication of statistical methods in The New England Journal of Medicine, which has implications for medical training and continuing education in the medical field. This work revolved around updating a previous NEJM review, using a similar methodology to address the question of what statistical techniques are commonly used in research articles 15 years later. Suzanne found that there was a continued trend toward increased use of newer and more sophisticated statistical methods by Journal authors and concluded that readers with knowledge only of the topics typically included in introductory statistics courses may not fully comprehend a large fraction of the statistical content.

****‘06 was fortunate to spend last summer at the Coral Reef Ed-Ventures 2005, an environmental education program for the school children of San Pedro, Belize. This program, which was created by Smith College in 2000 in collaboration with the Hol Chan Marine Reserve in San Pedro, is Belize’s first reserve devoted to monitoring the health of the Meso-American Barrier Reef for sustainable fisheries and environmental and economic stability. Emily worked as a teacher along with other Smith undergraduate and graduate students with backgrounds in environmental science and education. The program last summer, which served 70 students ages 7-11, expanded with a poetry component, a teachers’ workshop, and a Spanish language component.

****'06 assessed the levels of diversity and gene flow within the morphospecies Strombidium oculatum and Strombidium stylifer, both of which are restricted to tide pools in the North Atlantic. Under the guidance of Professor Laura Katz, she sequenced the internally transcribed spacer (ITS) regions of the rDNA locus in samples from New England, the United Kingdom, and Ireland, testing the hypothesis that haplotype diversity is greater in the Irish Sea than on the Atlantic coast. At the conclusion of her research, Frances found a great deal of diversity in the Irish Sea but also a considerable diversity in Galway, indicating that her hypothesis of far greater diversity in the Irish Sea was wrong.

****'06 has been working with Professor Carolyn Wetzel on characterizing knock-out mutants of the SppA protease in Arabido thaliana. This study involved screen putative SppA knock-out mutants to identify plants with functionally reduced or nonfunctional genes. These studies aid in understanding the relationship between plant protease functions compared to known functions in bacteria. Possible evolutionary trends can be identified and defined across species.

These are just a few of the research opportunities that Smith women are involved in now. Doesn’t look like Martha Stewart stuff to me! lol

Collaborations were presented this past week, take a look at how Smith women are being neglected… <a href=“http://www.smith.edu/future/next/docs/2005Collaborations.pdf[/url]”>http://www.smith.edu/future/next/docs/2005Collaborations.pdf</a>

Facts…here are some facts:
Long a national leader in science education, Smith is also pioneering new directions in engineering through its Picker program. Nearly 30 percent of Smith women major in the sciences, a rate over five times the national average for undergraduate institutions. The college supports an extensive program of undergraduate faculty-student research opportunities that provide experiences usually reserved for graduate school. Engineering is rapid becoming one of the college’s top majors.

For seven consecutive decades, Smith has ranked in the top two percent of four-year colleges in the number of graduates who go on to receive doctorates in science. Smith faculty provide leadership and innovation in interdisciplinary teaching and research and in gender-based approaches to science and math education. Fifty percent of the science faculty at Smith are women; on a daily basis, our students see dynamic women faculty who have already attained success in their careers and are committed to mentoring their students.

This is an argument for all-women’s colleges and what they provide for our daughters. I am not demeaning ivy league schools, nor am I demeaning other elite coed lac’s. However, the facts are indisputable, that if a woman decides to major in science, they will do very well at Smith and get placed in some of the most prestigious grad schools in the country. How’s that for facts.

BJM8 · April 26, 2006, 8:12am

And this from President Christ:

PRESIDENT’S COLUMNS ON SMITH’S FUTURE 

The Last Frontier

Women constitute 45 percent of the workforce in the United States, but they hold only 12 percent of the jobs in science and engineering. Why does this matter? Science and technology increasingly shape our lives. The expanding power of medicine; environmental sustainability and remediation; the supply of energy; information technologythese issues and many more will shape life on this planet. Womens voices and creativity must play an important role in their exploration.

Science is the last frontier for women. Harvards president has done womenand womens collegesan unwitting favor by catapulting the issue of women and science into the headlines. However much he might rue his remarks, he has accomplished what positive advocacy has nota renewed sense of the urgency of the question.

Womens colleges have played and continue to play a critical role in the education of women scientists. Women major in the sciences in significantly larger percentages at womens colleges than they do at co-ed colleges, and they go on to graduate degrees in higher proportions. At Smith, one in four undergraduates majors in the sciences, and it is one of five liberal arts colleges in the National Science Foundations ranking of the 50 universities and colleges producing the largest number of women bachelors recipients going on to science and engineering Ph.D.s.

Why do womens colleges have such success in motivating women to study science and to go to graduate school? There are several reasons, including a greater proportion of women faculty in the sciences, providing encouragement and role models; the absence of what has so blandly been termed peer hostility; and the particular advantages that liberal arts colleges offer for the study of science.

In a recent essay, Howard Hughes Medical Institute President Thomas Cech addressed the question of why so many leaders in the scientific community went to liberal arts colleges. He identified two reasons: the close relationship between faculty and students, creating opportunities for mentorship and collaboration similar to those graduate students experience at research universities, as well as intellectual cross-training, the advantages a broad education in the humanities and social sciences offers future scientists.

All of this carries weighty implications for Smith in the 21st century. It is imperative that Smith further solidify its leadership position in science education for women. Because of Smiths traditional strength in the sciences, because of the success that womens colleges have in motivating women to study science; because of the colleges pioneering investment in engineering, we are uniquely positioned for leadership. Smith has the distinction, the position, and the resources to make an important contribution in educating women to play leading roles in science and technology, as well as the public-policy debates in those fields.

Over the next two decades, we will be planning and building a science quadrangle in the area of Green and West streets, in its full development seamlessly connected to the traditional campus. We are engaged in the detailed design of the first building now, for which we expect to break ground in 2007. The building will be home to the Picker Engineering Program, computer science, molecular biology, biochemistry, and chemistry, not in their separate corners of the building, but in integrated laboratories that bring together research and teaching and the work of related disciplines in innovative ways. It will be the campuss first green building, not in color, but in the design of building systems according to principles of sustainable energy and materials use. We will make these systems visible throughout the building, so that the building itself will teach. Both a structure and a symbol, the engineering and molecular science building will be a compelling statement of Smiths public identity as the womens college with the strongest programs in science and engineering.Alumnae sometimes express a concern that Smiths emphasis on science may involve abandoning the liberal arts. Science is, and has always been, a liberal art. Its development at Smith will enhance and embrace the social sciences, the arts, and the humanitiesfor example, in helping develop informed and sophisticated policy analysis, in helping learn the use of the digital tools and media increasingly central to contemporary arts, in understanding the ethical and philosophical issues tied to new technologies.

Smith cannot afford not to invest in the sciences. To do less would fail Sophia Smith in her aspiration to offer at the college that would bear her name such other studies as coming times may develop or demand for the education of women and the progress of the race.

Seems like Smith is taking sciences quite seriously, wouldn’t you agree? Smith is beginning to pull many students away from Ivy’s and other elite coed LAC’s in sciences. I know, my daughter was one of them, and her best friend was another who turned down Yale to major in sciences for Smith. Hmmm, maybe there’s a reason?

BJM8 · April 26, 2006, 9:23am

Grants from foundations, corporations, and government agencies make it possible for Smith to evolve in innovative new directions. The college continues to be an educational leader across a wide academic spectrum as a result of these partnerships.

$1.3 Million Grant from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute

The Merck Company Foundation and the American Association for the Advancement of Science award Smith College $60,000 under the Undergraduate Science Research Program

$500,000 awarded from the Starr Foundation in support of the Ada Comstock Scholars Program

The Wallace H. Coulter Foundation brings extraordinary international students to campus for the fourth year

Oppenheimer Funds awards Smith $100,000 for the Women and Financial Independence Program

General Dynamics awards Smith $50,000 for the science and engineering Building

Leadership in science, technology, and engineering education

ACLS fellowship awards

Cottrell College science awards

Smith is one of a number of institutions around the country to increase opportunities for student-faculty research collaborations in the past decade, motivated by a report issued in the late 1990s by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching calling on colleges and universities to involve more undergraduates in research.

Through Smiths Student Research in Departments (STRIDE) Program, high-achieving students work with professors as paid research assistants, beginning with the first semester they arrive at Smith. A sampling of recent STRIDE student-faculty project topics is as diverse as those who work on them, from an exploration of the nature and practice of democracy in the United States in the government department to a study of genome evolution in ciliates through biology. 

Likewise, honors theses, which often start out as independent study based on a students academic interests, can flourish into joint projects that serve the scholarship of both professor and student. Professor of Economics Roger Kaufman is in the process of turning a student thesis written by Nupur Parikh 05, an economics major, into a coauthored article exploring the determinants of primary school enrollment and attendance in India. She came up with the idea for the paper after she took my seminar. It turned out to be so good, we worked together to develop it further, says Kaufman, who originally served as Parikhs faculty adviser for her thesis. Their article will be submitted to an academic journal for future publication, Kaufman says.

But the sciences are where the research possibilities seem the most plentiful.

The Science Bounty

Smith has always supported women in the sciences, from the individualFlorence Sabin, class of 1893, for instance, who became the first female member of the National Academy of Sciencesto the group. In 1999, Smith became the nations first womens college to start offering bachelors degrees in engineering science, thus establishing an educational foundation for women who wanted careers as professional engineers. 

According to Thomas Litwin, director of the Clark Science Center and a member of the department of biological sciences and the environmental science and policy program, Smith has always been ahead of the curve in giving undergraduates the chance to participate in original research with faculty members, especially in the sciences. 

The sciences at Smith have involved undergraduates in scientific research for over a century, initially by ad hoc invitation from faculty members, and the foundation for an expanded student-faculty research program was established with the creation of the Clark Science Center in 1967, Litwin notes.

Smith recently formed a new Center for Molecular Biosciences, using a portion of a $1.3-million Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) grant to establish an interdisciplinary effort that will expand opportunities for exploratory, hands-on science teaching and student-faculty research collaborations. The center is designed to support science and engineering faculty members and students with shared resources, laboratories, instrumentation and teaching and research assistance. For science majors, perhaps the most appealing aspect of the new center is that it will fund 20 undergraduate fellowships over each of the next several summers.

Thanks to the work of her student research and project assistants, Dana Leibsohn, associate professor of art, sees the completion of a recent scholarly project as a triumph. She co-directed the research for the multimedia project Vistas with Barbara Mundy at Fordham University to profile the art of colonial Spanish America from 1520 to 1820. Photo by Jim Gipe. 

The system at a research university consists in getting undergraduates through some basic, grinding mill of courses and then maybe in their senior year letting them begin to glimpse what it is that actually makes people want to be professional scientists, said Rob Dorit, associate professor of biological sciences, during an interview last spring. At Smith we do it differently. Students are encouraged from the outset to come into the lab and learn what it is we do as working scientists.

I think weve been able consistently to get very, very talented students to come in here and start doing something in their first year. And by the time they get to be seniors, theyre really top-notch researchers, many of them comparable to graduate students.

In 2005, Smiths Summer Student Research Program, directed through the Clark Science Center, celebrated its 16th year with the largest number of participants ever. Altogether, 117 students worked with 45 faculty members in seven departments and four programs. Of those students, 105 worked on the Smith campus and 12 worked at other locations. The projects span the gamut of scientific inquiry, from the disciplines of biochemistry to psychology. The sources of financial support for these projects are equally varied.

Annually, foundation and corporate support to Smith provides more than $4 million in institutional support, including significant grants in the sciences and engineering, from such sources as HHMI, the Arnold and Mabel Beckman Foundation and Ford Motor Company. Similarly, Smiths faculty members garner more than $3 million annually for scholarly research projects from sources including the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health. These and other granting organizations commonly provide budget support to involve Smith undergraduates in laboratory and field-based research projects under faculty supervision. Year to year, the Monteverde research project, for example, has received grant awards from not only the Mellon and Ford Motor foundations but also the Schultz Foundation and Smiths Office for International Study. 

Since 2000, Smith professors and students have coauthored more than 220 scientific papers published in academic journals and often presented at national conferences.

Cellardweller, I think you might be living in the past concerning what Smith is doing for women in sciences. I understand that you would not want your daughter to attend Smith, and that certainly is your prerogerative. But your denigration and jocularity about sciences at Smith is unacceptable. You are the misinformed one, primarily regarding my original post of why women’s colleges are so vital to the success of women who choose to attend them. I concur that these schools are not for every woman. But please do not make light of the importance that all-women’s schools play in the world of academia. Particularly in the hard sciences. We can compare data for data and word for word, but the bottom line is that the women who choose to attend schools such as Smith get a tremendous education, and are all the better for having been part of a society (even for four short years) which caters to women. That will come to a halt when the real world hits them between the eyes; but, after attending Smith, they will be much more prepared for it!

borgin · April 26, 2006, 9:24am

I’m friends with the math major above and I’m fairly sure she’s published her work (checking the professor’s site, yes, it has been).

I also know an '07 who’s published (possibly a physics major?).

There are research oppurtunities at Smith and yes, chances for publication in the sciences. The percentage of women who choose to major in the sciences is higher at Smith. It’s about 30%, higher than most LACs. Also, many students, though not science majors, end up taking non-major science classes in astronomy, biology, chemistry, or geology. Smith offers classes like “Modern Biology for the Concerned Citizen” and “Chemistry and the World Around Us”, which aim to offer an understanding of science to students who aren’t particulary apt in those subjects but still have interests in the areas. I’m not sure how many students take 1 science class before they graduate, but I’d guess at least 50%.

A large number of students who apply to Smith don’t apply to “women’s colleges” but to Smith as its own school. But Smith is a good experience for those who come here. My roommate thinks she’s more assertive (she’s normally very shy) and I have a number of leadership roles that I probably would never have bothered trying for elsewhere. My roommate wants a friend from high school to accept Smith’s offer of admission because she feels Smith will give her friend more self-confidence (it may very well!).

I didn’t feel disadvantaged in high school, but I have many positive experiences at Smith. In my stats class, after a test where most of the class felt they performed poorly the professor reassured, “[my co-teacher] and I think that you’ve done great in this class and we’re pleased with how far the class has come.” I’d convinced myself I’m bad at lit classes, but after notes from my current professor I have concrete things to work on, not just grades (and notes of what things I’m doing right). I’m much more confident in German than I ever felt taking French in high school.

Smith is not an alternative to MIT (and after talking to a friend who goes there, I would never want it to be!) but there are lots of positive experiences in the sciences and the professors who are here are very good teachers and researches, and quite helpful and accessible outside of class (my friend at MIT, an '08, seems to have a harder time making appointments with her professors. Not that they don’t make appointments with students, but she recently mentioned having to miss part of a class to meet with one. At Smith I’ve only had professors who were willing to find a suitable time for both parties).

Momwaitingfornew · April 26, 2006, 9:32am

Thanks, Borgin, for a current student’s view of what is happening academically on the Smith campus.

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