Article Accentuated the Negative

I am very disappointed in the quality of your reporting on the Women in Science story. When I spoke with your reporter on the phone on the evening of April 30, I told her that I have had a very positive experience here at Harvard by and large, with only a couple of negative encounters. I have been extremely impressed with the amount of support and encouragement I've received, both from the biophysics program in which I was previously a student, and presently from the physics department. I also recall saying that I felt that the Harvard physics department was overall a good environment for women. Certainly there are relatively few women in the department, both as students and as faculty, but considering how many women are in the discipline as a whole, I feel that the Harvard physics department is doing fairly well.

I am very disappointed that you chose to quote the single negative statement that I made and failed to mention any of the positive things that I had to say. I doubt that I will be willing to be interviewed for an article for The Crimson in the future should such an occasion arise again. Catherine Hirshfeld