Researcher Looks At Pool of Women Studying Sciences

Sixty-six members of the class of '96 were the focus of a study on women in the sciences at Harvard and Radcliffe, and now College administrators want to hear what they had to say.

The students were surveyed by Erin M. Phelps, assistant director for technical services at Radcliffe's Murray Research Center, who presented her findings at the Murray's weekly brown bag lunch yesterday.

According to Assistant Dean Karen E. Avery '87, who was one of around 20 to attend the event, Phelps will be speaking to the College deans in the near future.

Phelps said yesterday after the event that she chose the class of '96 as the focus of her ongoing research because there were nine graduates of a Radcliffe science program for high school students in that class--all of whom took part in the study.

"We wanted to look at that [Radcliffe] program to see if it made them more comfortable staying in the sciences at Harvard," she said.

But Phelps said she made a surprising discovery while comparing the program's graduates to others in the class.

"Women are not dropping out of science at a faster rate than men anymore, and men and women are not dropping out as much as they used to," she said.

Instead, Phelps' presentation looked at "qualitative" findings from the survey group, including studies of extensive interviews conducted with students during their first and last years at Harvard.

Phelps said the two complaints voiced most often were the lack of women science professors and inadequate advising.

"My overall impression is that the women students don't feel like they're taken seriously by the Faculty and the advisors," Phelps said.

Avery said she was excited by the presentation, but did not feel the survey concluded that students felt ignored by Faculty. As for student complaints about advising and the lack of female Faculty, Avery said she wasn't "overly surprised."

"They're issues that we're aware of," she said. "We want to hear some more of the findings that she has. [Yesterday] she was just giving the tip of the iceberg."