WOMEN OF BIOLOGY
Every year,
Dr. Carla Delucchi, professor of biology, did a particular
exercise with her students. The point was to determine whether adult
males are taller than adult females. Of course, everyone already
knew the answer, but the important part of the lesson was to gather,
record and analyze the data properly.
Only it reached a point where the students couldn’t
do it properly. There weren’t enough men in the class to provide
a statistically valid comparison. The experiment had to be modified
to compare the weights of male and female mice.
At Dana, the old feeling of science not being part
of a “woman’s world” has completely broke down.
All three faculty members are women, and so are 60 percent of the
majors. The numbers seems amazing and mundane at the same time.
Amazing from the historical perspective: Dana only started conferring
degrees on women three or four generations ago, and, for the most
part, they were teaching degrees. Mundane from the students’
point of view: What really is the difference between having all
women instructors and having all men (or mixed)?
For Delucchi, Dana students do see a big difference,
but not because all the instructors are women. She’s been
to plenty of schools where students were lined up outside the instructor’s
door, hoping to get five minutes to ask course-related questions.
It’s a scene completely alien to Dana’s small, close-knit
department. Classes sometimes function more like families than anything
else, which can mean a different teaching environment than a bigger
school.
“My job is not to be my student’s mom,”
Delucchi says. “My job is to teach them to become scientists.”
She tries to provide a balanced atmosphere. Students
have felt close enough to parody her pregnancy during a skit, but
they call her Dr. Delucchi, not Carla.
Dr. Karen
Murch-Shafer, assistant professor of biology, agrees
the difference between a university biology department and one at
a small school like Dana is much larger than the difference between
a male-dominated and a female-dominated department. She’s
seen them both, the universities as a student and colleges as a
teacher.
“I never remember talking to any faculty members
about what I was going to do with my life as a student,” Murch-Shafer
says. “Now I do that all the time with my students.”
The students are much closer to one another, as well.
Murch-Shafer says she went on field trips as a student where she
didn’t know anyone at all. For her Dana students, it’s
exactly the opposite.
“My students study together, they commiserate
together, they complain together, they eat together,” she
says.
Two of her students will even spend the summer interning
together. After spending the spring semester working on a joint
University of Nebraska Medical Center (UNMC) grant project with
Murch-Shafer (see “Begin with
Vision,”), Ashley Sorensen ’05 and Amanda
Reddish ’05 have earned spots at UNMC for the summer.
Reddish says she’s excited about the opportunity
and about the work the three of them have done on the grant. It’s
been great training for her goal of becoming a physician’s
assistant. But as a talented, smart and active woman (she’s
an all-conference soccer player), Reddish often faces the same question.
“People ask, ‘Why not just be a doctor
if you can?’”
The answer for Reddish has everything to do with being
a woman, but nothing to do with whether she could handle medical
school.
“I grew up with a single mom, and it was a struggle,”
she says. “It’s kind of frustrating that I won’t
make as much (money) as doctors, but I want a family and a life.
You just don’t have a life as a physician.”
It’s the final hurdle for women in biology, says Dr.
Nicole Kaufman, assistant professor of biology.
There are more women than men seeking bachelor’s
degrees in the United States today, but not as many go on to seek
advanced degrees.
“In junior high, girls lose interest in science,”
Kaufman says. “Young girls are sent the message that science
isn’t for them.”
Kaufman has seen firsthand how the very competitive
environment in the research world can turn women off. It wasn’t
until after she received her doctoral degree that Kaufman got a
taste of teaching, and she has never looked back.
“As a teacher, I don’t have to write grants
to pay salaries, and I don’t have to fire people if I don’t
get those grants.”
But she says students shouldn’t assume that
certain kinds of jobs are more or less demanding than others.
“For the first time in my life I have a job
that I can’t complete in nine-hour days,” she says.
Her desire to teach put her in a similar situation
to Reddish’s.
“Teaching was a bad word in graduate school,”
she says. “I never confided to my professors that my intention
was to teach undergraduates.”
She remembers a professor telling her at her dissertation
defense that she would make an excellent teacher. When she told
him that was what she intended to do, her professor looked crushed.
Pursuing advanced degrees didn’t keep Dana’s
biology faculty from having time for family. All three are mothers,
and all three see that as a great example to students.
“Students see from us that you can be a professor
and a mom and a wife,” says Murch-Shafer. “We all live
our lives on how we see different people. Having more options of
whom you base it on can only be positive.”
If anything, role modeling may be where Dana’s
department has a flaw, Delucchi says.
“We might need a male role model,” she
says. “It’s true that women are more in need of role
models (than men). But there might be students who would be more
comfortable with a male.”
Biology and computer science major Wynn Fangmeier
’04 says it’s something he’s never even thought
of. (He never really thought much about the biology faculty being
all female, either.) He’s noticed the biology instructors
talk about their children a little more than other instructors,
but he’s never felt uncomfortable about being a male in the
minority.
“Sometimes you see men as all straight-forward
serious,” he says. “The biology faculty liven it up.
They are very into science. They keep it interesting.”
Related Stories
Women at Dana
Begin with Vision
Super Steph
White-Glove Lady
Dana Women's Timeline
|
