AASWOMEN for August 19, 2011
AAS Committee on the Status of Women
Issue of August 19, 2011
eds. Joan Schmelz, Caroline Simpson, and Michele Montgomery
This week's issues:
1. New CSWA Member
2. How to Encourage More Girls to Enter Science?
3. L'Oreal USA Announces Recipients of 2011 for Women in Science Fellowships
4. Resource Guide on Women in Astronomy
5. Advice for Starting a New Postdoc
6. Why the AAS Needs the CSWA
7. How to Submit to the AASWOMEN Newsletter
8. How to Subscribe or Unsubscribe to the AASWOMEN Newsletter
9. Access to Past Issues of the AASWOMEN Newsletter
1. New CSWA Member
From: Joan Schmelz [jschmelz_at_memphis.edu]
Please join me in welcoming our new CSWA member, Dave Charbonneau (CfA), who will be serving from 2011 to 2014. We would also like to thank our outgoing committee member, George Jacoby (GMTO). His efforts on behalf of CSWA are much appreciated.
Michele Montgomery (Univ. Central Florida) completed her first term and has been reappointed. Additional continuing members are: Joan Schmelz (Chair, Univ. of Memphis), Ed Bertschinger (MIT), Ann Hornschemeier (NASA GSFC), Hannah Jang-Condell (Univ. of Maryland), Don Kniffen (USRA), Nancy Morrison (Univ. of Toledo), Marc Postman (STScI), Caroline Simpson (Florida International Univ.), and Laura Trouille (Northwestern Univ.)
We encourage you to contact any CSWA member if you have comments, questions, and/or suggestions. We also encourage you to check out the CSWA web site at:
http://www.aas.org/~cswa
Back to top.2. How to Encourage More Girls to Enter Science?
From: Ed Bertschinger_at_women_in_astronomy_blog
Women earn the majority of college degrees in the U.S. and, since 2009, the majority of doctorates. This is not the case in astronomy or physics. Why are we different?
The American Institute of Physics has studied the enrollments of girls and boys in high school physics classes and AP exams in a recent report. Physics is important preparation for STEM degrees. The good news is that the percentage of girls taking high school physics has grown more rapidly than for boys. The bad news is that fewer girls are electing to take AP Physics and even fewer are electing to take the AP exams. As AIP authors Susan White and Casey Langer Tesfaye note, "To examine why, we would need to look at factors which impacted these students before their final years of high school. Did something in the earlier science curriculum discourage girls from more advanced physics? Or was it the general belief, widely embraced in our culture, that girls just don't 'do' hard sciences?"
Although we may not know the answers, I think we know some of the solutions. Girls in middle school -- high school may be too late -- must be shown the value of math and science and encouraged to believe that it offers them exciting career choices. They need to see science as something cool that girls do. They need role models and mentoring. The difficulty is less in identifying solutions than in implementing them.
Here's one more need: universities need to value more the outreach efforts made by some students, postdocs, staff, and faculty to attract more young people to science and engineering. This will require the scientific profession itself to value outreach more highly. Too often it seems to be an add-on to research grants and not valued for its own sake. At my own institution, I'm impressed with the efforts being made by engineers such as the Women's Technology Program in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. Physics has almost the same gender balance challenges as computer science, yet I'm puzzled that the field makes less of an effort.
Have you engaged in outreach? Was there a pivotal moment in your own early years that brought you to astronomy? What lessons can you share?
Back to top.3. L'Oreal USA Announces Recipients of 2011 for Women in Science Fellowships
From: Joan Schmelz [jschmelz_at_memphis.edu]
From Marketwire:
L'Oréal USA Fellowships For Women In Science, a national awards program, was created to support the advancement of women in science and to encourage women to continue careers in scientific fields. Since the program's inception in 2003, L'Oréal USA has recognized and awarded research grants to 40 post-doctoral women scientists in the life and physical/material sciences, as well as mathematics, engineering and computer science. The program aims to raise awareness of the contribution of women to the sciences and identify exceptional female researchers in the U.S. to serve as role models for younger generations.
The 2011 Fellows were selected from a competitive pool of candidates by an interdisciplinary review panel and a distinguished jury of nine eminent scientists and engineers. The Fellows were selected based on several criteria, including exceptional academic records and intellectual merit, clearly-articulated research proposals with the potential for scientific advancement and outstanding letters of recommendation from advisers and overall excellence. The peer-review process was managed by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).
The L'Oreal USA Fellowships For Women In Science Award ceremony will take place in the Kennedy Caucus room in Washington DC on September 15.
To read more:
http://www.marketwire.com/press-release/loreal-usa-announces-recipients-of-2011-for-women-in-science-fellowships-1548258.htm
Back to top.4. Resource Guide on Women in Astronomy
From: Andrew Fraknoi [fraknoiandrew_at_fhda.edu]
An expanded resource guide to the role women have played and are playing in the development of astronomy is now available on the web-site of the non-profit Astronomical Society of the Pacific:
http://www.astrosociety.org/education/resources/womenast_bib.html
The guide includes both printed and web-based materials, and has general references on the topic plus specific references to the work and lives of 32 women astronomers of the past and present. All the materials are at the non-technical level and thus appropriate for student papers, curriculum development, or personal enrichment.
The guide makes reference to 178 different web resources, as well as books and articles that are either in print or found in many larger libraries.
This resource guide is part of a series that can be found on the Society's web-site, on such topics as the astronomy of many cultures, debunking astronomical pseudo-science, and resources for astronomy education.
Back to top.5. Advice for Starting a New Postdoc
From: Joan Schmelz [jschmelz_at_memphis.edu]
A few weeks ago, Hannah Jang-Condell, CSWA's blogger-in-chief, posted an item on the Women in Astronomy Blog called Starting Up:
http://womeninastronomy.blogspot.com/2011/07/starting-up.html
Hannah asked what advice readers might have for new postdocs. CSWA has an item on their web site on "Advice for Postdocs Applying for Tenure-Track Positions" but nothing for beginning postdocs. AASWOMEN, would you help us write this up for our advice page? What do you wish you had been told when you started your first postdoc?
Megan posted a reply to Hannah, which should get us started:
-Write papers. Now is the time to show your productivity as an independent researcher.
-Go to the talks. Leave your laptop in your office. Ask questions.
-Meet with your advisor regularly, if you have one. Don't disappear.
-Talk to astronomers other than your advisor. Don't become the person no one knows. Don't be a troll.
-Work with students if you have the opportunity.
-Learn how to give great talks to a wide variety of audiences. Areas of weakness for most postdocs: public lectures and colloquium talks to physics (or physics amp; astronomy) departments. After years of learning to talk to experts (or your PhD committee), it takes some effort to learn how to give a talk to other audiences.
-Your publication record might get you on a faculty short-list, but how you interact with people and your job talk will affect your ranking on that list.
Back to top.6. Why the AAS Needs the CSWA
From: Joan Schmelz [jschmelz_at_memphis.edu]
I've spent some time this summer compiling information on the History of CSWA (more on that in the weeks to come). During this historical journey, I reread some of the old issues of the STATUS magazine and come across an article in the Oct 1987 issue written by then CSWA chair (and current AAS VP) Lee Anne Willson entitled, "Why the AAS Needs the CSWA."
This is a topic that comes up every once in a while, and Lee Anne's thoughtful and articulate summary is well worth reading. She summarizes five points:
-provides increased visibility to the community of women astronomers;
-monitors the AAS policies and publications to prevent bias;
-collects and distributes information on careers in astronomy;
-provides a channel for complaints concerning discriminatory policies or practices; and
-promotes discussion and sharing of ideas concerning the extra complications associated with the combination of an astronomical career with the other obligations.
To read more:
http://www.aas.org/cswa/status/status_oct1987.pdf
I was a newly minted PhD when this article came out in 1987, and in some ways, CSWA is still working on the same issues. Should we be discouraged because we have not made more progress? No! I feel that my career in astronomy has now been long enough to have personally witnessed real progress. Although sexual harassment and discrimination still exist, the number of incidents has waned significantly. It is true that this progress has uncovered a new set of problems, e.g., unconscious bias and astronomical bullying, but we are developing methods to deal with these as well. As I happily cram as much science as possible into what is left of the summer, I realize that I am grateful to Lea Anne and all the other CSWA members who went before me and made it possible for me to do the astronomy I love so much. A full list of all those members going back to the founding of CSWA (and before) is coming soon. Stay tuned!
Back to top.7. How to Submit
To submit an item to the AASWOMEN newsletter, including replies to topics, send email to
aaswomen_at_aas.org .
All material will be posted unless you tell us otherwise, including your email address.
Please remember to replace "_at_" in the e-mail address above.
Back to top.8. How to Subscribe or Unsubscribe
To subscribe or unsubscribe to the AASWOMEN newsletter, please fill in the required information at:
http://lists.aas.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/aaswlist .
If you experience any problems, please email itdept_at_aas.org
Back to top.9. Access to Past Issues
http://www.aas.org/cswa/AASWOMEN.html
Each annual summary includes an index of topics covered.
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