UO to young women: Consider career in science

EUGENE, Ore. -- (Oct. 17, 2007) -- A new initiative of the University of Oregon College of Arts and Sciences (CAS) launches Saturday, Oct. 20, with a luncheon forum designed to reach out to science-savvy high-school girls and bring them into conversation about science careers with UO women faculty, alumni and members of industry.

For the inaugural forum of the Women in Technology and Science (WITS) initiative, select girls from six Eugene-area high schools have been invited to the  event to mingle with campus and community business leaders. The limited-seating forum will be from 11 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. in the Paul Olum Atrium, Willamette Hall, 1371 E. 13th Ave.

WITS is modeled after the nationally ground-breaking Women in Science and Engineering (WiSE) program at the University of Southern California, which was formed in 2000 to increase the representation and success of women in science and engineering at USC through a series of creative programs that enable women to thrive at every stage of their careers.

WITS is a new CAS funding initiative designed to promote awareness and support for women in science, building on successes among UO students and UO faculty members. It will feature open discussions about the joys and challenges of a career in science. Organizers of Saturday's event want to highlight and encourage women already involved in the sciences at the university, and place emphasis on recruiting and retaining women in UO graduate programs.

The forum's keynote speaker will be the UO's Geri Richmond, the Richard M. and Patricia H. Noyes Professor of Chemistry. Earlier this year she was named a Guggenheim Fellow. In her talk, Richmond will discuss women scientists she knows as friends, colleagues and students. Her presentation will feature "a series of pictures of wonderful handmade quilts that represent to me their choices, aspirations and accomplishments."

Richmond is nationally known for the creation in 1999 of COACh, the Committee on the Advancement of Women Chemists, a national support group. COACh is designed to address issues that keep women chemists from reaching their goals.

Attendees at Saturday's forum also will hear from a five-member panel made up of: Richmond; Miriam Deutsch, professor of physics and member of the Oregon Center for Optics and Materials Science Institute; Dev Sinha, professor of math and director of graduate studies in the math department; Cheryl Moody Bartel, technical area manager in analytical chemistry, particularly involving nanotechnology, for Invitrogen Corp.; and Takiya Ahmed, recipient of this year's UO Doctoral Research Fellowship and the first winner of the university’s Rosaria P. Haugland Fellowship, who is studying in the UO’s green chemistry program.

The panel will be moderated by Marian Friestad, vice provost for UO graduate education, associate dean of the Graduate School and professor of marketing.

Men continue to dominate the sciences on American's college campuses, in spite of vigorous national efforts to persuade young women to major in science programs such as chemistry, mathematics, biology and engineering.

In a 2006 report, the American Association of University Professors found that only 24 percent of full professor positions in the United States are held by women, despite an overwhelming presence of women students on campus for the past 25 years. Women are obtaining doctoral degrees at record rates, but their representation in the ranks of tenured faculty remains below expectations, particularly at research universities.

Initial donations for WITS have come from friends of the college, including alumni, and from area corporations, including Invitrogen, DataLogic and the Weyerhaeuser Foundation.

If interested in attending, a reservation is required. Contact the CAS events line at 541-346-3236 to ask about space availability.

Contact: Jim Barlow, 541-346-3481, jebarlow@uoregon.edu

Source: Sara Mason, associate director of development, natural sciences, College of Arts and Sciences, 541-346-0607, saram@cas.uoregon.edu

Links: WITS: http://cas.uoregon.edu/wits/ ; College of Arts and Sciences: http://cas.uoregon.edu/; USC's WiSE program: http://www.usc.edu/programs/wise/

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