Why aren’t more women going into  science & technology fields?

By Sydney Espinoza

The nonsensical hallways of the Park Science building at Bryn Mawr College are a combined source of frustration and humor among students. So much so that “I got lost” is a legitimate excuse for tardiness when getting to class involves navigating the building.

The women who decide to pursue majors in science, technology, and mathematics at Bryn Mawr are jokingly referred to as poor, lost souls who still haven’t found their way out of Park yet.

The infamous Park labyrinth has been steadily claiming more victims within its academic walls since 2006. Increasing numbers of science and technology majors at Bryn Mawr College reflects the nationwide push for women to pursue majors and careers in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics fields that, historically, have been largely male-dominated. Collectively, they are known as STEM.

“I’ve talked to women scientists who are a generation or a generation-and-a-half older than me and they had a rough road,” said Dr. Tamara Davis, Associate Professor and Chair of the Biology department at Bryn Mawr College. “Like for my graduate advisor, it was just hard for people to trust her, to give her credit that she was due. It was a lot harder for women in science thirty years ago.”

According to Bryn Mawr College’s Office of Institutional Research, Planning, and Assessment, an impressive 29% of its 1,300 undergraduates are pursuing majors in STEM fields, compared to the national average of only eight percent.

While a growing female presence within the scientific community is a promising step toward equal representation, another more-troubling national trend has become increasingly evident at Bryn Mawr: a largely disproportionate distribution of students pursuing majors in Biology versus other STEM fields such as Physics, Chemistry, and Computer Science.

To STEM or not to STEM?

The number of Biology majors has undergone exponential growth, and recently tied with Political Science and Psychology for third largest department, with 26 graduating majors in 2012. Yet, Physics, Computer Science, and Chemistry have remained relatively stagnant in the number of completed majors.

According to the Physics department website, Bryn Mawr College has averaged nine Physics majors per year, making up approximately three percent of the graduating class, and nearly 50 times the national average. The Computer Science and Chemistry departments report similarly flat figures.

So, what gives?

Even at Bryn Mawr College, women interested in pursuing science generally shy away from STEM fields that require more computational skill.

“I don’t know if it’s because they come in, if there is something that prejudices them against those fields before they get here,” said Davis, “my guess is that it probably is.”

She also discussed the pre-med track as a natural draw to Biology, explaining that 30% of incoming Bryn Mawr students think they’re pre-med, but only eight-to-ten percent of the graduates continue on to medical school. These statistics, she said, show how awareness of careers in a STEM field can impact the growth of its female population.

“I think students, women in particular, are often less aware of what their career options are in other STEM fields,” said Davis. “In your life, you have been to a doctor’s appointment, so you can kind of see that as a career option, whereas it’s harder to think about careers in engineering or even in academics as really a career. That might be something that more physicists would end up doing or computer programing.”

Lack of self-confidence?

Saba Qadir, 2013, a Biology major and student major representative for the department, voiced similar sentiments.

“As a country, girls are still discouraged from improving their self-confidence in math,” said Qadir, “the disparity at BMC is probably because it’s really difficult to reject or change a belief about yourself and suddenly become a ‘math person’ if it has been existing for several years of your life.”

Those within the Biology department aren’t the only ones speculating on this concerning issue.

Caroline Bruce, 2016, an undeclared Physics major, was surprised and troubled by the underrepresentation within the STEMs at Bryn Mawr, given the program’s stellar quality and one-on-one learning experience.

“There is a lot of support and a lot of small student-teacher close classroom experience, and they try their very best to make sure that the women who are in these programs are getting the best education,” Bruce explained, “and with that kind of resource and opportunity, I am surprised that [Physics] isn’t a much bigger major.”

She discussed her negative experiences with science in middle school and high school that almost kept her away from pursuing physics or any kind of science at all.

“I thought that that was a fault of the subject instead of the teacher,” Bruce said. “There was this scary idea that science was strictly labs, and if I couldn’t enjoy a lab, then I couldn’t enjoy the class; so I was afraid that if I pursued a major in Physics, I wouldn’t get a good grade, then I wouldn’t enjoy it at all, and it would spiral.”

Even at Bryn Mawr College, a virtual hub of female empowerment, breaking into more math-heavy sciences proves to be difficult for women. So now the million-dollar question: what can be done to get women excited about these fields?

Looking back to her own personal experience as a woman and science student struggling with the dominant male presence, Davis suggests bringing in more women—as faculty, as visiting alumnae, and as examples of success—to serve as role models in these fields.

“It’s already hard being a woman in these STEM fields,” she said, “and without having that role model network and support network for young women who are entering those fields, it’s just harder for them to sustain their careers and reach those goals.”

As for the future of those choosing to stay lost in Park Science, wandering in search of Physics, Chemistry, and Computer Science?

In time, said Davis. “I think it will get better in these other, more underrepresented fields over time, but I think it’s going to take some time.”

Students are working to stop mountaintop mining through local action

By Nell Durfee

Environmental activism is often associated with shower-needy young people sporting dreadlocks and tye-dye, with Priuses, with LEED-certified buildings and marches in the streets. But a recent trend in modern flower power is a little different: new campaigns across the country are asking citizens to use their money for social justice.

Divestment and socially-responsible investing are being used by local and national campaigns to call attention and get action from large corporations. Near Philadelphia, the most significant movements are with the EarthQuaker Action Team (EQAT) and the work of Bryn Mawr and Swarthmore College students. Both EQAT and Swarthmore students are coming at

A mountaintp mining site

divestment from the angle of mountaintop removal coal mining, an extractive industry used throughout the Appalachian region. Coal companies use explosives to break apart the rock to find coal seams; many have criticized the process as being ecologically devastating, with terrible health effects.

Though the connection between environmental action and socially responsible investing may seem blurry, both groups feel strongly that their work is an appropriate way for them to make change on the issue—locally.

“We wanted to act on a personal and a different scale,” Walter Sullivan, a former leader involved with the EarthQuaker Action Team, said on why they chose investment.

The EarthQuaker action team has focused its efforts on PNC bank, which is the top investor in mountaintop removal. Though MTR itself is often cheaper than traditional coal mining, it requires immense initial investments, which PNC lends to coal companies. EQAT’s goal is to prevent this support, which would make it very difficult for coal companies to profit.

Sullivan explained that EQAT chose PNC bank as the target as a way for them to connect to mountaintop removal in a local way. Though the coal strip mining sites are located hundreds of miles away, PNC bank has a more personal connection to the Quakers involved with the group. It is actually the merger of two separate banks, one of which had Quaker roots and was patronized by many Quaker meetings and individuals. EQAT works with people on a local level to withdraw their accounts with PNC.

Aimed at PNC Bank

“We’re not a divestment campaign,” Sullivan explained. “Divestment works by selling your stock in a company—which means that someone else has to buy it. It works on a large scale, where if many more people are selling than buying, the stock value of the company will plummet… Instead, we ask people to stop doing business with PNC, to remove their accounts.”

Divestment is more effective on the level of institutions—which is what both Swarthmore and Bryn Mawr students are attempting. Swarthmore students involved with efforts to halt mountaintop removal coal mining had a revelation similar to EQAT—while they could go to the mine sites in Appalachia, it would be more meaningful for them to work on a local level. In this case, that was their own school, which has a large investment portfolio that includes coal companies and other fossil fuels industries.

Students describe their efforts so far as a challenge, as Swarthmore guards its investments portfolio carefully.

“They were the only school to not lose money during the recession,” said junior Ben Bernard-Herman, a member of Swarthmore Mountain Justice, due to their carefully monitored portfolio. Group members said that one method used in many successful divestment campaigns is the creation of socially responsible mutual funds, which allow institutions and people to invest in a host of socially responsible companies at once, without the concern that they contain morally problematic investments.

It was, in fact, the Swarthmore Mountain Justice’s divestment campaign that prompted prominent climate change activist Bill McKibben’s most recent campaign, “Do The Math,” which urges institutions and individuals to divest from fossil fuels.

The ‘Sin Portfolio’

This nation-wide campaign, as well as links to Swarthmore Mountain Justice itself, has led Bryn Mawr College to form its own divestment group. Unlike Swarthmore, Bryn Mawr’s administration has been much more open to the idea of divestment.

“The board of trustees really wants to make it into an academic argument so that we can learn about all the complicated sides to the issue,” says Lee McClenon, a student involved with the campaign. “[Bryn Mawr’s chief financial officer, John Griffith] said that historically the college has been super open to these kinds of conversations and he’s surprised they don’t come up more often.”

Haverford College, in a consortium with Bryn Mawr and Swarthmore, has begun its own talks in hope of having divestment from fossil fuels within the Tri-College system. At the moment, Haverford has several student and administrative groups focused on socially responsible investing—with a very different strategy than divestment. The groups specifically invest in corporations and institutions that the College disagrees with in the hopes that consumer support and investor feedback will promote change.

“We call it the ‘sin’ portfolio,” Parker Snowe, the Executive Director of the Center for Peace and Global Citizenship at Haverford.

It’s the latest thing and Mirella Deocadiz is on the edge

By Alicia Ramirez

For Mirella Deocadiz passion for the media runs in her blood. Deocadiz comes from a family who works in the industry.

Deocadiz’s mother used to work in broadcasting but now both of her parents work in print journalism. Despite her young age, Deocadiz has also worked at both print and TV institutions where she mostly did news reporting.

Deocadiz, a soft-spoken junior born to Filipino parents but raised in Hong Kong, was kind enough to sit and chat about one of the topics she is most interested about, the Digital Humanities.

Mirella Deocadiz

On Sunday, November 4, at 2:00 p.m. on the dot, a petite woman with long brown locks, and maroon eyeglasses entered the Erdman conference room at Bryn Mawr College. She was bundled in a leopard-print scarf and a black winter coat.

Before the conversation went any further, there was the need to define: What is Digital Humanities.

“That’s a conversation that happens a lot! What is digital humanities? Even I struggle to come up with my own definition,” said Deocadiz.

Deocadiz added, “I hope by the time I graduate I really do come up with a stronger sense of what it is but right now my working definition of what is digital humanities is the application of digital technology to answer previous humanities questions and it’s also more interdisciplinary approach to examining and exploring the issues that come up in the humanities fields.”

Based on this defnition, Digital Humanities is a forum where students and faculty use technology to address issues in the different courses and topics that make up the humanities and make innovations that will benefit academia.

A busy woman

Deocadiz is a busy woman, in addition to her schoolwork and duties as a Digital Humanities fellow, she works at Bryn Mawr’s Writing Center and plays Rugby for “The Horned Toads”, the team of Bryn Mawr and Haverford Colleges.

In the fall of 2010, Deocadiz was one of many freshmen getting acquainted with college life and taking an Emily Balch Seminar – or ESem as it is known around Bryn Mawr. This is a semester-long freshmen writing seminar where students polish their writing skills and engage in vigorous discussion about a particular topic.

Little did she know the seminar’s professor and director of the Tri- College Digital Humanities program, Katherine Rowe, would be such an instrumental part in her development as a student.

“My freshman year I took an ESem, called “Bookmarks” with professor Katherine Rowe and I think that really change sort of my approach to thinking about media. I’ve always been really interested in media, Bryn Mawr is the only liberal arts college I applied to, I applied for media programs, communication programs I think that class really changed the way I looked at how I approach media studies,” said Deocadiz.

In this ESem students talked about different modes of communication such as spoken word, written word and progressed to talking about new media.

Deocadiz describes it as “a long arch of media history.”

At the end of the semester, professor Rowe put her in contact with Jen Rajchel, the Assistant Director of the Tri-College Digital Humanities program, who was a senior at the time. Rajchel had written her thesis digitally and had been part of the first ReHumanities working group.

ReHumanities is the first and only annual undergraduate symposium on new media.

From blogging about ReHumanities, to fellowships, to now organizing the symposium, Deocadiz has come a long way.

Thanks to her fellowship from the The Tri-College Digital Humanities Institute, she did a summer internship with Human Network Labs in Philadelphia. She was in charge of establishing a clean image for them to work on.

An independent major

Deocadiz’s interest in the Digital Humanities drove her to pursue an independent major in Comparative Media Studies. She admits that the process of getting her major was everything but high-tech.

“I did submit a traditional double-space, one inch margin proposal. That’s a technology right? The technology of written word… I emailed around I found that it is very difficult for an independent major to get guidance via email correspondence so I did sit down an talk with a lot of people to get to where I’ve gotten,” said Deocadiz.

This digital humanist relies on her iPad to be informed on the latest technological advances and do her course readings.

“I bought an iPad which one of my friends and I always joke that it screams digital humanist every time you whip it out and I have Flipboard on there. Flipboard is an app that sort of pulls together articles that are commenting about a certain topic so on that I

follow the technology section and I read that when I have time,” said Deocadiz with excitement.

Deocadiz transmits her passion for Digital Humanities up to the point it becomes contagious. However, her work is not complete, students are yet to take the hint.

Deocadiz said, “I’d like to see more hype about it. I know that people want to talk about this, I’ve been to various meetings. I went to a trustees meeting and all everyone wanted to talk about was technology. People are wanting to talk about it but we’re not given enough spaces and I don’t think it is fully discussed it and I don’t think that is, it is advertised.”

Students at Bryn Mawr say economic class is noticeable, but doesn’t define the school

By Kady Ashcraft

Two girls sit around the television, late Thursday night, in a common room in one of Bryn Mawr College’s dorms. They are watching reruns of MTV’s “Sixteen and Pregnant” and commenting on the poor parenting skills of the young reality TV mothers.

They are both lounging in sweat pants, with their glasses on after taking out their contacts. One of the girls is on significant financial aid and another one’s parents paid for her entire four years at Bryn Mawr with a single check.

A survey taken of Bryn Mawr College students that showed a similar wide range of incomes: About 29 percent of the students who responded come from households with income of $50,000 a year; while 11 percent came from households earning over $150,000, 60 percent fall between these two benchmarks. Clearly, there is a spread of wealth at Bryn Mawr.

The resounding answer is, “Not really.”

The survey sent out to Bryn Mawr students had a 12 percent response rate, a significant sample of the 1,200 who attend the Main Line school.

The survey said that while 66 percent wished there was more discussion of class on campus, 84 percent agreed that economic class did not determine social groups.

Korean students in American colleges must wrestle with their identities and sense of belonging

By Cho Park

“I don’t know,” laughed Justin Wee, a freshman at Haverford, as he ran his fingers through his hair. “Does anyone ever belong anywhere?”

It’s a question echoed by many students from Korea who have chosen to study in the United States. With America renown as the land of opportunity, many Korean parents have seized the chance to send their children to colleges in the United States, hoping to provide them a better future. According to the Institute of International Education, South Korea, with a population of 50 million, ranks third in the number of students sent to America. China and India, with populations of over a billion, rank first and second respectively.

While living in the U.S., some Korean students have easily adopted American customs. Others have been hit with severe homesickness that has prevented them from enjoying college life. On one end of the spectrum is Samantha Rim, a sophomore at Bryn Mawr College who said that she had “adapted to the American lifestyle quite well.”

For Rim, coming to college in the States was nerve-wracking at first. Rim had attended the same international school in Korea from second grade through high school, and had grown up with the same group of friends for years.

“I didn’t know if I could make new friends, after having had the same friends for so long,” she said. “I’m so glad that I had no problems – I know some of my high school friends did when they also came to the States.”

Rim had never lived in America before college; her only experiences with the States stemmed from summer trips to her aunt who lived in California. Instead, she had called Hong Kong, Indonesia, and Singapore her home before settling down to live in Korea. With an international origin, Rim recalled her childhood with fondness.

“I think I’d probably like to settle down in Southeast Asia later… I have so many good memories from there, and it really gave me a multi-cultural experience in a way that the States hasn’t really done for me,” Rim said wistfully.

For someone who has lived in Korea for so long, Rim has decidedly American tastes. Her favorite television shows are American. Her clothes are exclusively American brands. When talking with her friends, her language of choice is English – her Korean comes out with a mild accent. Although she has a range of multi-ethnic friends, she she chooses to go Global Covenant Church, a church known for its predominantly Korean-American congregation.

“I really click with the people there, I guess because I went to a Korean-American church back home,” Rim said.

She enjoys college life with zest, dressing up during weekends and going out to party at nearby Haverford and Swarthmore. With her smooth, tan skin and an exotic face that is always carefully made up, Rim has many admirers from both schools.

To many, Rim may seem like a success case. She has effectively integrated herself into college life at Bryn Mawr, with a busy social life and an innumerable amount of friends keeping her occupied. Yet she still admitted that “I call my parents every day, and frequently talk to my ex-boyfriend from high school… he’s part of what I feel is home, which helps me deal with things in some ways.”

On the other end of the spectrum, then, is Jenny Oh, another sophomore at Bryn Mawr College who found the transition between Asia and America more difficult. Unlike Rim, Oh is more reticent when it comes to meeting new people, although she chatters endlessly with those she does become close with. Continue reading →