Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!mailrus!uwmcsd1!ig!agate!marla@Sun.COM
From: marla@Sun.COM (Marla Parker)
Newsgroups: comp.society.women
Subject: Women and Mathematics
Message-ID: <12367@agate.BERKELEY.EDU>
Date: 21 Jul 88 00:12:05 GMT
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In response to my summary about career days etc., Karen Melchior at
HP put me in touch with Women and Mathematics, a national organization
that provides high schools and jr. high's with speakers who encourage
the students to continue taking math classes.

I spoke with Alice Kelly, the National Director of Programs for the
coming year.  Women and Mathematics was started in 1976.  It is
primarily a speaker service, she said.  They do not separate the
girls from the boys, and they try not to come across as militant
feminists ("though of course we all are", she said as an aside :-).
She said having boys in the audience might introduce them to the 
possibility of working for a female manager someday.

One joins Women and Mathematics by becoming a speaker.  Alice Kelly 
suggested I call Jean Chan, the Program Director for Northern
California, since she is compiling her list of speakers right now.
Jean Chan is also the Chair of the Mathematics Department at Sonoma
State University.  I've been trying to call her today at (707) 664-2368
but no one answers, so I'm going to send a letter tomorrow.

If you want to be a speaker and you live in some other part of the
country, contact Alice Kelly at (408) 554-6811 and she will put 
put you in touch with the Program Director nearest you.

It sounds like a very professional organization, doing exactly what
I had in mind.  Alice Kelly was interested in the responses I'd
gotten to my c.s.w query about other organizations that are trying
to start similar programs in the Bay Area, so I'm sending her a copy 
of my summary posting.  (None of the active programs I heard about
were local, except maybe Expanding Your Horizons.)

The following is from Karen's mail to me:

|I recently began a new job in marketing at HP.  I'd been here all of one day
|when someone asked me to speak to a group of 12-year-old girls about the
|importance of math in my job.  Two women in my group coordinated a 
|"field trip" for some girls from a local junior high.  The girls that 
|visited us at HP spoke to women in R&D, support, marketing, and training.
|It was really exciting for them to see how a company works, and exciting
|for the employees who participated to get a perspective on what we do...
|I loved it!
|
|Women and Mathematics is a national organization which provides talks to
|girls/women on math related subjects.  Two of my colleagues have developed
|a talk called "Mathematics in the Real World" where they discuss how simple
|mathematics (math the students are currently using) are used in everyday
|tasks. 


Marla Parker		(415)336-2538
{ihnp4, decvax, seismo, decwrl, ...}!sun!marla
marla@sun.com