Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!lll-tis!helios.ee.lbl.gov!nosc!ucsd!rutgers!mcnc!ecsvax!fester%math.Berkeley.EDU@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU
From: fester%math.Berkeley.EDU@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU
Newsgroups: comp.society.women
Subject: Re: Single sex science education
Summary: Its not the CALIBRE of the teachers, it's their ATTITUDE
Message-ID: <5741@ecsvax.uncecs.edu>
Date: 9 Sep 88 03:05:01 GMT
References: <5726@ecsvax.uncecs.edu> <5729@ecsvax.uncecs.edu>
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Organization: Math Dept., UC Berkeley
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Approved: skyler@ecsvax.uncecs.edu (Moderator -- Trish Roberts)
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Submissions-to: comp-women@cs.purdue.edu

In article <5729@ecsvax.uncecs.edu> emory!vicki@gatech.edu (Vicki Powers) writes:
>Not true!   I know that Bryn Mawr has a (admittedly small) Ph.D program
>in mathematics.  When I interviewed there for a job, they had one Ph.D
>student.  Other departments have graduate programs as well.  I think 
>most good women's college's expect their professors to be active 
>researchers and thus any student who wanted advanced work would be able
>to get it.

If a college has a *tiny* graduate program, from the point of view of
the *undergraduates* the college effectively has NO graduate program.
The benefit of a graduate program is, as I said, that when you run out
of undergraduate classes you can take graduate level classes - if the
program is so small (e.g. one PhD candidate) there probably AREN'T
any graduate level classes, and so effectively this advantage fails
to exist.

Now regarding your last sentence, I unfortunately vehemently disagree.
When I ran out of upper division math courses to take, I went around
asking for someone to do an independent study class (called reading
courses in some places) with me.  No one would.  And Wellesley College
both considers itself, and is considered by most, to be a "good women's
college."  The math department has its share of weak faculty, but it
also has its share of good researchers.  This is not the issue.  The
issue is VERY IMPORTANT, and I want to make sure I am not being too
subtle for most of the parents out there reading this.  The issue is
that if, on a fundamental level, the teachers believe that women cannot
do mathematics, they will TEACH IT THAT WAY.  And that is why being at
a coed school may be better.  The teachers there may well also
believe that women can't do math, but THEY MUST TEACH TO EVERYONE,
and the coursework therefore will be of the appropriate calibre.

It really hurts me to be having to say this, especially in public.  But
it is true.  I almost feel like you can't win.  At a coed school you 
might get shafted in all the ways women traditionally are, (though you
may not), and at a women's college you may get taught down to (though 
you may not), in which case you are even worse off than in case 1.

(Trish)
>[I think that what Lea was saying is that single-sex colleges suffer from
>the same problems that other colleges do as well.  So, to the extent that

Yes, in addition to other problems that might be *particular* to a women's
college.

>a problem with getting a quality education.  It is, I think, even worse
>in regard to computer science.  The cost of putting together a graduate
>program in c.s. can be very high (making the salaries competitive, getting
>the kind of facilities which will draw good people, and so on) and it

And undergraduate.  We were using facilities (for example, in my Computer
Graphics course) that a former department chair said were of poorer quality
(in this case, far less resolution) than the ones he was using at Harvard
in the early 70's.

Another point about computer science at women's colleges is that the Big
Boys don't bother to recruit there, not for permanent employement and not
for those crucial summer internships.  Some do, but most don't.  This is
not the fault of the college, but it is an important disadvantage.


Lea Fester
fester@math.berkeley.edu
ucbvax!math!fester

"Her brother's birth announcement, it said 'A pretty babe !' Ah yes,
While she got precious little notice in the local press
Her mother was a virgin when she carried him therein
And if the little girl came later, then was she conceived in sin ?"