Here’s a postscript to my recent essay on “Doing Physics While Black.”
Ten years ago I wrote a longish piece on my blog, “Wanted: More WIS (Women In Science),” that included the following:
“Unwelcoming classrooms, outdated teaching styles, and a lack of accommodation for different social or cultural experiences can all add up to create an environment that students decide to leave rather than thrive in. This affects men as well as women,” said Barbara Bogue, co-founder of the Society for Women Engineers at Penn State….Bogue warned against “negative role models” who give the impression that they are overly obsessed with their work and drive people away by making the field seem too demanding.
Then, also from that blog post:
I sent the Inside Higher Ed article I’m discussing to my daughter, Jessie, who has just finished her 5th year of a Ph.D. program in Applied Physics at Caltech (she’ll probably get her degree in October, just before her 23rd birthday). Her reply bears repeating (which I do with permission):
I particularly like this quote:
Bogue warned against “negative role models” who give the impression that they are overly obsessed with their work and drive people away by making the field seem too demanding.Because of course we wouldn’t want anyone giving an honest impression of the field…
