Kerby-Miller Sees Opportunity For Woman Teaching Science in College

The obstacles which confront women science teachers on the college level can be overcome if enough trained women enter the field, Wilma A. Kerby Miller, academic vice-president of Radcliffe, told an M.I.T. symposium Sunday.

"If we can only increase the number of well-qualified women teachers," she asserted, "there are enough colleges that will employ them in good positions." Even now, institutions that are reluctant to hire women are showing occasional signs of relenting, she added.

Although the charge of discrimination against women in the highest academic ranks is "pot uncommon" she observed that marriage as getting to be less and less an obstacle to a successful career in college teaching.

"With determination--and good luck in your choice of husband--you should be able to find a satisfactory position in a very good college," she predicted.

Later Erik H. Erikson, Professor of Human Development, addressed the symposium. "Women have long depended on men for their attitudes but they must learn to lose this dependence... Men want women to be in the home and to be non-competitive," he said.

He forecast "a period of difficult transition ahead as women break free from masculine domination and develop a new view of themselves."

Erikson's speech concluded the second and final day of the symposium on "American Women in Science and Engineering." Over 250 delegates from 150 colleges attended the symposium, which was sponsored by the M.I.T. Association of Women Studies.