WISHR Meeting Attendees Respond To Crimson Coverage

To the editors:

We were alarmed by a highly inaccurate news story “Women in Science Discuss Changes” (News, Feb. 23) and the subsequent comment by Adam Goldenberg (“Mixed Messages,” Feb. 25), based on this news story that misrepresented the Women in Science at Harvard-Radcliffe’s (WISHR) Feb. 22 “Think Tank” meeting. As two members of the Harvard community who are not members of WISHR (the news story wrongly reported that Tracy E. Nowski ’07 is the co-chair of a WISHR policy group), we attended this meeting out of interest and would like to set the record straight as to what actually took place.

The news story described the meeting as “a session to brainstorm ways in which current University policies hinder female students from concentrating in the sciences.” In fact, the purpose was to imagine new policies that might make the science departments more accessible to everyone, with an only occasional focus on women. Ideas suggested, such as holding review sessions before placement examinations, offering peer advising within large introductory science classes, making study abroad more accessible to science concentrators, and providing summer housing for students conducting research, would clearly benefit all students and might serve to retain more women in the sciences.

The news story’s coverage of the meeting generated a mistaken impression of what was discussed. Several female science concentrators commented on how discouraging it is to be in nearly all-male science sections. As such, the idea of creating optional all-female sections was suggested as one possible way to address such a concern. Though the group acknowledged that some women might desire a single-sex dynamic, we then discussed problems associated with such a structure, notably that it might serve to reinforce the misconception that women are innately less capable in science. The story entirely evaded this critical development in the meeting, and it is unfortunate that this inaccurate reporting served as fodder for Goldenberg’s claim that WISHR is suggesting “a set of explanations almost completely in-line with Summers’ erstwhile prescription,” which is simply not the case.

One lesson to be taken from the Summers’ controversy is that truthful reporting of discussions is essential to furthering productive debate. To answer Goldenberg’s question, “What do women want?”—women and men alike, including WISHR and those who attend their brainstorming sessions, want to contribute to the discourse that will help promote women’s participation in the sciences at Harvard, but they can only do so if their ideas are accurately represented to the Harvard community.

TRACY E. NOWSKI ’07

NAJEEB M. TARAZI ’07

February 27, 2005