President Tilghman voices her commitment in wake of Harvard president’s controversial remarks.
By: David Campbell
Princeton University President Shirley Tilghman voiced her commitment this week in support of women scholars in the sciences, reportedly saying the university is prepared to be the "Ellis Island" for female scientists, mathematicians and engineers.
During a faculty meeting Monday, Maria Klawe, dean of Princeton’s School of Engineering and Applied Science, asked Dr. Tilghman to comment on remarks made last month by Harvard University President Lawrence Summers about women in the sciences that sparked considerable controversy.
Speaking at a Jan. 14 conference of the National Bureau of Economic Research in Cambridge, Mass., the Harvard president drew criticism by suggesting that innate differences between the sexes might explain why fewer women succeed in science and mathematics careers.
"I did ask President Tilghman to comment on the remarks made by Larry Summers," Dean Klawe said this week. "Princeton has been making a sustained and successful effort to increase the number of women faculty and students in science and engineering, and I was hoping she would comment on this as she did."
Dr. Tilghman reportedly responded saying that Princeton is "extremely fertile" ground for talented women starting their careers as scientists, mathematicians and engineers, and that the university is prepared to be the "Ellis Island" of those fields, offering a haven for female academics in the sciences.
Dr. Tilghman herself is a world-renowned scholar and leading expert in the field of molecular biology. She assumed the office of Princeton University’s 19th president in June 2001 after serving on the Princeton faculty for 15 years as the Howard A. Prior Professor of the Life Sciences.
Dr. Tilghman was unavailable for comment. But she weighed in on the ongoing debate in a statement released Thursday prepared jointly with the presidents of Stanford University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
"The question we must ask as a society is not ‘can women excel in math, science and engineering?’ Marie Curie exploded that myth a century ago but ‘how can we encourage more women with exceptional abilities to pursue careers in these fields?’" the presidents wrote.
Dean Klawe said she and other female faculty in science and engineering at Princeton are grateful they are at an institution where the leadership understands and seeks to address the challenges that still face women and under-represented minorities in these fields.
She said that while there are still many issues yet to resolve such as better access to childcare, finding positions for spouses, and a culture she said still sometimes seems more welcoming or comfortable for men than women progress nevertheless is being made.
"I’m delighted that we may become the Ellis Island for women scholars," Dean Klawe continued. "My experience has been that significantly increasing the number of women improves the environment for men as well as women."
Will Dr. Tilghman’s latest remarks signal a renewed exodus of Harvard scholars to Princeton? Philosophers Cornel West and K. Anthony Appiah defected from Harvard to Princeton in fall 2002 following a much-publicized rift with Dr. Summers.
"West and Appiah have been wonderful additions to Princeton," Dean Klawe said when asked to comment. "I’d love to see more scholars like them join Princeton."
Princeton has also courted Henry Louis Gates Jr., chairman of the Department of Afro-American Studies at Harvard. Dr. Gates spent a yearlong sabbatical beginning in the fall of 2003 as a visiting member at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. While he considered Princeton’s standing offer to join its faculty, he decided ultimately to stay at Harvard.
Psychology Professor Joan Girgus, who is special assistant to the dean of the faculty for gender issues at Princeton, said, "We have an explicit intention for Princeton to be a very good place for women in the sciences as well as the humanities."
Asked to comment on the notion of the university as an Ellis Island, she said: "If women faculty want to immigrate to Princeton, our doors are open. We are eager, obviously, to be a place where men and women both can flourish."
Dr. Tilghman appointed Dr. Girgus to the special assistant’s position following the release of a September 2003 report by a special Princeton task force on the status of women on science faculties at the university.
The report found that the number of woman faculty in the sciences at Princeton increased from 8.4 percent in 1999 to 13.9 percent in 2002. But it said that despite gains over the prior decade, the university had to step up efforts hiring female scientists.
Dr. Tilghman created the task force following a meeting of the leaders of nine research universities at MIT which included Princeton and Harvard to address the need for greater equity for women in the sciences and engineering.
Dr. Summers apologized for his controversial remarks in a Jan. 19 open letter to the Harvard community.
"I deeply regret the impact of my comments and apologize for not having weighed them more carefully," he wrote, noting he does not believe and never said females are intellectually less able than males or that they lack the ability to rise to the highest ranks in the sciences.
"As the careers of a great many distinguished women scientists make plain, the human potential to excel in science is not somehow the province of one gender or another," the Harvard president wrote.

