Tilghman says climate can change for women if universities exercise "determination and imagination."
By: David Campbell
During an address last week at Columbia University, Princeton University President Shirley M. Tilghman reaffirmed the need for higher education to further embrace women in science and engineering.
"With determination and imagination," Dr. Tilghman said, "universities can surely change the climate for women where they are underrepresented."
Dr. Tilghman gave her address March 24 at the launch of the ADVANCE Lecture Series at Columbia University’s Earth Institute, part of a program intended to increase the recruitment, retention and advancement of women scientists and engineers, the university said.
She outlined the rationale for why universities and the nation in general should care about the issue, which was brought to the forefront earlier this year when Harvard University President Lawrence Summers expressed controversial views on women in the sciences.
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.
Dr. Tilghman has weighed in before in support of women in the sciences, including at a faculty meeting in February at which she reportedly said Princeton is prepared to be the "Ellis Island" for female scientists, mathematicians and engineers.
In her address at Columbia last week, she said the future vitality and prosperity of the United States depend on the scientific advances nurtured in research universities like Princeton. She said such institutions need to attract the "best and brightest young minds."
She suggested that women bring a unique perspective to scientific inquiry, and she warned that if they continue to be underrepresented in science, engineering and mathematics, these fields will look "increasingly anachronistic" to talented candidates who might instead pursue careers at law, medical or business schools that offer greater gender equity.
"I am not suggesting that women conduct scientific inquiry differently from men the scientific method is universal," she said. "But it has been my own experience that the problems that intrigue women about the natural world are not always exactly the same as those that attract men. By encouraging women to embrace science, we likely increase the range of problems under study, and this will broaden and strengthen the entire enterprise."
Dr. Tilghman said it is "simply unjust" for a profession to exclude a large proportion of the population on the basis of gender.

