marla@Sun.COM (Marla Parker) (07/21/88)
In response to my summary about career days etc., Karen Melchior at
HP put me in touch with Women and Mathematics, a national organization
that provides high schools and jr. high's with speakers who encourage
the students to continue taking math classes.
I spoke with Alice Kelly, the National Director of Programs for the
coming year. Women and Mathematics was started in 1976. It is
primarily a speaker service, she said. They do not separate the
girls from the boys, and they try not to come across as militant
feminists ("though of course we all are", she said as an aside :-).
She said having boys in the audience might introduce them to the
possibility of working for a female manager someday.
One joins Women and Mathematics by becoming a speaker. Alice Kelly
suggested I call Jean Chan, the Program Director for Northern
California, since she is compiling her list of speakers right now.
Jean Chan is also the Chair of the Mathematics Department at Sonoma
State University. I've been trying to call her today at (707) 664-2368
but no one answers, so I'm going to send a letter tomorrow.
If you want to be a speaker and you live in some other part of the
country, contact Alice Kelly at (408) 554-6811 and she will put
put you in touch with the Program Director nearest you.
It sounds like a very professional organization, doing exactly what
I had in mind. Alice Kelly was interested in the responses I'd
gotten to my c.s.w query about other organizations that are trying
to start similar programs in the Bay Area, so I'm sending her a copy
of my summary posting. (None of the active programs I heard about
were local, except maybe Expanding Your Horizons.)
The following is from Karen's mail to me:
|I recently began a new job in marketing at HP. I'd been here all of one day
|when someone asked me to speak to a group of 12-year-old girls about the
|importance of math in my job. Two women in my group coordinated a
|"field trip" for some girls from a local junior high. The girls that
|visited us at HP spoke to women in R&D, support, marketing, and training.
|It was really exciting for them to see how a company works, and exciting
|for the employees who participated to get a perspective on what we do...
|I loved it!
|
|Women and Mathematics is a national organization which provides talks to
|girls/women on math related subjects. Two of my colleagues have developed
|a talk called "Mathematics in the Real World" where they discuss how simple
|mathematics (math the students are currently using) are used in everyday
|tasks.
Marla Parker (415)336-2538
{ihnp4, decvax, seismo, decwrl, ...}!sun!marla
marla@sun.commarla@Sun.COM (Marla Parker) (07/27/88)
If you have been unsuccessfully trying to contact Alice Kelly, the National Director of Programs for Women and Mathematics, here is her home phone number: (408) 253-8440, and she has an answering machine. The number I posted before is her number at the University of Santa Clara, but she isn't in the office much during summer. You could also send a letter to her at the Mathematics Department of the University of Santa Clara, Santa Clara, CA, 95053. If you don't know what I'm talking about, here's part of my orignal posting. |I spoke with Alice Kelly, the National Director of Programs for the |coming year. Women and Mathematics was started in 1976. It is |primarily a speaker service, she said. They do not separate the |girls from the boys, and they try not to come across as militant |feminists ("though of course we all are", she said as an aside :-). |She said having boys in the audience might introduce them to the |possibility of working for a female manager someday. | |One joins Women and Mathematics by becoming a speaker. Alice Kelly |suggested I call Jean Chan, the Program Director for Northern |California, since she is compiling her list of speakers right now. |Jean Chan is also the Chair of the Mathematics Department at Sonoma |State University. I've been trying to call her today at (707) 664-2368 |but no one answers, so I'm going to send a letter tomorrow. | |If you want to be a speaker and you live in some other part of the |country, contact Alice Kelly at (408) 554-6811 and she will put |put you in touch with the Program Director nearest you. Marla Parker (415)336-2538 {major backbone}!sun!marla marla@sun.com
marla@Sun.COM (Marla Parker) (03/02/89)
In article <6432@ecsvax.UUCP> hunt@alpha.CES.CWRU.Edu (Francie Hunt) writes: > >Actually, I think the visibility of successful women in the sciences >is much more important at the younger levels. By the time my students >see me, they have already decided that they have the "right stuff"! >I would like to be able to interact with girls in junior high and >thereabouts to get them thinking about technical careers at an earlier age. Early last summer I sent a vague request to this group for information on high school career days, etc. The 30+ responses that I received boiled down to these suggestions: Society of Women Engineers, YWCA's Career Options Unlimited, Association for Women in Computing, Expanding Your Horizons (sponsored by the Math/Science Network), Women and Mathematics (WAM), Association of MIT Alumnae (AMITA), American Women in Science, and assorted programs sponsored by large companies, e.g. Honeywell's Women in Technology and Science (WITS). My local SWE does have some sort of a speakers' program, but it did not sound as active as WAM. Fortunately I contacted Jean Chan, the coordinator for my WAM region, just in time last June to be included in the 1988/89 WAM Speakers Booklet. The booklets are sent to all the middle and high schools in this region. A school sends a request form to WAM and Dr. Chan then tries to match up the request with the speaker or some other speaker who has a similar talk. So far I've spoken to three groups at one high school in February, and I have scheduled talks for two other high schools in March and April. I turned down another school because it was too far away (Dublin, CA). I'm amazed at how much I've learned about speaking from just my first 3 talks. My first audience was small and as silent as mice - no questions at all. The second and third were larger and there was more response, I hope partly because I'm learning how to better encourage interaction. WAM needs more speakers. I'll type in the names of all the regional coordinators at the end of this (long) message. Also I may as well type in the letter that Dr. Chan sends to the schools. SWE did call me eventually about speaking, but I turned them down because I'm doing my limit for WAM already. But through SWE I am participating in the Girl Scouts Walk-A-Day program. On March 14, a 9th grade girl is going to tag me all day at work. I'm not supposed to do anything different than usual, and she is just going to observe and I presume ask questions. My group is looking forward to it. My boss laughed when I told him about it and then suggested that I schedule it on a day when there will be a bug meeting to attend, since those are sometimes fun. I don't know if the Walk-A-Day program is national or just put on by GS of Santa Clara County. In both these programs, I don't think I am providing a role model for anyone so much as I am educating them about possibilities. Everyone knows the term "doctor" and everyone has some idea of what doctors do, but hardly anyone knows what software engineers do for a living, and many people have never even heard the term "software engineer". The same goes for most other engineering fields as well. When I was in jr. high I though an engineer drove a train, period. Little did I know... Marla Parker (415)336-2538 marla@sun.com
marla@Sun.COM (Marla Parker) (03/02/89)
(WAM names and some numbers, followed by Dr. Chan's letter to the schools of Northern and Central California.) Women and Mathematics Director of Programs: Alice J. Kelly (408) 554-6811 Department of Mathematics Santa Clara University Santa Clara, CA 95053 Director of Funding: Dr. Alice T. Schafer Department of Mathematics Box 64 Wellesley College Wellesley, MA 02181 Regional Coordinator for Northern California: Dr. Jean B. Chan (707) 664-2368 Department of Mathematics Sonoma State University Rohnert Park, CA 94928 Other Regional Coordinators (in a weird order, e.g. Greater Texas under "g" and North Texas under "n") If you don't see your region, contact Alice Kelly. Baltimore/Washington Dr. Florence Fasanelli, National Science Foundation/SEE Chicago Area Dr. Ramona G. Choos, Chicago State University Greater Philadelphia Deborah S. Simon Dr. Gloria S. Dion, Penn State Ogontz Greater Texas Barbara J. Montalto, Texas Education Agency Hawaii Mi-Soo B. Smith, Chaminade University of Honolulu Kansas City Sister Jo Ann Fellin, Benedictine College Michigan Dr. Jean S. Simutis, Alma College Montana Glenda Tinsley, North Junior High School Cynthia S. Baumann, Lewiston Public Schools New York/New Jersey Dr. Mary R. Hesselgrave, AT&T North Texas Dr. Lou Ann Mahaney, University of Dallas Northern California Dr. Jean B. Chan, Sonoma State University Oregon Dr. Jill McKenney, Lane Community College Puget Sound Area Betty L. Hawkins, Shoreline Community College Southern California Linda D. Barkley, Hughes Aircraft Company Utah Dr. Carolyn Tucker, Westminster College of Salt Lake City NEWSLETTER Dagmar Karsen-Puhm 8478 56th Street Riverside, CA 92509 September, 1988 To: Mathematics and Science Teachers and School Principals and Counselors of Northern and Central California (From Jean Chan, Chair, Department of Mathematics, Sonoma State University. Reprinted without permission but I'm sure she wont mind. :-) OBJECTIVES WAM (Women and Mathematics) is a national group of women whose careers and professions require a strong working knowledge of mathematics and the sciences. We aim to encourage all students, girls and boys, to take as many mathematics courses as possible, stimulate student interest in mathematics and science subjects, offer role models, and discuss the future and the exciting jobs waiting for those well trained in mathematics. BACKGROUND Very few junior and senior high school students have firmly decided on a career. Fewer still understand the importance of mathematics on their career choices. Only a small handful comprehend that the most desirable and satisfying jobs society offers will be closed to those without substantial mathematical knowledge. METHOD WAM is organized to assist and complement your school's mathematics program. We will visit your school, make presentations to your mathematics and science classes, come to career days or PTA meetings, and answer students' questions. We hope to provide career counseling, a glimpse at the beauty of mathematics and how it is applied to solving problems in the modern world, and share our enthusiasm with your students. COST WAM services are free. To participate, please complete the application form and send it to me. We will schedule a speaker for your school at a convenient time. Through my own experiences giving talks to mathematics and science students, I know how receptive to mathematical ideas students can be. Together, we can expand and enrich mathematics education opportunities for our students. Marla Parker (415)336-2538 marla@sun.com
erspert@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (05/10/89)
I have been enjoying the discussion of women and mathematics and thought you all might enjoy this passage I ran across from E.T. Bell's _Men_of_Mathematics_, pages 261-262. If Gauss was somewhat cool in his printed expressions of appreciation, he was cordial enough in his correspondence and in his scientific relations with those who sought him out in a spirit of disinterested inquiry. One of his scientific friendships is of more than mathematical interest as it shows the liberality of Gauss' views regarding women scientific workers. His broadmindedness in this respect would have been remarkable for any man of his generation; for a German it was almost without precedent. The lady in question was Mademoiselle Sophie Germain (1776-1831) -- just a year older than Gauss. She and Gauss never met, and she died (in Paris) before the University of Gottingen could confer the honorary doctor's degree which Gauss recommended to the faculty. By a curious coincidence we shall see the most celebrated woman mathematician of the nineteenth century, another Sophie, getting her degree from the same liberal University many years later after Berlin had refused her on account of her sex. Sophie appears to be a lucky name in mathematics for women -- provided they affiliate with broadminded teachers. The leading woman mathematician of our own times, Emmy Noether (1882-1935) also came from Gottingen.@footnote(``Came from'' is right. When the sagacious Nazis expelled Fraulein Noether from Germany because she was a Jewess, Bryn Mawr College, Pennsylvania, took her in. She was the most creative abstract algebraist in the world. In less than a week of the new German enlightenment, Gottingen lost the liberality which Gauss cherished and which he strove all his life to maintain.) Sophie Germain's scientific interests embraced acoustics, the mathematical theory of elasticity, and the higher arithmetic, in all of which she did notable work... Entranced by the _Disquisitiones_Arithmeticae_, Sophie wrote to Gauss some of her own arithmetical observations. Fearing that Gauss might be prejudiced against a woman mathematician, she assumed a man's name. Gauss formed a high opinion of the talented correspondent whom he addressed in excellent French as ``Mr. Leblanc''. Leblanc dropped her -- or his -- disguise when she was forced to divulge her true name to Gauss on the occasion of her having done him a good turn with the French infesting Hanover. Writing on April 30, 1807, Gauss thanks his correspondent.... ``But how describe to you my admiration and astonishment at seeing my esteemed correspondent Mr. Leblanc metamorphose himself into this illustrious personage [Sophia Germain] who gives such a brilliant example of what I would find it difficult to believe. A taste for the abstract sciences in general and above all the mysteries of numbers is excessively rare: one is not astonished at it; the enchanting charms of this sublime science reveal themselves only to those who have the courage to go deeply into it. But when a person of the sex which, according to our customs and prejudices, must encounter infinitely more difficulties than men to familiarize herself with these thorny reseraches, succeeds nevertheless in surmounting these obstacles and penetrating the most obscure parts of them, then without doubt she must have the noblest courage, quite extraordinary talents and a superior genius....'' He then goes on to discuss mathematics with her.