Women in STEM at Centre
By Daniella Hudgins
In the nineteenth century, women who wanted to pursue college careers found few coeducational institutions. Near Centre College, in Danville, Kentucky, there was only one, which started as the Henderson Female Academy in 1854, and became the Danville Kentucky College for Women in 1913. Then in 1926 College administrators decided to merge KCW with Centre College, allowing both men and women to attend classes and receive their education from Centre. Women were not allowed to move onto the campus until 1962. Despite their residential status, Centre has always offered STEM—Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math—classes to both men and women, from chemistry to biology to mathematics, and in the 1970’s Centre, introduced majors like applied mathematics, chemistry physics, and biochemistry and molecular biology (BMB). While these classes have been offered to both men and women, until the 1990’s women tended to take these classes less often than their male counterparts. While women were always given the opportunity to continue their education how they saw fit, there were some things and people standing in their way. Overall, Centre women have had a positive experience in STEM classes, feeling welcome despite their gender identities. To be clear, there were a few professors and codes/policies the college established which discriminated against women, making it harder for women to pursue their intended majors. But the majority of the time women at Centre have participated in the majors they chose.
For as long as women have attended Centre College, they have taken STEM classes, although achieving gender parity in the classroom was an uneven process. During the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, the number of women who graduated with STEM degrees increased slightly, but women remained the minority in many STEM majors. In 1963 there were 9 people who graduated with a biology degree, 7 men and 2 women. There were 6 people who graduated with a chemistry degree, all 6 of them were men, no women. There were 2 people who graduated with a mathematics degree, 1 man and 2 women. Finally, there were 5 people who graduated with a physics degree, 4 being men and 1 being a woman. Overall in 1963 there were more men than women graduating with STEM degrees but by 1976 there were more women graduating with these majors. In 1976 12 people graduated with a biology degree, 9 men and 3 women; 11 people graduated with a chemistry degree, 6 men and 5 women; 2 people graduated with a mathematics degree and both of them were women; and there were 2 people who graduated with a physics degree, both men.[1] While there were overall still more men in STEM majors than women, more women were pursuing an education within the STEM field, and professors were trying to make it more open for them as well.
Recent interviews conducted with alumni from the 1960’s to 1980’s reveal that most women agreed that they never felt unwelcome in the class by their peers and professors. Alum Amenie Schweizer,[2] made a comment about how she “felt like everybody was welcome to, to pretty much go with the direction they wanted to. My roommate did a lot of science and math, and I tested out of the math so I didn't take any math, but I never had a sense that there was any push for anyone in some particular direction.” Schweizer felt welcomed in every classroom she went into, and even her roommate who was a STEM major felt like they were never told they couldn’t take STEM classes, but were welcomed into the classroom, free of judgement. Alum Molly Newell[3] mentioned how she was “quite proud and impressed that there wasn't really [any gender bias]. I mean, I remember several women who were math majors and several women who were econ majors. I don't remember any kind of gender bias within those programs.” Overall Newell remembered a positive experience for women in classrooms, noting that women could choose any major they wanted to without gender bias.
While women graduates reported little memory of gender bias in the classroom, they also tended not to notice issues around gender difference. In the 1960’s and 1970’s, men were the majority of students who took STEM classes, outnumbering women in every class, sometimes by a substantial ratio. Curiously, most women interviewed never perceived a numerical imbalance. Alum Eileen Everett[4], mentioned how her math senior seminar consisted of “four boys and two girls,” but it never made her feel like she couldn’t participate in the class. Gender parity became more common for women students in the 1990s and early 2000s. Mary Quinn Ramer,[5] a 1998 graduate who was interviewed by Sam Rogers, also never felt excluded for being a woman, saying “ I never remember being totally singled out as the only female but also felt like there were plenty of occasions, you know, where we had a really solid mix of men and women in the class.” Other women agreed with her, as Hannah Ensign-George[6] said, “I also don't know if I would have been paying enough attention to other people to realize that they were different.” The majority of women interviewed reported that if they experienced gender differences within the classrooms, they nevertheless did not feel excluded. As Sharon Morisi,[7] interviewed by Caroline Lancaster, mentioned, she “didn't have this sense of the guys getting called on or I didn't have the sense I should say that the guys got called on more than the women.” Jane Skidmore,[8] interviewed by Kiley Short, agreed, noting that “there was never a question you couldn't ask and you weren't putting down for things. And you were called on as much as the men were.” Overall Centre’s classroom environment tended to cater towards both men and women in STEM majors no matter the gender differences. Women tended to perceive a positive experience in the classroom because overall it seemed that both the students and professors were inclusive of everyone and did not put up with discrimination of any degree. Another possibility as to why women tended to have positive experiences is because the discrimation that was occurring could have been microaggressions that were common during the time and women didn’t realize the extent of it, as it was considered normal. While we may never know the true answers, we do know that the professors did play a key role in making sure no discrimination was occurring within the classroom.
Centre professors played an outsized role in creating gender inclusive classrooms, former students remember how professors were supportive of women pursuing STEM careers, offering guidance and help without hesitation. Sara Shepard,[9] interviewed by Kate Leahey, reported that she “had more male professors than I did female and… Never felt degraded, looked down on, held to a different standard, not, you know, never ever by any of my professors.” Jackie Kingsolver,[10] interviewed by Elena Wiltgen, agreed, noting that she “never got any feeling from any of my professors that there was any preference or differentiation” because of her gender. Susan West,[11] interviewed by Shelby Hammonds, says “ most of my male professors respected me, encouraged me to go forward, and I wouldn't be who I am today without some of them, for sure.”
While most women students remember receiving equal treatment and mentorship from their male professors, that support sometimes wavered. Mary Hardin,[12] interviewed by Ava Allen, made a comment about how one of her professors. “Dr. Cook, had been there when it was just a boy’s school and when the women only occasionally came over from KCW to take classes. And, I think it was a little harder for him. He was an older man at that time and I don’t think he knew quite what to do with the girls being there, you know?” Hardin makes it seem as if Dr.Cook was out-of-his element and was not prepared to teach women. Dr. Cook was at Centre before women were allowed on campus and may have felt befuddled when women entered the classroom. It was not as if he was outwardly discrimination against them, but rather he was not prepared to have women in the classroom studying the same topics only men were able to study in years past.
Even though most former students remembered their interactions with professors with warm feelings, a few alums recalled direct discrimination. Of all the STEM careers open to women post-graduation, graduates reported that most professors considered engineering off-limits to women. As Eileen Everett,[13] interviewed by Melissa Collins, said, “there was much more of an expectation of the men going on in the professional fields. But nobody ever encouraged me to be an engineer. And but, you know, that was definitely not encouraged. You never heard of a woman engineer in that day and age.” At least one former professor not only discriminated against women but also employed racism and sexism to bar women of color from careers in science. Mary Seelbach,[14] interviewed by Daniella Hudgins, spoke about a biology professor who “had been at Centre for probably 30 years and never believed that women should be in the science. So he made it very difficult for women. In fact, you know, you were talking about segregation, one of my classmates was (she is) African American, and I got a C, in his microbiology class, I was so mad because I didn't deserve it. If I got that bad grade and deserved it I never got mad, but if I didn't deserve it, that was really bad. And I’ll never forget complaining to her about how this professor hated women, and he gave me a C I didn't deserve. She looked at me and she said, I got a D, he hates black women worse. Then she went on to say, it'll probably keep me out of medical school. And it did.”
By 1976, Centre College wanted to assess gender in the classroom. That year, the Title IX committee, a committee that brings awareness and change to all forms of gender discrimination, asked every department to comment about women's contributions to their courses. The all-male faculty in physics answered by saying that they noticed no discrimination towards women, adding that they encouraged any sex to pursue the major. Faculty in biology, which consisted of all men as well, echoed their colleges in physics, although they pointed out that twice as many men pursued a biology major than women.[15] They were quick to add, however, that they encouraged any sex to consider it, and they are not discriminating based on sex. The imbalance within the biology department could be caused by a numerous amount of things. While professors were encouraging women to join the major, only ⅓ of the major were women and this could be due to the intimidation factor present. The entire faculty of the biology department were male, and most of the classes had only male students, which could cause women to not want to partake in the classes in order to not feel discriminated against or intimidated by the lack of women in the department.
While these STEM departments did not feel as if there was any overt discrimination against women in these majors, they were part of a college-wide policy for an Honor Code for women but not for men. The Honor Code was “an agreement of the women students of Centre College, individually and collectively, that in the residence hall and in all phases of college life, they will conduct themselves in accordance with standards of honesty and truthfulness” (Student Handbook 1962-1963).[16] On the one hand, the Honor Code discriminated against men because it allowed women who signed it to take their exams on their own, away from faculty surveillance. The implicit message was that women were more trustworthy and less prone to cheating than men. On the other hand, assigning labels of “trustworthy” and “honest” to women reveals that the College assumed less was at stake for women students. If a woman cheated on her exams, the consequences were less severe because professional expectations were lower for women students. While the Honor Code never outright stated it, the perception that women were never going to use their degrees or pursue higher levels of education also reassured faculty and administrators that women didn’t need to take exams in the classroom where the professor was watching. This Honor Code lasted until 1971, when administrators suspended it, replacing it with an Honor Code that was inclusive to all sexes at Centre College. The college realized how discriminatory this honor code was towards both sexes.
The shift toward more gender equity in academic settings also stemmed from generational changes among women and the creation of new institutional opportunities. By the 1970s, incoming women students were redefining their academic expectations in comparison to their mother’s generation even before they arrived on campus. As 1974 graduate Crit Luallen,[17] interviewed by Gus Crow, said, she never “sensed that there was anything that was out of our reach in terms of a major that might lead to a career path, we were sort of on the edge of that I mean, a generation before, just my mother's generation would have thought their expectations only included being a teacher or a housewife or a nurse. And by the time we arrived at Centre, we were thinking of every possible career path. And I think the majors reflected that.” In addition, the College has undergone dramatic transformations in terms of curriculum, majors and minors offered, and other academic opportunities, which have reshaped the structures through which faculty, staff, and students measure gender expectations, Lea Johnson,[18] interviewed by Porter Anderson, commented about how different Centre is today. There are “so many interesting things that are being taught in some, you know, courses between professors have completely different, you know, maybe somebody's an English teacher, and somebody in science getting together to teach a course, and those sorts of things, which really didn't happen when I was there. And I, I think just the whole development of CentreWorks, and some of the opportunities that students are going to have there is just wonderful and of course, you know, we didn't we didn't have anything like that, when I was a student, so I just think there's a lot more that students can take advantage of, you know, that's being offered that, that we just didn't have.” Since the 1980s, STEM fields have changed dramatically. More women faculty teach in STEM majors, approximately 44%, and many STEM classrooms have gender parity. Some classes have more women than men. Centre continues to require every student, no matter their gender identity, to take a STEM class.
While Centre has a history of welcoming women’s pursuit of an education within STEM fields, gender equity was not always at the heart of these academic experiences. Most women recall positive academic experiences, but some professors never encouraged women to attend graduate school or made assumptions about the professional opportunities women graduates could pursue. Studying the culture of gender in the STEM fields at Centre College in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s reveals that gender inclusivity in the classroom was important, but when it did not stretch beyond graduation, women had to redefine their career expectations on their own terms. These women are inspiring. They made it possible me to further my education within the science and mathematics department without any judgement or discrimination based on gender identity.
Footnotes
[1] Centre College Title IX Committee 1962-1976, Centre College Digital Archives, Grace Doherty Library, Centre College, Danville, Kentucky.
[2]Amenie Schweizer interviewed by Mireille Bitangacha, March 15, 2021, Centre College Digital Archives, Grace Doherty Library, Centre College, Danville, Kentucky.
[3] Molly Newell, interview by Anne Burchett, April 7, 2021, Centre College Digital Archives, Grace Doherty Library, Centre College, Danville, Kentucky.
[4] Eileen Everett, interview by Melissa Collins, March 5, 2021, Centre College Digital Archives, Grace Doherty Library, Centre College, Danville, Kentucky.
[5] Mary Quinn Ramer, interview by Sam Rogers, March 10, 2021, Centre College Digital Archives, Grace Doherty Library, Centre College, Danville, Kentucky.
[6] Hannah Ensign-George, interview by Alice Ensign-George, March 6, 2021, Centre College Digital Archives, Grace Doherty Library, Centre College, Danville, Kentucky.
[7] Sharon Morisi, interview by Caroline Lancaster, March 10, 2021, Centre College Digital Archives, Grace Doherty Library, Centre College, Danville, Kentucky.
[8] Jane Skidmore, interview by Kiley Short, March 15, 2021, Centre College Digital Archives, Grace Doherty Library, Centre College, Danville, Kentucky.
[9] Sara Shepard, interview by Kate Leahey, March 11, 2021, Centre College Digital Archives, Grace Doherty Library, Centre College, Danville, Kentucky.
[10] Jackie Kingsolver, interview by Elena Wiltgen, March 6, 2021, Centre College Digital Archives, Grace Doherty Library, Centre College, Danville, Kentucky.
[11] Susan West, interview by Shelby Hammonds, February 26, 2021, Centre College Digital Archives, Grace Doherty Library, Centre College, Danville, Kentucky.
[12] Mary Hardin, interview by Ava Allen, March 8, 2021, Centre College Digital Archives, Grace Doherty Library, Centre College, Danville, Kentucky.
[13] Eileen Everett, interview by Melissa Collins, March 5, 2021, Centre College Digital Archives, Grace Doherty Library, Centre College, Danville, Kentucky.
[14] Mary Seelbach, interview by Daniella Hudgins, March 9, 2021, Centre College Digital Archives, Grace Doherty Library, Centre College, Danville, Kentucky.
[15] Centre College Title IX Committee 1976, Centre College Digital Archives, Grace Doherty Library, Centre College, Danville, Kentucky.
[16] Centre College Student Handbook ca.1962-1963, Centre College Digital Archives, Grace Doherty Library, Centre College, Danville
[17] Crit Luallen, interview by Gus Crow, March 11, 2021, Centre College Digital Archives, Grace Doherty Library, Centre College, Danville, Kentucky.
[18] Lea Johnson, interview by Porter Anderson, March 4, 2021, Centre College Digital Archives, Grace Doherty Library, Centre College, Danville, Kentucky.