Science, Education, & College

From the NYT, an article on increasing the number of women in science and science departments' relationship to Title IX.

I'm a little bit irritated that the author referenced the idea of women taking up science when there were strong, positive role models and then didn't check on stats/information from the women's colleges. Title IX was only instituted in the early 70's and it's just going to take a while for that effect to fully trickle into college departments -- for there to be women with PhD's to hire in equal numbers who can then encourage college women to go for degrees in science too. 30 years is not long enough to fix the "pipeline problem." Check the stats on women's colleges -- they turn out science degrees (and they go on to earn PhD's) in much higher proportions than at the co-ed schools and I'd bet that it's because of the role models and the can-do-anything atmosphere that prevails at such schools. The bias is subtle at co-ed schools, but I'd bet it's there, same as it ever was.