Lauren Wimer | Senior photographer
Ph.D. chemistry students Cathryn McFearin and Adam Hopkins demonstrate the mechanism's function in measuring surface tension.
Geri Richmond, back, recently received an award from the American Chemical Society for her work promoting the role of women in science.
Women: Richmond says sexism common
Continued from page 1A
Committee on the Advancement of
Women Chemists at the University.
According to the COACh Web site,
coach.uoregon.edu, the organiza
tion’s goals are “to increase the
number of women chemists enter
ing academic chemistry depart
ments, succeeding up the ranks and
achieving leadership roles.”
In addition to $5,000 for Rich
mond, the award also involved a
$10,000 grant to the academic institu
tion of her choice. Richmond direct
ed the money to COACh’s efforts to
reach out to international students.
“There are a lot of countries that
are much worse off than we are in
terms of women advancing in sci
ence,” Richmond said.
In the past month, Richmond has
written guest commentaries in The
Register-Guard and The Oregonian
in response to comments made by
Harvard President Lawrence Sum
mers at an economics conference in
January. While Summers said in
nate differences between men and
women may cause the low propor
tion of female science faculty at
American universities, Richmond
emphasized social factors that deter
women from academia.
“I think that there are both men
and women who are not interested
in science, and that’s not bad,”
Richmond said.
However, Richmond described
the situation of female scientists in
academia as an “accumulation of
disadvantage.” She said women
have to publish more and perform
more service in the department to
get the same recognition as men
and women advance in their careers
more slowly.
Sometimes overt sexism is also
part of the academic atmosphere.
Richmond recounted a story she
commonly hears from female post
doctoral students.
“When they told their advisor
they were pregnant, they were told
they should probably do something
about that because it’s not advanta
geous to their career,” Richmond
said. “1 have 50, 60 pages of stories
like that.”
Richmond hears these stories as
part of her work on a national scale,
but she said the situation at the Uni
versity is comparatively good.
“Here in our chemistry depart
ment, we have a large proportion of
women faculty. ... I feel very good
about our department here in terms
of the number of women faculty,”
she said. “The environment is such
that there was, I think, less concern
about what your gender was than
the quality of your science.”
“The real problem is that women
are not looking at this career as be
ing attractive, and we’re very con
cerned about that,” Richmond said.
Of the 11 students working in Rich
mond’s lab five are women accord
ing to her Web site.
Teresa Tarbuck, one of these stu
dents, is working toward her Ph.D.
in physical chemistry. Tarbuck said
she is not sure what she plans to do
after graduation, although she has
considered the possibility of an aca
demic career.
“I’ve thought about it, but not on
the scale that Dr. Richmond does it
— at a smaller school, not as re
search-oriented,” Tarbuck said.
At this point, Tarbuck said she has
n’t personally experienced gender
based discrimination in the sciences.
“I’ve only heard stories, but at
this point, 1 don’t feel that it’s a
detriment,” she said. “A lot of those
stories are for women trying to get
positions like Geri’s.”
“It’s a whole lot of work if you’re
a professor, and it takes up all your
time,” Tarbuck said. “Geri’s pretty
efficient and manages to do every
thing, but I don’t know if I want to
be that busy all the time.”
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