Encouraging Women in Science

From grade school onward, girls tend to be directed, outright or subtly, more toward cosmetology than the cosmos. Now more women than ever are studying the sciences from astronomy to zoology, thanks in part to Dartmouth's Women in Sciences Program and its female-oriented mentoring programs, seminars, research opportunities, and tours of industrial sites.

The program created by Thayer Associate Dean Carol B. Muller '77 and Chemistry Professor Karen Wetterhahn-is an experiment that appears to work. Fully 22 percent of the 449 women in Dartmouth's class of 1994, the first group exposed to WISP as freshmen, are majoring in math or science (up from 15 to 18 percent in previous years). Many of these women are likely to pursue scientific careers. Having won coveted National Science Foundation funding as well as other competitive grants, the program is exerting an influence beyond Dartmouth. A flurry of other colleges and universities are seeking WISP's advice on fusing the connections between science and women.

Wetterhahn and colleagues help make science attractive to women.