For the first time since Harvard Medical School began admitting women in 1945, the school's entering class has more female than male students. And in another first, minority members of the Class of 1998 outnumber non-Latino whites.

"Isn't that great?" asks Dr. Edward M. Hundert, associate dean for student affairs at the medical school. The dean says the numbers should explode the myth that the medical school is a "bastion of white male culture."

Of the 180 students in the class, 89--or 52 percent--are women. Twenty-seven percent of the class is Asian-American, 18.2 percent is African-American, and six percent is Latino.

But while students and professors praise their school for achieving a diverse student body, some note the school's faculty cannot boast similar numbers.

According to Harvard's 1994 Affirmative Action Plan, the Medical School's 403-person tenured faculty is only 5.7 percent female and 4.7 percent minority. The school's stated goal for tenured faculty representation at the medical school is 12 percent women and 7.4 percent minority professors.

Officials attribute the breakthrough in student body diversity to a shifting applicant pool, not necessarily to special effort by the school.

"We don't have an affirmative action program by gender," Hundert says. "Just with a focus on who are the best qualified students, the class ended up being more than half female. In a way it's doubly exciting because it wasn't something we were trying to do."

The admissions process is absolutely gender-blind, says Dr. Gerald S. Foster, director of admissions at the medical school.

He says there has recently been a dramatic increase in the number of both male and female applicants to medical schools all over the country, and he expects the surge to continue.

Unlike women, racial and ethnic minorities do get a specialpitch from the school, though only before they apply, Foster says.

The school's efforts to recruit minorities have won several awards and the program dates back to 1969.

Class Pride

Students in the incoming class applaud its diversity, and the school's effort to achieve it.

"The medical school wanted the diversity of the class to echo the diversity of the general population," says Pamela B. Kirshner '94, a first-year medical student. "This is a good idea because doctors need to be able to relate to everyone in the population and not just to certain groups."

Alexa C. Kemeny '94, also a first-year medical student, is not surprised that women comprise a majority in the class. But she says she is surprised that it has happened so soon.

"There is a real sense of empowerment that comes with this," Kemeny says. "The women's association [on campus] have the power to really exert influence now."

First-year medical student Marisa B. Brett says she thinks a female majority is a valuable symbol.

"It shows how for Harvard has come," Brett says. "Maybe this will help to raise women's health issues something not addressed in mainstream medicine."

Trickle Down?

Both students and professors hope the growing diversity in the dorms will eventually translate into more diverse teaching and research staffs.

"We hope this will trickle down over time into the faculty since the faculty doesn't have these statistics yet," Hundert says.

Still, women may have a long way to go at a school that, half a century ago, first introduced female students as a "ten-year experiment." Dr. Judith K. Gwathmey, associate professor of cellular and molecular physiology, says one of her male colleagues jokingly responded to the statistics by asking. "What is Harvard coming to?"

And while female representation on the faculty will not near the student numbers for some time, Gwathmey hope for the future.

"By having more women obtaining admission, there are more women up for senior faculty positions," she says. "If we can encourage some of the female medical students to take faculty positions, then we can impact the poor number of women in the higher faculty ranks.