Departmental Efforts
The Bok Center works particularly carefully with several departments, including physics and government, to address the issue of women's participation and success in those fields.
When Georgi was chair of the physics department, he developed mechanics to allow people to get to know one another and form study groups by publishing lists of phone numbers and addresses. He argues that getting to know other students makes the classroom environment warmer and more comfortable.
Georgi sent out materials sensitizing teaching fellows to the issues of gender in the classroom, in addition to making the orientation session obligatory.
The government department also sponsors mandatory orientation sessions during which "ways of drawing women into the classroom are discussed using gender neutral techniques," says Professor of Government Stephen P. Rosen, the department's T.F. coordinator.
Buell also stresses the "gender neutral pedagogy" that the government department uses in lectures and problem sets.
Radcliffe sponsors the Science Alliance for entering female students who are interested in science.
The group deals primarily with "what it means to be a women in a classroom dominated by men and how to stay in science," says Radcliffe President Linda S. Wilson.
The organization helps first-year women get to know each other, network and meet Bunting Fellows and faculty members in their area.
Women in the Sciences at Harvard-Radcliffe (WISHR), an extra-curricular student organization, also forms support groups for women concentrating in the sciences.
An Historical Look
Without question, the situation has improved since Harvard's classes first went co-ed around the time of World War II. Harvard's first female professor Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin, for instance, did not receive tenure until 1956.
"All through the 60s, 50s and 40s there were faculty men who weren't keen on teaching women," Wilson says. "There are [reported] cases of when faculty members would walk into a classroom, see only women and leave saying there was no one there."
Even today, though, students may receive gender-specific treatment from their instructors, Georgi says.
"A typical case entails two equally qualified students, one male the other female, asking a question and receiving completely different responses," Georgi says.
And though Krupnick's findings and Franklin's observations support a belief that female students participate more in classes led by women, others say that have a female teacher may not help at all.
"Female teachers are just as discriminatory in favor of men as male teachers," says Radcliffe Assistant Dean Joanne L. Allen-Willoughby.
And Mackay-Smith says the determining factor is the sensitivity of the instructor, not his or her gender.
"It is the understanding of the teacher that makes a difference [not the gender]," MacKay-Smith says. "It so happens that the person's understanding of a situation has a lot to do with personal experience. If there are more women teachers, there is more opportunity to see what women are thinking."