Grosz yesterday named Mallinckrodt Professor of Physics Howard Georgi and physics concentrator Mariangela Lisanti ’05, president of Women in Science of Harvard-Radcliffe (WISHR), to lead a working group that will formulate plans to encourage female undergraduates in the sciences.
In one proposal discussed by WISHR members, the College would institute an orientation program during freshman week that would help prospective women science concentrators locate research opportunities and Faculty mentors.
But Georgi said in an interview yesterday that Summers’ remarks could discourage women from coming to Harvard in the first place.
“At this point we have a bit of a public relations problem,” he said.
“I’m just hoping that something good will come out of this,” he added.
Meanwhile, Hammonds spoke yesterday at a panel on women in science at Dudley House and she assured graduate students that their voices would be heard.
In an e-mail last night, Hammonds said she would reach out to faculty and students to convince them “that we are not just another committee that will produce a report that no one will read.”
RENAISSANCE WOMAN
Hammonds, who holds tenured posts in two departments—History of Science and African and African American Studies—brings “a unique familiarity with issues facing women faculty in the humanities, the social sciences, and even the sciences,” according to Jones Professor of American Studies Lizabeth Cohen, a member of the Task Force on Women Faculty.
Hammonds holds a physics degree from MIT, and she taught there as the school wrestled with allegations of rampant gender bias among its faculty. She also served on the FAS Standing Committee on Women, which sent a letter to Summers last month blasting him for his comments.
The proposal for a central administration post charged with promoting gender diversity initially came from the Standing Committee, Hyman said.
Hammonds wrote in an e-mail last night that she envisioned the position would be a full-time post filled by a current tenured professor at Harvard, but she said the final decision would be made by the task force, which has yet to hold its first meeting.
FAUST’S BARGAIN
Late last month, Summers asked Faust to take the lead in drafting the University’s new initiative on women. Faust, a historian renowned for her work on the role of women in the 19th-century American South, then scrapped her plans to teach an undergraduate spring semester course, “History 1643: Civil War and Reconstruction.
“I didn’t want to be running into class unprepared,” she said. Lecturer Elisabeth Laskin will assume responsibility for the course.
Faust said it would be “a little bit of a heartbreak” to scale back her teaching. But she recognized that her work on the women’s initiative would take priority.
“This is a moment that really matters,” she said.
—Staff writer Daniel J. Hemel can be reached at hemel@fas.harvard.edu.