A Culture of Silence

This week the Astronomy community was rocked by the news that Geoff Marcy was found to have violated campus sexual harassment policies after a six-month investigation by Berkeley's Office for the Prevention of Harassment and Discrimination.

Until Buzzfeed News broke the story last week, Marcy's habit of making women uncomfortable was an "open secret" in the Astronomy community. Yet many people are reacting with frustration, saying: "If everyone knew, why didn't we do something sooner?" or "I am a woman in astronomy, how come no one told me?" The Marcy situation highlights a larger problem we have within the structures of academia: a culture of silence.

Still Anonymous

 

Today's guest blogger is Still Anonymous. She can tell you her story in her own words.

 

On Friday, Buzzfeed’s article on Geoff Marcy’s serial sexual harassment – and UC Berkeley’s non-response – went live. The story has enough momentum behind it for Geoff to toss off a non-apology to the CSWA as if pleading ignorance and promising maturation and growth make any difference this time. As if they ever have.

 

Students, postdocs, faculty, and staff have since issued letters condemning Marcy’s behavior and the University’s handling on the Title IX investigation.

 

Maybe a public shaming is what it takes to get the attention of the university officials who couldn’t muster a slap on a wrist. Maybe it is still not enough.

 

I did not share my name and my story with Buzzfeed. But as the article points out, this is an open secret. You don’t have to know much about the problem to identify potential victims. Complainants. Survivors. I’ve struggled with whether it is worthwhile to offer my name.

Where Are All the Women?

The below is an op-ed piece reproduced from UC Berkeley's The Daily Californian by physics PhD student Kate Kamdin. Kate is the head coordinator for UC Berkeley's Society of Women in the Physical Sciences and was on the organizing committee for the 2014 West Coast Conference for Undergraduate Women in Physics. Kate gave a wonderful talk at CUWiP where she summarized research regarding the "gender gap" of women in the physical sciences: Mind the Gap: A Statistical Approach to Understanding Gender Inequality in the Physical Sciences.

In 2010, only about 20 percent of students with bachelor’s degrees or doctorates in physics were women, lagging far behind biology, chemistry, math and earth sciences. Only 8 percent of full physics professors are women. To address this underrepresentation, UC Berkeley hosted the West Coast Conference for Undergraduate Women in Physics with more than 150 female students in attendance. In light of the press from the conference, I was asked to write about my experience as a woman in physics and why women in physics should stay in physics. I’d like to say now, before you read any further, that I am not here to tell women in physics to stay in physics. Women, I’m sure, are tired of being told what to do.

Charting a New Course in Physics Education

The following is a guest post by four members of the Compass Project: Nathaniel Roth, Punit Gandhi, Gloria Lee, and Joel Corbo.

The first year of college can be especially tough for a student interested in pursuing the physical sciences: Daunting assignments. Competition for grades. Uninspiring lectures. And, perhaps most overwhelming of all, a feeling of isolation in the face of it all.

Finding a supportive community can be crucial in order to persevere in this transition. It’s certainly easier to grasp the difficult ideas presented in lecture and in the homework when discussing them comfortably with friends. More profound, however, is the sense of being welcomed into a group where one can feel some notion of belonging.

The quest for community is harder for students who feel like outsiders at the outset. Gender, race, socioeconomic status, and other factors can act as immediate barriers. When the inevitable struggles with the subject material arise, it can be easier for students to drift away when they feel they never really belonged in the first place.

With these ideas in mind, in 2006 a group of physics graduate students at UC Berkeley saw an opportunity to make their department a more diverse and welcoming place. They launched an ambitious program called the Compass Project designed to foster a more inclusive, creative, and collaborative scientific community, aimed especially at incoming undergraduates in the physical sciences.  Since then, Compass has grown into a vibrant organization that has improved the academic experience for nearly 100 undergraduates and dozens of graduate students. The American Physical Society presented Compass with the 2012 Award for Improving Undergraduate Physics Education.

We have recently been given an opportunity to tell the story of Compass' founding and its subsequent achievements in a Points of View column on Physics Today online (the pre-print can be found here).  Many of the ideas mentioned above are discussed in more detail, along with a host of additional information. We encourage you to read the article to learn more, and we hope that you'll find that our organization's philosophy resonates with your own.