Programs 2006-2007 (Semesters 1 and 2)

• Monday, September 11, 2006, Pratt, 12:30 pm: Pepi Fabbiano, Chair of the CfA Gender Equity Commmittee and Christine Jones will lead a discussion of the results from the just-completed surveys in preparation for the Report of their Committee. Background references include the Interim Report of the CfA Gender Equity Committee and other links from their web page. An earlier SAO Council Report on Gender Equity published in July 2002 is also available.

• Wednesday, September 27, 2006, Phillips, 4 pm: SPECIAL WORKSHOP, Part 1: `Speaking in a Professional Setting' , given by Nancy Houfek who is the Head of Voice and Speech at the American Repertory Theater/Loeb Drama Center and a Lecturer on Dramatic Arts at Harvard. Here is the Handout from the Workshop.

• Monday, October 2, 2006, Pratt, 12:30 pm: Naomi Ridge will lead a discussion on 'Parenting Resources', for people new to Cambridge/new to parenting. Check out the web site on Parenting Resources that Naomi has started. Note especially the article written by an ex-Harvard astronomy grad student about her experience. Come and add your own experiences. What are your top tips for surviving academic parenting?

• Wednesday, October 11, 2006, Phillips, 4:00pm - 6:00 pm: SPECIAL WORKSHOP, Part 2: `Speaking in a Professional Setting', given by Nancy Houfek who is the Head of Voice and Speech at the American Repertory Theater/Loeb Drama Center and a Lecturer on Dramatic Arts at Harvard.

• Monday, November 6, 2006, Pratt, 12:30 pm: Pauline Barmby will lead a discussion on 'The Two-Body Problem: Dual-Career Couples', and she has assembled links to articles to peruse before the meeting.

• Monday, November 20, 2006, Classroom A-101, 4:00 pm - 5:30 pm: ROUND TABLE DISCUSSION with Gerhard Sonnert to hear of, and contribute to a new research program at CfA, PRiSE, that will study first-year college students to identify factors that cause women to persevere in science.

• Monday, December 4, 2006, Pratt, 12:30 pm: Nancy Brickhouse will lead a discussion of 'Bullying: Collegial and Otherwise.' Sociological studies indicate that gender discrimination continues in the physical sciences. Yet, if the discrimination is subtle and undermines us only through an accumulation of small disadvantages, how will we recognize it? And if we don't recognize it, how can we maintain our confidence and sense of purpose? One aspect of the problem may be related to bullying, not as different as we might think from the schoolyard bullying of our youth. Some links to articles relevant to this issue can be found here.

• Monday, January 8, 2007, Pratt, 12:30 pm: Andrea Dupree will lead a discussion, 'How do I handle .... ?': approaches to difficult situations, first posed in the AAS CSWA Newsletter. These relate to unethical conduct by a superior, and inappropriate behavior in a professional setting. In addition, we can discuss the draft of the CfA Gender Equity study. (Click on Latest News.) The Committee on Gender Equity has requested comments back by Jan 15.

• Monday, February 5, 2007, Pratt, 12:30 pm: Sukanya Chakrabarti has organized a faculty panel to discuss 'The Transition from Postdoc to Faculty' with an panel of eminent CfA astronomers: Doug Finkbeiner, Alyssa Goodman, Matt Holman, John Huchra, and Julia Lee. They will speak from their experiences both in applying for positions and also evaluating candidates for faculty appointments. Most of the hour is reserved for questions from the audience. So come prepared with questions and comments for a informative discussion. A transcript/summary of this meeting can be found here.

• Monday, March 5, 2007, Pratt, 12:30 pm: Lotte Bailyn, Professor of Management at MIT's Sloan School of Management will discuss the results of the NRC Panel Report 'Beyond Bias and Barriers: Fulfilling the Potential of Women in Academic Science and Engineering'. The report can be found at the National Academies Press site.

• Monday, April 2, 2007, Pratt, 12:30 pm: Frank Dobbin, Professor of Sociology, Harvard University will discuss his reseach on Assessing the Efficacy of Corporate Affirmative Action and Diversity Policies. He has found that efforts to moderate managerial bias through diversity training and diversity evaluations are least effective at increasing the share of white women, black women, and black men in management. Efforts to attack social isolation through mentoring and networking show modest effects. Efforts to establish responsibility for diversity lead to the broadest increases in managerial diversity. Here is the abstract (ps file) of his paper. The complete paper (pdf file) from the American Sociological Review can be found here. Handouts from Frank Dobbin's talk can be found here (pdf file).

• Friday, May 4, 2007, Phillips Auditorium, 1:00 pm: Fran Bagenal , Professor of Astrophysical and Planetary Sciences at the University of Colorado at Boulder will talk about her experiences as Editor of the American Astronomical Society's STATUS published by the AAS Committee on the Status of Women. She also wants to hear from us what we would like to see in future issues.

• Monday, May 7, 2007, Pratt, 12:30 pm: Lisa Kaltenegger will lead a discussion of the book: "Tomorrow's Professor: Preparing for Academic Careers in Science and Engineering" by R. M. Reis of Stanford University and published by the IEEE. Selections from the book can be found here here.

• Monday, June 4, 2007, Pratt, 12:30 pm: No Meeting

• Monday, July 2, 2007, Pratt, 12:30 pm: Maryam Modjaz participates in Harvard Graduate Women in Science and Engineering (HGWISE) and will lead a discussion on the Report of the Task Force on Women Faculty and Women Students at Harvard. We have the Executive Summary of the report available here. Maryam prepared a summary of many reports and very useful links to Harvard Resources for Graduate Students and Faculty that is found here .

• Monday, August 6, 2007, Pratt, 12:30 pm: Saku Vrtilek will present a film from the first ever Science Festival in Cambridge. The film is titled, Minority Women in Science, where Cambridge filmmaker Karin Koch presents her insightful look at four women scientists, all from different countries of origin, as they describe their experiences working in the United States, confronting issues such as gender and its impact on professional advancement, quality of research, and quality of life. The featured scientists include Saku Vrtilek herself, and Irene Bosch, Assistant Professor of Medicine at the University of Massachusetts Medical School Worcester, Magaly Koch, Research Associate Professor, Center for Remote Sensing, Boston University, and Sucharity Gopal, Professor, Geography and Environment, Boston University. They will come to talk about their work and expand on themes introduced in the film for a following discussion.

• Thursday, August 9, 2007, Pratt, 12:30 pm: Joan Schmelz Professor of Physics from the University of Memphis (visiting the High Energy Division) and a member of the AAS Committee on the Status of Women will report on the Session at the AAS/Honolulu in June discussing harassment in a professional setting. Also, the CSWA has a new chair Geoff Clayton from LSU. The CSWA is seeking suggestions from us about their activities in the near future. Please come with your ideas. Additional thoughts can be emailed to Joan at jschmelz@memphis.edu
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