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SBC STEMS Part 2
1. Index to this September 2015 issue
Sweet Briar College Plots a Path for the Future . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
NEWSWATCH: Gendered Politics at Work and Play. . . . . . . . . . 3
ITOW: Strength of Sweet Briar STEM Scholars. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .6
MOVEABLE TYPE: Dean of Women as a Women’s Profession . . . .8
MOVEABLE TYPE: Men: Stop Explaining, Start Listening . . . . . 9
Women on the Move . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10, 11, 13
The Grail: Transforming the World One Woman
at a Time. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
To Network, Be a Colleague and Not a Friend. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
THE EDITOR’S END NOTES: It’s a New (Academic) Year. . . . . . . .16
PLUS 2 pages of great new job opportunities for you . . . . . 10–11
SEPTEMBER 2015
Volume 24, No. 9
Sweet Briar College Plots a Path for the Future
Our
24th
year
of
service
Dr. Phillip C. Stone has been work-
ing nearly round the clock since
early July to rebuild what he consid-
ers to be an integral part of the higher
education landscape. It is not a role he
expected to take on, but when Stone
was called upon to become the new
president of Sweet Briar College VA,
it was a challenge he felt compelled to
accept.
Six months ago, Sweet Briar Col-
lege, a 114-year-old women’s liberal
arts college near the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia,
was headed for oblivion. On Feb. 28, the then-president
and board of directors voted to close the college at the end
of the academic year, citing “insurmountable financial
challenges.”
Within days, alumnae swung into action, form-
ing the group Saving Sweet Briar. The odds seemed
unlikely, but as became evident, Sweet Briar gradu-
ates are highly driven, focused women. They set and
exceeded fundraising goals, took legal action and ulti-
mately reached a settlement that enabled the college to
remain open.
Stone, 72, an attorney who left the practice of law to
become professionally engaged in higher education, was
named president.
Meeting Dr. Stone
The president of Bridgewater College VA (his alma
mater) from 1994–2010, Stone understood the 21st-century
dynamics a liberal arts institution faces. His name entered
the mix because a reporter asked him if he saw a reason
why Sweet Briar should close and he replied he saw no
reason.
“With that, my name was handed over to the law firm
helping the alumnae group trying to save Sweet Briar,”
Stone says. “I thought it ought to be saved. Why not me? I
stood by as the litigation ensued.”
“The settlement occurred and everything happened
in a rush,” he adds. “I did it as a sense of mission
because I believe in residential liberal arts education.
I’m coming to understand the significance of women’s
education.”
He says he’s thrilled to be preserving and making his-
tory. Impressed with the passion, sacrifice and generos-
ity of Sweet Briar alumnae, Stone has immersed himself
in the spirit and consciousness that makes women’s col-
leges special. As he plots the college’s future, he is mind-
ful of the bond alumnae share with one another and
with their college.
Getting ready for the fall
Stone assumed his position on July 3. In the first few
weeks, more than 60 alumnae came to the campus from all
over the country to undertake tasks like painting, weeding
the flower gardens and cleaning Sweet Briar House, the
president’s residence.
“That energy, that passion, that love for their institution
is so obvious and so continuing, I want to facilitate it and
enable it,” Stone says.
One idea he’s working on is to create a staff position for
a director of volunteers, who would coordinate alumnae
activities on and off campus, such as the recruitment of
Dr. Phillip C.
Stone
Sweet Briar College
Photo Credit: Meridith De Avila Khan/Sweet Briar College
3. Women in Higher Education (www.wihe.com) / September 2015 Page 3
As of August 1, 2015
Cheers
Consciousness-raising by a Brooklyn NY watering hole
meant discounting women’s tabs by 77% on July 7. The
special was intended to highlight the gendered pay gap.
—Time Out New York on July 1, 2015
Goal?!?
Meanwhile, Jezebel reports that the women of the USA
soccer team, who took the championship in the Women’s
World Cup, were paid 40 times less than their male
counterparts.
Gender pay disparities likewise persist in pro golf and
pro basketball.
—Jezebel on July 6, 2015
Study: Online Losers May Harass Women
to Maintain Social Rank
In a recent Australian study, researchers found that men
who harassed female Halo 3 gamers were most likely the
ones “who were less-skilled at the game, and performing
worse relative [to] their peers.”
The study’s lead author, Michael Kasumovic, argues
“that video games actually make incredible proxies for
studying real-life behavior—Halo 3, especially.” Women
entering the game, reports The Washington Post, threaten
the men at the bottom by disrupting the existing social
hierarchy.
According to Kasumovic, “men often rely on aggression
to maintain their dominant social status, and the increase
in hostility towards a woman by lower-status males may
be an attempt to disregard a female’s performance and
suppress her disturbance of the hierarchy to retain their
social rank.”
Of note, men treat other men the same regardless of
their performance, and they treat women better and better
as their performance gets better.
—The Washington Post on July 20, 2015
Pro Sports, Let’s Call Foul on Extracurricular
Violence and Sexual Misconduct
Although professional teams and leagues regularly
punish their athletes caught abusing substances or driving
under the influence, for example, they rarely punish them
for domestic violence or sexual assault, reports Slant.
One might make the argument that it’s not an employ-
er’s responsibility to police actions unrelated to work per-
formance, and thereby account for this sanction split.
NEWSWATCH, however, calls this a “lost opportu-
nity.” Pro sports has tremendous potential, given its cul-
tural and literal capital, to help stop domestic abuse and
sexual assault by calling foul when this violence crops up
among their own.
—Slant on July 20, 2015
A Sexual Assault Trail of Breadcrumbs
Because students may be placed at risk when students
transfer to their schools following dismissal or suspen-
sion from another school for sexual misconduct, states are
NEWSWATCH
tegic partnerships with corporations that need quali-
fied engineers. New majors will be explored.
Something that is not being considered is going coed
because being a women’s college is what makes Sweet
Briar relevant and outstanding.
One person whose position is not interim is Stone. He
has not set any timeframe on how long he will be at Sweet
Briar, as his commitment is to bring his visions to fruition
and set the college on a course to the future.
“It will take about three years before people would find
it credible that we’re on our way to good health,” he says.
“It’s going to take that long to get to the place where we’re
not using up too much of our endowment and where our
enrollment is moving toward 750.”
“In five years, I hope we’re talking about that additional
growth where we would add some facilities for housing,
but also be talking about additional things we will be
doing academically as well as social activities,” he contin-
ues. “Our campus should have that enrollment of 750 to
800 and we should be setting another target, which would
be considerably bigger.”
—LE
Sweet Briar College students
Photo Credit: Meridith De Avila Khan/Sweet Briar College
President Stone
Photo Credit: Meridith De Avila Khan/Sweet Briar College
www.wihe.com
5. Women in Higher Education (www.wihe.com) / September 2015 Page 7
continued on page 15
science major,” Dr. Hilder said. “I was excited about the
opportunities offered to me—intimate classes; easily acces-
sible, encouraging, supportive faculty; summer research
on campus; an honors research project; access to science
equipment many didn’t see or use until graduate school.”
From the Sweet Briar Class of 2003, Dr. Silverthorn
participated in summer research and completed senior
honors research with the late Dr. David Orvos, measuring
the levels of triclosan (antibacterial) and fluoxetine (anti-
depressant) in water effluent after treated by wastewater
treatment plants in Virginia.
Dr. Silverthorn states, “The education I obtained at
Sweet Briar, with its focus on developing written and oral
communications skills, continues to serve me daily over a
decade after graduating.”
A well-rounded liberal arts education provides a solid
foundation for professional success in STEM. As a 2009
psychology major at Sweet Briar, Dr. Kirsten A. Porter-
Stransky (Figure 2) worked with Dr. Dan Gottlieb’s animal
learning laboratory for three years. Dr. Gottlieb taught her
how to design and build a fully modifiable rat maze to
examine the effects of olfactory and visual cues on maze
learning in rats.
Dr. Porter-Stransky explained, “Having a liberal arts edu-
cation definitely strengthened my oral and written commu-
nication skills, which aids in giving presentations to scien-
tists as well as lay audiences and in writing papers
and grants. … Sweet Briar classes had fewer
than 10 students, providing ample time
for professors to work one-on-one
with each of us to critique our public
speaking and writing.”
Having a range of research
opportunities and small classes is
important for STEM majors to have
basic fundamental understandings in
a variety of fields.
Learning on the land
Sweet Briar provides over 3,250 acres of land for outside
research and investigation. The college faculty and staff
take advantage of the natural beauty and ecology of Sweet
Briar (Figure 3).
When students arrive on campus for orientation, an
optional workshop is “Learning on the Land,” taught by
Sweet Briar librarian Joe Malloy. Nature sanctuaries com-
prise more than 400 acres of diverse habitats, including
populations of salamanders and beavers.
When the environmental studies major started in the
1970s, Professor Emeritus Dr. Buck Edwards created data-
bases from several decades of mapping and measuring all
of the trees, vascular plants, and birds of the college. Stu-
dents have mapped the tree sanctuaries with funding from
the NSF College Science Improvement Program and
the Sanders Fund for Ecological Studies and
Natural Areas.
Funding from the National Sci-
ence Foundation and Jeffress helped
Dr. Tom O’Halloran to establish
the Sweet Briar College Land-
Atmosphere Research Station (SBC-
LARS). This state-of-the-art research
facility studies biosphere-atmosphere
interactions (Figure 4). The facility pro-
vides unique and exciting research opportuni-
ties to undergraduate women in the areas of atmospheric
science, air quality, meteorology and forestry.
In 2001, Dr. Linda Fink started the Department of Envi-
ronmental Science. The environmental science major takes
full advantage of the natural surroundings for teaching
and student research.
Megan Maloney, a 2008 environmental studies major,
states, “Sweet Briar’s enormous campus enables students
to interact with the ecological systems we study and gives
science students firsthand experience identifying and han-
dling species populations, with opportunity to master the
technologies and skills needed for research jobs.”
Kathleen Wilson Wissel wanted to major in environ-
mental science because “science” saved once-polluted
Lake Erie. On her SBC education, she says, “Courses,
such as statistics, have greatly helped in my career and
especially in the way I approach solving problems. By
attending Sweet Briar, I learned to take a chance on myself,
and I was surprised by all that I was able to learn and
accomplish.”
Dr. Carole McIvor, Class of 1971, recently retired as
fisheries ecologist with the US Geological Survey in St.
Having
a range of research
opportunities and small
classes is important for STEM
majors to have basic fundamental
understandings in a variety
of fields.
FIGURE 2 Dr. Kristen Porter-Stransky completing human genetics
research as a post-doctoral fellow investigating the neurobiology
of drug abuse and Parkinson’s disease at Emory University (2015).
FIGURE 3 Plant biology students examine jack-o-lantern fungus
in the Sweet Briar woods. Photo by Janet Stevens, 2004
6. Women in Higher Education (www.wihe.com) / September 2015 Page 15
grow to be like these incredible women.”
Evangeline Taylor, Sweet Briar College Class of 2000, worked as
a breast cancer researcher and contractor for the Congressionally
Directed Medical Research Programs. She has had dual careers
as a scientist and community liaison officer at a U.S. diplomatic
mission overseas. She has a master’s in cancer biology and is
currently volunteering 100% of her time in efforts to save Sweet
Briar College through communications, outreach, events and
strategic planning.
Dr. Susan Schmidt, Sweet Briar College Class of 1971, works as
a developmental book editor. She just published a novel and a
poetry collection. For 30 years she taught college literature and
environmental decision-making. She worked for a decade as
a government science-policy analyst. With a captain’s license
for 33 years, she worked as a sailboat delivery captain. She has
a master’s in environmental sciences and a PhD in American
literature.
Contact Evangeline Taylor at m.evangeline.taylor@gmail.com and
Dr. Susan Schmidt at susu@susanschmidt.net.
Petersburg, Florida, studying fish nursery habitats in
mangrove forests.“I’ve never been anything except a
scientist,” she said
Of the Sweet Briar campus, Dr. McIvor said that it is
important to “save that land” for future generations. And
Sweet Briar land will be protected in perpetuity thanks in
part to the efforts of Saving Sweet Briar, Inc.
Sweet Briar’s land, research laboratories, liberal arts
curriculum and superb faculty allow scientists to pursue
many amazing fields. Dr. Susan Schmidt, Class of 1971,
said, “I prefer field work to a desk or lab. I found my
grounding as a natural historian exploring the natural
laboratory of the Sweet Briar campus and floating in a
rowboat on the lake.”After retiring as a government sci-
ence-policy analyst and college professor teaching litera-
ture and environmental decision-making, Schmidt works
now as a contract developmental editor, revising techni-
cal and popular science books, dissertations and journal
articles. Based in Beaufort, North Carolina, recently she
returned to Sweet Briar for two months as a writing fel-
low at the Virginia Center for Creative Arts on the Sweet
Briar campus.
For future scientists
Sweet Briar is a great training ground for women
scientists because they have a liberal arts discipline
to expand their thinking and capabilities, on-campus
research projects with professors, mentorship during all
four years of college and easy access to mentors. In small-
size classes, students and professors engage in conversa-
tions about thought-provoking questions.
Dr. Alexander states that the results of a Sweet Briar
education shown during the Saving Sweet Briar move-
ment: “Showed passion, pride, commitment, skill, leader-
ship and an intractable refusal to give up. They achieved
what many thought was impossible. That is what it is to
be a Sweet Briar alumna, and I can’t imagine any young
woman just about to enter college who wouldn’t want to
ITOW: Strength of Sweet Briar STEM Scholars
continued from page 7
FIGURE 4 In 2014, the Sweet Briar drone took this photograph of
Dr. Tom O’Halloran and student Verena Joerger working atop the
Sweet Briar College Land-Atmosphere Research Station.
No less different in academia
I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised by the number
of responses I received on Twitter about academic man-
splaining, but I still was. Academic men explaining things to
academic women both infuriates and intrigues me. After all,
academics are in the business of explaining.
For years and years, we train to become scholars and
professionals, experts in our fields and subfields. We really
want to explain how what we study works to anyone who
will listen. Academia is the space of experts in all kinds
of fields of inquiry, so why are academic men explaining
topics they often know nothing about to academic women
who do?
Academia isn’t excluded from the gender bias and
casual misogyny of the world around us. Women are rou-
tinely silenced, ignored and explained to in our everyday
interactions. The silencing and denigration of women in
academia is a sign of what Solnit calls the “boring old gen-
der wars.”
Patriarchy is alive and well. These gender wars, no mat-
ter how old or boring, have serious consequences on diver-
sity in academia. When academic men mansplain, they are
letting us women know that we don’t fully belong in their
worlds. They’re putting us in our places by telling us that
we don’t know what we are talking about. When academic
women, experts in their fields, are seen as not credible, then
what can women be?
I found that I could only truly speak and be heard when
I left academia. This shouldn’t be the case. Men still try to
explain things to me, but I’m less apt to engage them. My
dignity is my own.
To be credible and audible, Solnit notes again and
again, is essential to survival. If we want women to
survive and thrive in academia, we must find ways to
amplify their voices and shut down the mansplaining.
The time is now.
—KJB
MOVEABLE TYPE: Men: Stop Explaining, Start Listening
continued from page 9
7. Women in Higher Education (www.wihe.com) / January 2016 Page 3
As of December 1, 2015
The Scorecard
As always, NEWSWATCH brings you some big fat
nos to keep your eye on. But this month we celebrate
some wonderful yeses—ways in which the status quo
and/or the power base shifts toward greater equity—
and, we offer you these good notes to begin the year on.
Let’s sing along and build the chorus strong in 2016!
No, No, Nos: 6
Yes, Yes, Yeses: 10
A Cabinet to Mirror Its Country’s
Demographic Composition
As one of his first acts in office, Canadian Prime Min-
ister Justin Trudeau offered his country “a Cabinet that
looks like Canada.”
It’s “young, ethnically diverse, […] and for the
first time in the country’s history, is equally balanced
between men and women.” When asked about the
gender parity move, Trudeau responded, “Because it’s
2015.”
[Yes, yes, yes: 1]
—The Guardian on November 4, 2015
White House Moves to Focus on Women
and Girls of Color
“After nearly two years of pointing out that any racial
justice initiative with the administration’s support must
be also be responsive to the needs of girls and women,
advocates and intellectuals concerned with the education,
health, safety, and economic well-being of communities
of color more broadly saw the White House respond,”
reports The Nation.
The White House Council on Women and Girls joins 20
public women’s foundations and academic and research
institutions led by the Ana Julia Cooper Center at Wake
NEWSWATCH
Forest University NC to focus $118 million on “support-
ing job training programs and childcare access for low-
income women,” plus “research and data collection on
women and girls of color.”
This move by the Obama administration, in tandem
with, and at the urging of, various advocacy groups, rep-
resents an evolution in its focus to include the concerns of
black women on par with its concerns for black men.
[Yes, yes, yes: 2]
—The Nation on November 16, 2015
Facebook Announces 4-Month Parental
Leave for All Full-Time Employees
Facebook’s new parental leave policy extends a four-
month parental leave option for some employees to
all full-time employees and will primarily affect “new
fathers and people in same-sex relationships outside the
US.”
The move came days after Facebook CEO Mark Zuck-
erberg announced he would take two months off for the
upcoming birth of his child.
[Yes, yes, yes: 3]
—The Guardian on November 27, 2015
House Speaker Dismisses Family Leave
Legislation Initiatives as “Entitlement”
Newly elected Speaker of the U.S. House of Represen-
tatives Paul Ryan dismissed Democrats’ calls for family
leave laws as another “federal entitlement.”
Meanwhile, he jets off to Wisconsin weekly for “fam-
ily days” and thereby aptly illustrates yet again just how
deeply ingrained gender and class bias and blindness are
in the current U.S. leadership and its logic.
[No, no, no: 1]
—The Hill on November 1, 2015
In our September 2015 (24.9) issue, we published
the article “ITOW: Strength of Sweet Briar STEM
Scholars,” written by Evangeline Taylor and Dr. Susan
Schmidt. We received some edits that did not make it
into the article, and they are listed below.
Page 7: Addendum, “Learning on the Land” is
organized by the Outdoor Program and has a whole
set of programs during orientation taught by faculty
and staff.
Page 7: Corrections on the funding: The NSF Col-
lege Science Improvement Program grant to Sweet
Briar College in the 1970s involved a 1-kilometer-long
transect to map trees.
Page 7: “Students have mapped the tree sanctuaries
with funding from…” should read “Students work-
ing with current Professor of Ecology Dr. Linda Fink
have repeated the mapping of these trees with funding
from Sweet Briar’s Honors Program and the Ecological
Studies and Natural Areas Fund.”
Page 7: “In 2001…” should read “In 2001, Dr. Linda
Fink expanded the Department of Environmental Sci-
ence, which offers a BA in environmental studies and
a BS in environmental science. The environmental sci-
ence department takes full advantage of the natural
surroundings for teaching and student research on
topics including monarch butterflies, forests, lakes,
pastures and natural springs.”
Page 15: Please note, Dr. Robert Alexander was the
former Environmental Sciences Chair at Sweet Briar
College and is now a Visiting Professor of Economics
& Environmental Studies at Kenyon College.
—Liana M. Silva, Editor-in-Chief
CORRECTION
continued on page 4
![Page 2 Women in Higher Education (www.wihe.com) / September 2015
Founding Editor and Publisher: Mary Dee Wenniger
Editor: Liana M. Silva, PhD
Publisher: Lesley Iura
Career Connections: Elizabeth Leigh Farrington
Contributors: Kelly J. Baker,Ashley David, Lois Elfman, Jane Sjogren O’Neil, Mary Lou
Santovec, Susan Schmidt, Evangeline Taylor
Social Media: Liana M. Silva, PhD
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students. Administration is already looking at purchasing
a software program that will match up alumnae with pro-
spective students in their area.
In addition to the practical tasks of rehir-
ing faculty and staff terminated by the
previous administration, searching
for new faculty to replace those
who’d accepted other jobs, con-
vincing students not to trans-
fer and recruiting a freshman
class, Stone needed to fill vital
positions such as dean and chief
financial officer. Within his first 25
days, all seven chief executives that
make up the president’s council were hired.
Most of them are interim, Stone says, because in all fair-
ness to equity, a diverse range of individuals should have a
chance to apply for the positions. Formal job searches will
begin as soon as school is underway.
Bringing back programs and offices
Stone and the board also had to secure various pro-
grams integral to Sweet Briar. In anticipation of closing,
the junior-year abroad program had been transferred to
Hollins University VA with the caveat that if Sweet Briar
remained open the program would revert to the college. It
is now reinstated at Sweet Briar.
The renowned riding program was destined for
Lynchburg College VA. In addition to convincing the
riding director not to leave, Sweet Briar established an
agreement with Lynchburg that they could share in the
program.
A new food service was even retained because the pre-
vious one had gotten bad reviews.
“Our pledge is to be fully open [for the fall semester],”
Stone says. “Athletics is back in place. I called the NCAA
to make sure we were back in the NCAA. I called the
athletic conference making sure we’re back. I’ve talked to
some of my presidential friends to say, ‘Would you have
your team schedule our team?’ All games with us had
been cancelled. We may not have a full schedule in some
of our sports.”
Enrolling students
There will be about 300 students this school year, down
from the mid-500s for 2014–15, but Stone says there is a
commitment that students will graduate on time. For the
seniors, if a course has to be taught for one student, that
will happen to ensure that students fulfill all requirements
for graduation.
Stone says going forward two “urgent priorities” are
getting students and fundraising.
“I also am deeply engaged in admissions,” Stone
says. “I’ve asked them to bring prospective students
by my office. If I’m here and not tied up, I’ll go out and
speak to the students and their parents and tell them
about Sweet Briar. If I see a visiting family on campus,
I will stop and tell them about Sweet Briar. I’ll speak at
open houses and go to receptions.”
The goal is to increase enrollment to 750 to 800 stu-
dents, which won’t require any additional building. That
will greatly impact financial stability.
Right now, endowment funds are being spent up to
15%, an amount that cannot be sustained. Stone’s goal is
to get it down to around 5%, which is viable if
enrollment rises to 750. To accomplish
that goal, there will be more interna-
tional recruiting.
Looking at the long term
Long-term goals also include
finding ways to develop finan-
cial opportunities from the
3,000-plus-acre campus, such as
possible environmental studies. The
engineering program, which is unique
for a women’s college (covered in WIHE 24.7),
will be expanded, and Stone’s objective is to forge stra-
Dr. Stone: “I did it as a
sense of mission because I
believe in residential liberal arts
education. I’m coming to understand
the significance of women’s
education.”
Bell Tower in Fall
Photo Credit: Meridith De Avila Khan/Sweet Briar College](data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7)