AAS Committee on the Status of Women Issue of March 9, 2012 eds. Joan Schmelz, Caroline Simpson & Michele Montgomery This week's issues: 1. Is Affirmative Action Still Worth Discussing? 2. The Matilda Effect in Science: Awards and Prizes in the US, 1990s and 2000s 3. Increase your options for graduate or REU program admissions 4. How to Submit to the AASWomen Newsletter 5. How to Subscribe or Unsubscribe to the AASWomen Newsletter 6. Access to Past Issues of the AASWomen Newsletter ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. Is Affirmative Action Still Worth Discussing? From: Ed Bertschinger at womeninastronomy.blogspot.com In this week's women in astronomy blog, Ed Bertschinger discusses the recent court case involving the use of affirmative action in college entrance decisions at the University of Texas. Ed writes "The US Supreme Court will hear the case Fisher v. The University of Texas this fall in a case testing the limits of affirmative action in college admissions set by the previous case Grutter v. Bollinger. A young white woman, Abigail Fisher, was denied admission to the University of Texas at Austin. She competed with a subgroup of applicants for whom race could be considered a factor by the university in its efforts to enroll a diverse student body, and argues that Texas practiced blatant racial profiling, which is illegal. Readers may ask what relevance this has to women in astronomy. Judging by the experiences of women students at my university, there is a connection. Women of all races continue to be told, by peers and sometimes even by faculty members, "you're here because of affirmative action." These inappropriate comments are not a relic of the past; they still happen in our workplaces and universities today..." Read the entire post at http://womeninastronomy.blogspot.com/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 2. The Matilda Effect in Science: Awards and Prizes in the US, 1990s and 2000s From: AAUW STEM retweeted by AAS CSWA on twitter.com "Contrary to the Mertonian norm of universalism - the expectation that scientific claims and contributions are evaluated apart from the personal attributes of scientists - a great deal of evidence suggests that women's scientific efforts are devalued compared with those of men (Long and Fox, 1995). While overt discrimination in American society is declining, women's efforts continue to be perceived as less important or valuable than those of men. A large body of social science research finds that work done by women is perceived as less important or valuable that that done by men (Goldin and Rouse, 2000; Heilman and Haynes, 2005; Wenneras and Wold, 1997). Indeed, in this journal 19 years ago, Rossiter (1993) identified the "Matilda Effect", by which women and their scientific contributions are credited to men or overlooked entirely." Full article at http://raiseproject1.wordpress.com/2012/03/06/the-matilda-effect-in-science- awards-and-prizes-in-theus-1990s-and-2000s/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 3. Increase your options for graduate or REU program admissions From: Waves and Packets Mar. 3, 2012 http://www.multibriefs.com/briefs/nsbp/nsbp030312.php The NSBP GradApps (https://www.mygraduateschoolapplication.org/NSBP/) and REUApps services (https://www.myinternshipapplication.org/NSBP/) are open to all students and allow them to upload all the elements of an admissions application, including academic and work history, transcripts, letters of recommendation and a personal statement. Graduate and REU programs can subscribe to these databases to increase the programs' applicant pool, while at the same time allowing students to put their credentials in front of more programs than to which they would otherwise apply. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 4. How to Submit to the AASWOMEN newsletter To submit an item to the AASWOMEN newsletter, including replies to topics, send email to aaswomen_at_aas.org All material will be posted unless you tell us otherwise, including your email address. Please remember to replace "_at_" in the e-mail address above. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 5. How to Subscribe or Unsubscribe to the AASWOMEN newsletter Join AAS Women List by email: aaswlist+subscribe_at_aas.org Be sure to follow the instructions in the confirmation email. (Just reply back to the email list) Join AAS Women List by link: https://groups.google.com/a/aas.org/group/aaswlist/subscribe?hl=en You will have to create a Google Account if you do not already have one, using https://accounts.google.com/newaccount?hl=en Google Groups Subscribe Help: http://support.google.com/groups/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=46606 Please remember to replace "_at_" in the e-mail address above. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 6. Access to Past Issues http://www.aas.org/cswa/AASWOMEN.html Each annual summary includes an index of topics covered.