Bulletin of the American Physical Society
APS March Meeting 2021
Volume 66, Number 1
Monday–Friday, March 15–19, 2021; Virtual; Time Zone: Central Daylight Time, USA
Session M62: Proactive Ways to Recruit and Retain Women in PhysicsDiversity Education Live Outreach Undergrad Friendly
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Sponsoring Units: CSWP Chair: Kristen Burson, Hamilton College |
Wednesday, March 17, 2021 11:30AM - 11:54AM Live |
M62.00001: STEPUP: A cultural change to inspire Girls in Physics Invited Speaker: Bree Barnett Dreyfuss There are gender disparities in the field of physics beginning with advanced high school courses through graduate school. The STEP UP program was created by multiple professional organizations and universities to create a curriculum for high school teachers that would help to reveal and discuss statistics about the current state of gender and physics. STEP UP researchers have shown that the Careers in Physics and Women in Physics lessons are effective.To introduce the curriculum to physics teachers across the country, teacher leaders were selected to represent the project in the community for the last three years. As part of our outreach, Ambassadors worked with school districts, teacher training programs at the university level, localized teacher groups and individual schools. In its third year, the STEP UP Ambassador Program shifted from a propagation focus to a community support one. Successfully recruiting thousands more teachers to STEP UP will enable the encouragement of female students to pursue a physics degree and a shift in the culture of physics. |
Wednesday, March 17, 2021 11:54AM - 12:18PM Live |
M62.00002: Critical Mass for Gender Equity in Physics: A lesson from Medical Physics Invited Speaker: Julianne Pollard Physics suffers from a gender equity problem. Fewer than 20% of all PhDs awarded to women are for Physics majors. This disparity is shocking considering that at the high school level, women enroll in Physics courses at the same rate as men. Women’s achievement in AP Physics exams also closely matches their male counterparts within 15% at all levels. Simply put, competence in Physics is not determining the number of women Physics PhDs. To understand the lack of gender equity in Physics and STEM, we must understand that there are other factors limiting the entrance and retention of both women and underrepresented racial minorities in these fields. Surprisingly, amongst the Physics specialties there exists a unique multidisciplinary subspecialty—Medical Physics that boasts 36% of its graduate students identifying as women. This rarity in STEM is worth reviewing and learning from. This talk will explain the statistics in gender equity in Physics and Medical Physics, as well as discuss the programming in Medical Physics that supports the burgeoning number of women medical physicists. |
Wednesday, March 17, 2021 12:18PM - 12:42PM Live |
M62.00003: Outcome of the Conferences for Undergraduate Women in Physics Invited Speaker: Pearl Sandick The APS Conferences for Undergraduate Women in Physics (CUWiPs) are simultaneous regional conferences designed to help undergraduate students continue in physics by providing them the opportunity to network with other physicists, learn about career options and graduate school, discuss issues associated with underrepresentation in science, and participate in professional development activities. CUWiP attendance has been steadily increasing since the first conference in 2006. In recent years, the CUWiPs have served approximately 2000 undergraduate students throughout the US and Canada each year. In this talk, I'll give an overview of the APS CUWiPs, typical programming, and impact. I'll also discuss the role of the National Organizing Committee and individual host sites, as well as how to apply to host a CUWiP. |
Wednesday, March 17, 2021 12:42PM - 1:06PM Live |
M62.00004: Breaking Down Barriers for the Next Generation Invited Speaker: Miriam Gonzalez Durantez 1 in 3 girls in the United States are afraid to be a leader for fear of others thinking she is bossy. Of girls in 5th grade, 23% do not feel they are smart enough for their dream career, and by high school, this number doubles to 46%. Join our efforts to change this trend one girl at a time! |
Wednesday, March 17, 2021 1:06PM - 1:30PM Live |
M62.00005: Physics Together: Engaging Young Women in Physics with STEP UP Invited Speaker: Robynne Lock Despite increasing numbers of students graduating with physics and other STEM degrees, the percentage of women earning bachelor’s degrees in physics has stagnated at approximately 20% for the past decade. The drop in representation of women in physics occurs at the high school/college transition. Nearly half of high school physics students are young women, but only one-fifth of physics majors at college entrance are women. Thus, efforts to increase the representation of women in physics need to focus on high school, which is many students’ first and last exposure to physics. STEP UP is a nationwide community with the goal of inspiring young women to pursue physics bachelor’s degrees. We have developed two lessons for use by high school physics teachers: Careers in Physics and Women in Physics. The lessons are grounded in research on physics identity, goal orientation, career intentions, and gender. In this talk, I will give an overview of the project and present results of the pilot study conducted in Fall 2017 and the experimental study conducted in Fall 2018. Learn more about STEP UP and join the movement at http://www.STEPUPphysics.org |
Wednesday, March 17, 2021 1:30PM - 1:54PM On Demand |
M62.00006: Recruiting and Retaining Undergraduate Women in Physics Invited Speaker: Kerstin Nordstrom While the numbers of professional women physicists has grown in the recent decades, the percentage has remained flat, and is nowhere near representative of the general population. This suggests a systemic pipeline issue, and indeed it involves many complex factors, including broader societal pressures. The undergraduate level is a formative stage in the life of a physicist. If one elects to pursue physics, it generally must happen in one's first or second year of college. Why do women choose to become physics majors? If they do, what helps them persist and thrive? If they leave, what are the reasons? In this talk, I will underscore various internal and external factors, and provide some practical advice for departments and mentors. Recognizing that "women" are not a monolith, and the "woman" category does nothing to describe differences in racial and cultural identity, socioeconomic class, sexual orientation and gender expression, the advice is designed be useful for those wishing to improve the physics climate for everyone. |
Wednesday, March 17, 2021 1:54PM - 2:30PM |
M62.00007: PANEL DISCUSSION
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