Decline in females studying geoscience Published: 02-22-13 Contributing Writer: Kaitlin Lounsberry The American Geosciences Institute’s latest newsletter, Geoscience Currents, detailed a drastic drop in women enrollment in the geoscience field at the bachelor’s and master’s level during the 2011–12 academic year. The newsletter, released Feb. 11, showed undergraduate enrollment rates at their lowest since the late 1990s, with bachelor’s and master’s levels falling by 40 percent since 2001 while doctorate levels increased by 45 percent “We contact all the departments in the States asking for the number of students, enrollment and the number of graduates,” said Carolyn Wilson, a workforce data analyst for the institute. “We ask to separate information out by male and female if they have that information. It’s all voluntary. This is information that the departments are willing to give us, and they don’t always update their information every year.” The study noted that a specific cause for the drastic drop is unknown. The findings were a surprise because the institute’s previous studies showed an increase in enrollment of women, according to Wilson. “It’s really unclear [and] we’re not entirely sure why we’re seeing a drop in enrollment after a fairly consistent increase in female enrollments,” Wilson said. “It’s something that we want to look into in the future.” The study said the decrease could be a result of more attractive career opportunities being offered to men than women. Most jobs stemming from a geoscience major deal with practical science and engineering, jobs that are largely male-dominated. “I don’t necessarily think that their careers are offered towards men. [The study] showed steady growth in enrollment and degrees awarded toward women and then around 2007-2008 we started to see this decrease,” Wilson said. “The past couple of years we’re
seeing that decrease in the master’s degree. This is a little bit of a shock considering the historical data. So I don’t really have a good answer.” Lynette Foss, adjunct faculty member in the Science & Mathmatics Department, said she believes there’s been an increase in female enrollment in the health and science field because of the cultural aspects it offers. “It’s been said that women tend to shy away from areas that are largely dominated by men,” Foss said. “If you get into an engineering class and you’re surrounded by guys and they’re hyper-focused on their math and their building, you sort of feel like the odd man out. The health sciences tend to weave in that caring aspect that women tend to exhibit a little more than men.” The study also noted that programs encouraging women to enter science, technology, engineering and math fields were terminated in the mid-2000s, another possible reason for the decrease. “There has to be an overt effort by the universities to establish women in science clubs or women in engineering,” Foss said. “[Colleges] should look at examples where there is a decent enrollment of women in their engineering, architecture and physics programs and see what they’re doing right, and then maybe model after those types of programs.” More research is needed to determine whether ending the programs caused a decrease, said Wilson. The opportunities hands-on work factored into the decision of Hannah Geiger, a University of Illinois nursing student, to seek a health degree. “I think women would be more interested in [the geoscience field] if they weren’t so focused on the study of working and just looking at the background information,” Geiger said. The study brought the issue of decreasing female enrollment to the American Geosciences Institute’s attention, though more research is
needed to understand the decrease and how to increase the number of women enrolled in such programs, according to Wilson. “Any work that’s being done for the retention of women would be localized at the department level. There hasn’t been a lot of national work towards this recently,” she said.