Women in math gather to make connections
Although Shelley Taylor wasn’t complaining when she was outnumbered six to one by males in her math classes, she said she would like to see more women involved in the mathematics programs.
She was excited when she heard about Association for Women in Math, a new club on campus that supports women going into the field and allows them to get together once a month for lunch and speakers from various math professions.
“I think it’s really important to have a club like this,” said Taylor, a sophomore majoring in statistics. “Some girls don’t want to get interested in math because they think it’s nerdy or don’t think they can do it, but they really can excel.”
The association was founded in 1971 and according to its Web site, AWM is a non-profit organization set up to encourage women and girls to study and have active careers in mathematics sciences. The group also advocates equal opportunity and treatment for women and girls who study math.
AWM currently has 3,000 members, both men and women, across the United States and around the world.
Math professor Peg Howland said she was excited about getting a chapter of the organization started at USU after participating in a couple of AWM workshops at a national conference.
Howland, who is now the AWM faculty adviser at USU, said she hopes the association will help foster a sense of community among students, improve visibility of female math students and ensure they are aware of the opportunities to network.
“Women in math classes may be the only one, or one of two females,” Howland said. “In my classes I generally have one or two females in a class of 30 to 40. That can make it hard for them to feel like they are a part of something.”
Howland said AWM plans to meet monthly over lunch with guest speakers who offer challenges and opportunities to women in math. At the end of fall semester, she said a career workshop will hopefully be planned to help women in math see what industrial or educational opportunities are out there for them.
The association is not only for women, though. Howland said it’s open to anyone who supports the organization and its beliefs. She said they had about five men come to their first meeting last spring and in September, they had a male guest speaker at the lunch.
“AWM doesn’t exclude men. They a can come if they like,” said Jess Anderson, treasurer of the association. She added women are often overlooked in math classes and the association is a good place to make connections.
“I think that for a lot of girls that are involved in math don’t know where to look for job opportunities and connections,” she said. “For me, the association has opened my eyes to a new world of math. It’s applicable everywhere.”
Math is generally considered to be a field for men, and women with careers in mathematics often become lonely and isolated in the workforce, said Aimee Hunt, a senior majoring in math education.
Hunt, who is the president of AWM said the imbalance of women in math begins in the public education system. This semester she is doing her student teaching and noticed that the boys in the eight and ninth grade classes she teaches are generally more confident than girls, even though the scores are usually about the same.
Since attending USU, she said her math classes were pretty well balanced with males and females, but men usually participated more in extra curricular activities.
“I was very excited to learn that a club was being formed here at USU that would encourage other women to become more involved as a field,” Hunt said.
If students would like to get involved in AWM, they can come to the next meeting, which will be held Thursday at noon in Room 507 of the University Inn, Taylor said. They will be having lunch and a panel discussion on “Women in Math: Challenges and Opportunities.”
Students can also contact Linda Skabelund at linda@math.usu.edu to get on the AWM e-mail list.
-mnewbold@cc.usu.edu