Positive Actions

Congratulations to Donna C. Boyd, professor of forensic anthropology at Radford University! She is one of four professors (and the only woman) to be honored as Professor of the Year for 2006 by the Council for Advancement and Support of Education and the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. Professor Boyd was quoted in the Chronicle of Higher Education announcement of the award as follows: "When you have unrecognizable human remains, our job is to try to identify it. Media depictions of forensic anthropology, like CSI and Bones, are a double-edged sword. They have brought in…
Since I brought up the X-Gals, I've been thinking of another model of group support in academe, the Mujeres Universitiarias Asociadas at Central Florida. They were featured in an article in a recent Chronicle of Higher Education special issue on diversity. The Mujeres (pronounced moo-HAIR-ays) typically gather over lunch each month. They share tips on such issues as which campus administrator to approach with a problem and which to avoid. They have coached one another on compiling tenure portfolios and offered pointers on applying for the university's $5,000 teaching award. They have…
Back on October 6, the Chronicle of Higher Education published a column titled The X-Gals Alliance and I missed the chance to blog about it at that time. The second in the ongoing series of columns from these fabulous women is now out, Balance It Out. From the original column: "We" are the X-Gals, a group of nine female biologists who began meeting weekly over a few beers in 2000, as several of us wrote up our dissertations. (Our name is a double-pun on the X-Men superheroes and on X-Gal, a laboratory chemical sometimes used in biology.) Back then, we read one another's dissertation…
My fellow SiBling Dr. Charles has written a post about women and breast cancer that is a gift. Skip the pink ribbons and read what he's written. That dude can tell a story. Dr. Charles quotes Audre Lorde from The Cancer Journals on women with breast cancer as warriors; the patient he's examining has read Lorde and has foregone reconstructive surgery or a prosthesis after her mastectomy. The post ends this way: Regardless of whether a woman replaces that which has been taken from her or decides to go without, she is a noble warrior, tragically drafted into a bitter war. A good war, worth…
Jeff Knapp asked what kind of advice would I give to a 14-year-old girl who is showing an interest in neuroscience, taking AP classes, and has articulated an interest in science. As the "1" in the title indicates, I'll be posting again on this topic. I'm going to preface my remarks by saying that I don't have the last word on this topic, and I'm going to invite all my colleagues in WEPAN to weigh in on this if they want to. WEPAN is the Women in Engineering Programs and Advocates Network; it's a national organization whose mission is "to be a catalyst, advocate, and leading resource for…