Under-Represented Populations Stand-Alone Report 1 (Progress)

1995 Program Evaluation of the Women in Science Project at Dartmouth College

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FINDINGS

Qualitative Data

B) WISP Programming

The existence of the WISP program affects students' decisions to enroll at Dartmouth. Mailed information, brochures, professors, tour guides, and other students' excitement about WISP effectively inform prospective students of the project's existence. 22.6% of the freshwomen stated that the project definitely affected their decision to enroll at Dartmouth. Another 13.7% mentioned that an interest in the project contributed to their decision; for example, one student explained that knowing such a program existed convinced her that Dartmouth was concerned about the issue of women in science. 47.4% of the freshwomen responded that WISP did not influence their choice of Dartmouth College.

Currently, the WISP project supports six major programs for undergraduates: freshman research internships (with related informational sessions and intern checkpoints), visiting speaker luncheons, a newsletter, student panels and workshops, a peer mentoring program, site visits, and a study room. With the exception of the internship, all of the WISP-sponsored activities are open to the entire Dartmouth student body--women and men. This section assesses the impact of WISP programming and identifies possible areas for growth. It first reviews data about students' participation in the WISP activities and their assessment of them, and, for seniors, the years of involvement. Then it reports results that focus on perceived, unmet needs.

All seniors and freshwomen that were surveyed were asked which of the WISP activities they had participated in how they would rate the them: Excellent, Good, Fair, or Poor. Their responses are compiled in Table 3 and Table 4.

Table 5 summarizes which years the seniors reported utilizing the various programs. Freshwomen were queried about which WISP programs, if any, they might participate in in future years.

Future participation:

Tables 3 and 4 provide a glimpse of the popularity of the programs among the pool that returned the surveys. Clearly the newsletter is a wide reaching component of the program, a high percentage of the seniors and freshwomen read it, both interns and noninterns. Table 5 shows that interns who choose to read it generally follow it throughout college. Readers found the postings about jobs, internships, and other opportunities particularly useful and enjoyed reading the biographical sketches of women in science. However, when freshwomen were asked if they anticipated participating in WISP programming in the future, and how, only 8.7% mentioned the newsletter. This statistics is probably far lower than the actual number; since the question did not specifically detail the "WISP programs," freshwomen may not have considered the newsletter a program and therefore did not include it in their response.

Another popular program was the speaker luncheon series. The high number of seniors who reported attending a speaker luncheon may be partly due to a cumulative count over four years, nonetheless, a significant number of women participated at some point during college. A lower percentage of freshwomen attended the speaker lunches. (Once again this might be due to a cumulative factor.) Both seniors and freshwomen who did attend found them interesting and enjoyable--the speaker luncheons received very high ratings. The luncheon series is one of the more attractive programs for upperclassmen; they identified the luncheons as a program they plan to (continue) to attend in their upperclass years. Women commented on two facets of the lunches. First, they liked learning about the careers and lives of women in science. Undergraduates also appreciated the opportunity to interact with their professors, women in science, and other undergraduates informally. One woman explained that meeting with these people in a more personal setting made them much less intimidating and more approachable in the classroom.

Over half of the women, especially the freshwomen '97 and '98, participated in the peer mentoring program. Of all the WISP programs, the mentoring program received the lowest ratings. Some women explained that they had been assigned a peer mentor but had never met her, others found that their peer mentor knew little about the fields that interested them. Nonetheless, the freshwomen seem to regard the mentoring as a potentially valuable program--42.6% of them indicated that they would like to serve as a WISP peer mentor for a freshwoman in the future.

The newest of the WISP activities, the study room, seems to be increasing in popularity. 19% of the '97 freshwomen utilized this; 42% of the interns did so in '98. For students who could not afford a tutor and for students who disliked the large help sessions associated with some classes, the study room offered access to individualized help.

WISP-sponsored site visits interest the fewest students. None of the respondents mentioned the program in their written reflections about WISP programming or indicated that they planned to participate in the future. If increasing participation is a concern, this activity might merit some attention and further evaluation. For example, the publicity and information about the visits might need to be increased. Upcoming trips could be advertised in media other than the newsletter (such as flyers around campus) that explain why a student might be interested in such an event.

In order to better tailor the WISP project offerings to the needs of the students throughout their Dartmouth science career, seniors were asked about the support resources they utilized or would have found helpful during their college careers. The seniors' responses are found in Table 6.

The importance of informal contacts with fellow women science majors stands out in this table. Not only is it the most heavily used source of support in all four years of college, but many students still desire more. Over their college career, more and more women utilized this resource. Freshman and sophomore year, 41% of the students had contact with their science peers, by junior and senior year the numbers rose to 68% and 62%. Not surprisingly, accompanying the increase in the percentage of students using this resource is a decrease in the number of students who desire it (from 32% to 21%). Another widely used and desired resource during the first half of a science major are study groups. Freshman and sophomore year a number of women participated in them; even more women indicated that they would have been helpful. By junior and senior year the numbers decline, perhaps because women have become more accustomed to studying college science.

Women in science not only seek contact with each other, they want more contact with mentors--faculty mentors, role models, and older peers. Freshman year the women used and would have appreciated contact with older peers in science; as they got older themselves, the utility of this resource decreased (as the pool of upperclass women become their peers). The first two years students also expressed a desire to interact with role models and mentors. The importance of this support and information network was also evident in juniors' and seniors' responses. The number of upperclassmen seeking mentor guidance had decreased, perhaps reflecting the increase in the number of women who had established relationships of this sort.

Freshwomen (143 interns and the 18 noninterns) were queried about other helpful resources that they had utilized outside of formal WISP programs. In their written responses they included:

Helpful resources for freshwomen:

The 39.1% deserves further explanation. Since they were not working in a laboratory, is not surprising that not one of the noninterns mentioned graduate students or other people working in a lab as a resource. However, 44% of the interns cited their informal contact with people in their labs as a helpful resource; clearly, the internship provides them an opportunity to develop personal mentoring relationships.

Many of the support resources in included in Table 6 are utilized by more women and (consequently) less sought after as students progress through college. One exception to this trend, however, is career counseling. Women were more interested in this type of programming their junior and senior years. Career counseling was most called for junior year, as students began to think more seriously about their future plans. Other data, however, suggest that information about careers is also highly desired by women much earlier in their college careers. When asked at the end of freshman year which other kinds of programs or support would have been helpful the past year, 40.2% of the freshwomen responded career counseling. Furthermore, information about future possibilities, schooling, and careers in science is the program that freshwomen described as the one that will be most helpful in the future.

Programs that would be helpful to freshwomen in the future:

The data offered by the freshwomen and seniors validate the importance of many of the WISP programs (such as close contact with a mentor in an internship), and suggest avenues that might shape future WISP programming efforts (such as an expanded faculty mentoring programs and career counseling). Furthermore the temporal data from the seniors provides some indication of the most receptive target audience.

Why are such resources important? Seniors were asked what impact, if any, contact with networks and information the programs listed in Table 6 had on them. They mentioned:

Impact of support-network resources (seniors):

Clearly, information about the future and contact with other students and professors is what women valued most. Women were also asked why they participated in WISP programming (other than the internship). The majority (41.4%) responded that the activities looked interesting or they thought it was a good opportunity that allowed them to learn more about science (11.1%). For some women, networking both by meeting people with similar experiences (8.7%), and meeting women in science (8.0%) figured prominently in their decision. Finally, all the women that were surveyed were asked whether, and how, WISP had impacted them. The most common responses were:

Impact of WISP (all sr, fr)

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