Speaker discusses women
on campus
By Jason Tomcsi
Staff
Writer
Wrapping up Purdue Student Government's series
of speakers to celebrate Women's History Month on Tuesday was Mary Ellen
Bock, head of the Department of Statistics.
Bock, who is only the second department head that
statistics department has ever had, used her experience in her field
to discuss the state of women's affairs in academia. Her discussion
covered the areas of female students, faculty and administration in
universities today.
Bock said she did not feel as though she had to
fight to get where she was.
"It (the statistics department) was an extremely
good atmosphere and it (her position) was easy to step into," said Bock.
Although Women's History is uncomercialized, Bock
said that it is important to recognize that women are still important.
"If you never hear about them you think that they
never exist," said Bock.
Bock verified that women do exist, especially on
college campuses and their presence has grown over the past several
years. An example that Bock used was that of students entering law school.
In 1970, 10 percent of law students were women and today 50 percent
are women.
Purdue's new president Martin Jischke has shown
that women will have opportunity at Purdue by hiring a woman as the
first provost in the university's history, Sally Frost Mason. Bock said
she recognized Jischke's effort to include women on this campus.
"I think that says something right there, " said
Bock.
According to Bock, opportunities for women are
no there, but not because of the fact that they are women.
"There are some fields that are difficult to crack
into and it is not because they can't do it," said Bock. "There are
many subtle things."
Bock said that the subtle things are preconceptions
that both men and women have about women's abilities.
Pritha Ghosh, a statistics graduate student, said
that the speech was very good because there were statistics to back
it up.
Corina Atherton-Lira, executive director of PSG,
said she was pleased with the speakers, but said she was disappointed.
"I think that it is tragic that students did not
take advantage," said Atherton-Lira.
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