Why Are There So Few Female Faculty Members in Several STEM Fields? What Needs To Be Done?

Kuck, Valerie

Title:

Why Are There So Few Female Faculty Members in Several STEM Fields? What Needs To Be Done?

dc.contributor.author	Kuck, Valerie
dc.contributor.corporatename	Georgia Institute of Technology. School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering	en_US
dc.contributor.corporatename	American Chemical Society	en_US
dc.date.accessioned	2019-10-08T19:31:01Z
dc.date.available	2019-10-08T19:31:01Z
dc.date.issued	2019-09-11
dc.description	The annual lecture of the Phillips/C. J. “Pete” Silas Program in Ethics and Leadership was presented on September 11, 2019 from 3:00 p.m.- 4:00 p.m. in the Molecular Science and Engineering Building (MoSE), Room G011, Georgia Tech.	en_US
dc.description	Valerie J. Kuck, worked at Bell Laboratories, Lucent Technologies in Murray Hill, New Jersey for 34 years. Most of her research was focused on the stabilization of polyolefins used in copper insulate, identification and application of high temperature coatings for optical fibers and the development of new devices. While at Bell Labs she was encouraged by her colleagues to become active in the North Jersey Section of the American Chemical Society (ACS). Shortly thereafter, she was elected to represent the Section and serve as its representative to the national organization. Subsequently, she was appointed or elected to chair five national committees. She was then elected to serve nine years on the ACS Board of Directors and chaired the Board Committee on Grants and Awards. As a committee Chair, she instituted a number of successful efforts. Those included in having more talented women appointed to national committees and proposed for leadership roles in the Society so that the number of women active in the Society reflected their distribution in the membership. She initiated procedures to substantially increase the numbers of women nominated and receiving national ACS awards, especially those based on technical accomplishments. She worked to enhance the Society’s efforts in supporting the unemployed by originating and presenting workshops at Local, Regional and National meetings and serving as a career consultant. Those efforts led her to assist in the development of workshops that were presented at many universities to assist graduate students and post-docs in planning for their careers. She proposed a new event, Sci-Mix, which is now the highest attended session held at national meetings, to facilitate chemists in meeting others with similar technical interests. Twice she organized special symposia on very late breaking scientific discoveries. With no pre-publicity, those sessions drew collectively 10,000 national meeting attendees and made the national news and were covered in the popular press. She also pushed for enhanced laboratory safety training in academe along with greater access to safe chemical handling procedures. Since retiring from the Labs in 2001, she has done extensive research on the graduate training of chemists and explored reasons for the low numbers of female faculty members at most RI institutions. In addition to presenting numerous talks on her findings, she has written several articles and two book chapters and co-authored a book. Kuck has received several awards from Bell Labs and three national awards from the ACS for her leadership, dedication and numerous efforts to help women and others in advancing their careers. She was named a distinguished alumnus by Saint-Mary-of the Woods College, and by her graduate school, Purdue University. She has authored 41 publications and has been granted 25 U.S. patents.	en_US
dc.description	Runtime: 58:59 minutes	en_US
dc.description.abstract	Since 2009 women have received a majority of the doctoral degrees granted by U.S. institutions.In several scientific fields women have made great strides, whereas in a number of STEM areas the progress has been substantially slower.ln 2017 women received 53% of the doctorates in Biological and Agricultural Sciences and 70% in the Health and Medical Sciences.In contrast, women earned only 23% of the doctorates in engineering, 25% in mathematics and computer sciences, and 34% in the physical and earth sciences.Over the years, the percentage of tenure-line female faculty members in the physical sciences, engineering and mathematics has remained low. Findings from an analysis of the responses to surveys and site visit discussions that involved over 1200 administrators, chemistry and chemical engineering faculty members, graduate students and post-doctoral fellows will be discussed.The hiring rate of female faculty members and factors contributing to their career choices will also be addressed.	en_US
dc.format.extent	58:59 minutes
dc.identifier.uri	http://hdl.handle.net/1853/61906
dc.language.iso	en_US	en_US
dc.publisher	Georgia Institute of Technology	en_US
dc.relation.ispartofseries	School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering Seminar Series	en_US
dc.relation.ispartofseries	School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering Seminar Series
dc.relation.ispartofseries	C.J. "Pete" Silas Program in Ethics and Leadership
dc.subject	Chemistry	en_US
dc.subject	Graduate	en_US
dc.subject	Hiring	en_US
dc.subject	Training	en_US
dc.title	Why Are There So Few Female Faculty Members in Several STEM Fields? What Needs To Be Done?	en_US
dc.type	Moving Image
dc.type.genre	Lecture
dspace.entity.type	Publication
local.contributor.corporatename	School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering
local.contributor.corporatename	College of Engineering
local.relation.ispartofseries	School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering Seminar Series
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