Recently in InsideHigherEd

Some posts on women in science:

• Women, Science and Interdisciplinary Ways of Working by By Diana Rhoten and Stephanie Pfirman
  

  Despite the hype and hope for interdisciplinary research, it cannot be considered ethical or even practical to draw women into science using interdisciplinary research as the lure, if simultaneously systems of work, evaluation and promotion are not reformed to reward them for taking up the challenge.

  
  
• Female Faculty and the Sciences by Elizabeth Redden
  

  Other strategies for the recruitment and retention of female faculty described at Wednesday’s hearing include offering childcare grants for professional conferences, offering flexible tenure timelines for faculty with young children, addressing salary equity issues (the NSF’s Olsen recalled an unsettling moment in her own academic history when, as the co-principal investigator on a research project, she was shocked to learn that a male postdoc assigned to her was making more money than she was), reading letters of recommendation with an attention to possible gender bias, providing extensive postdoctoral fellowship support to attract a broader applicant pool, and broadening faculty searches beyond highly specialized areas that may only have a couple graduates a year.

  
  
• From Summers to Sommers by Andy Guess
  

  Lest anyone think the academic world has settled into a consensus on the status of women in the sciences during the two years since a very public controversy thrust the issue onto the national stage, Christina Hoff Sommers all but ensured vigorous debate on Monday.
  
  In picking the lineup for a conference called, appropriately enough, “Women and Science,” the philosophy professor, ethicist and critic of modern feminism managed to highlight just what differences persist among mainstream, respected researchers — and expose complex (and occasionally contentious) debates over nature versus nurture, the role of culture versus biology, the persistence of stereotypes and whether innate differences between the sexes really matter.