Over the course of the past year, the topic of women and Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) fields has re-entered public conversations on science. This issue of On Campus With Women was inspired in part by the remarks made by Lawrence Summers, the president of Harvard University, questioning whether innate gender differences partially explain the underrepresentation of women in STEM. Summers' comments, and the ensuing debates they sparked, brought to light the continued influence of gender biases that many Americans hoped and believed had disappeared. What was striking about the resurrectionof the idea of an innate incapacity of women for science was not so much its reappearance as the fierce and resounding refutation of its legitimacy.

Alongside the firestorm following Summers' remarks, there has also been a parallel discussion about the state of American science. Generated in large part by the federal government, the debate focuses on increasing the representation of both women and racial and ethnic minorities in the scientific workforce and professoriate. The dominant rhetoric of this discussion asserts that the Untied States is losing the science and technology "race" and cannot win until it begins to expand and diversify its STEM workforce and professoriate. The moral paradigm, which argues that inclusion and diversity are essential for equity and fairness, has been supplanted by a capacity/competition paradigm that argues that the U.S. needs as many people as possible pursuing STEM careers in order to improve America's competitiveness in the global "race." Layered onto, but not supplanting, these two is the newly substantiated excellence paradigm, which argues that a diversity of perspectives and voices makes better science and enriches an institution.

The feature articles included in this issue touch on both of these discussions, while the pieces in "From Where I Sit" advocate the importance and impact of mentoring, support, and dialogue across disciplines in promoting student and faculty success and understanding. The feature article by Shirley Malcolm, Daryl E. Chubin, and Eleanor Babco from the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) provides a national overview of the demographics of the STEM professoriate, undergraduate and graduate student populations, and degree recipients. Their data indicate a significant discrepancy between the representation of women at the student level and women at the faculty level, as well as declining representation of women at all levels in engineering and computer science. Highlighting the AAAS Center for Advancing Science and Engineering Capacity as a new resource in this area, the authors advocate for greater inclusion of women and underrepresented minorities to both strengthen and deepen the capacity of the STEM workforce.

The second feature article, by Katherine A. Friedrich and Judith N. Burstyn, explores the curricular and pedagogical initiatives designed to facilitate and promote inclusion at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The authors focus on how changing both the culture and the perception of the culture are instrumental in increasing the representation of women and underrepresented minorities in STEM fields, and reference different strategies and resources faculty members can use to work toward this goal. Several initiatives at UW-Madison, cited in the article, are organized around bringing multiple constituencies together to create and maintain resources and spaces that enable all students to participate and excel in science and engineering.

By presenting multiple perspectives on a variety of issues, this issue of On Campus With Women hopes to engage in some of the central discussions currently being held about gender and American science. AAC&U hopes it also provides campus practitioners with a host of resources and strategies for assessing and affecting climate, curriculum, and success on individual campuses.

To read more about campus climate concerns and programs for women faculty in STEM, we also encourage you to read "Is There a Global Warming Toward Women in Academia," written by Christine Hult, Ronda Callister, and Kim Sullivan, in the Summer/Fall 2005 issue of Liberal Education.

Campus Women Lead

In her Campus Women Lead (CWL) column, Anny Morrobel-Sosa, Dean of the Allen E. Paulson College of Science and Technology at Georgia Southern University and a member of the CWL Steering Committee, both describes her personal journey as a woman in a STEM discipline and advocates the importance of diversifying the faculty. She uses data from the Commission on Professionals in Science and Technology and The Chronicle of Higher Education to demonstrate the current disparities in hiring, promotion, and tenure of women, and particularly women of color, in the STEM disciplines. She calls on institutions to implement and sustain initiatives that promote more welcoming, respectful, and inclusive climates. Morrobel-Sosa ends by arguing that we must require the new generation of administrators and academic leaders be fully engaged with the principles of inclusion and diversity if the academy is to provide the kind of education students need and deserve in the 21st century.