AWNings

The newsletter of the Academic Women's Network at Washington University

Vol. 4 No. 4 October 1995

AWN Board Holds Strategy Session

A two-hour strategy session for the AWN Board of Directors was called by newly-elected AWN President Sue Cullen on August 27. The purpose of the meeting was to set goals and target dates for AWN events throughout the 1995-1996 academic year. The Board voted to continue holding two AWN dinners during the year. However, the Fall dinner is to be a more social event and therefore will not have an after dinner speaker. The Spring dinner will still feature a guest speaker.

Brown bag lunches have proven to be popular events and plans were made to host several of these meetings in the winter. Anyone with suggestions for topics for this forum should contact Sue Cullen.

As reported in the last issue of AWNings, the Executive Faculty voted to endorse AWN's three proposals regarding the placement of women on search committees for new departmental chairmen, the scheduling of WUMS functions at all-male clubs and annual review meetings of junior faculty with their chairmen. As a result of their endorsement of these policies, two women were appointed to departmental search committees--Penny Shackelford for Psychiatry and Helen Piwinica-Worms for Microbiology. At the monthly Board of Directors meeting in October 2, Sue Cullen reported that Dean Peck was pleased with the contributions made by these women and felt they were assets to the committees. He also indicated that he will discontinue planning meetings at all-male clubs.

The AWN Fall Dinner is scheduled to be held at Whittemore House on November 15. This events provides an opportunity for members to gather in an informal setting and discuss topics of mutual interest. Reservation forms have been mailed out and replies are requested by November 9. If you did not get an invitation, please contact Sheri Tollefsen at 454-6054.

Kudos

Ursula Goodenough, Ph.D received a Distinguished Faculty Award on Founders Day for her excellence in teaching, research and her efforts to elucidate modern advances in science for theologians and philosophers.

Carolyn Haase, M.D. was promoted to Assistant Professor of Medicine.

Abby S. Hollander, M.D. was promoted to Assistant Professor of Pediatrics.

Leslie Kahl, M.D. was promoted to Associate Professor of Medicine.

Jane Phillips-Conroy, Ph.D was featured on the cover of the Fall 1995 Washington University Magazine and Alumni News. An article described her studies on baboons in the Awash region of Ethiopia.

Deborah Rubin, M.D. was appointed to the American Gastroenterological Association's Women in Gastroenterology Committee. Her appointment runs through 1998.

Janice Semenkovich, M.D. was promoted to Assistant Professor of Radiology.

Cary Siegel, M.D. was promoted to Assistant Professor of Radiology

Mary Zutter, M.D. was promoted to Associate Professor of Pathology.

Women's Health Update

by Helen Kornblum

Women's health is finally being taken seriously by young college-age women. This year, Phi Lambda Psi, a Greek Women's Honorary society has been formed at Washington University. It is dedicated to promoting the awareness and education of major health concerns for women. Their first program on the campus was a breast cancer awareness evening at Graham Chapel. The keynote speaker was an assistant to Susan Blumenthal, M.D., Assistant U.S. Surgeon General and Deputy U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services and head of the Office on Women's Health. She spoke to a large audience of mostly young women. The program also included a taped message from First Lady Hillary Clinton and a panel. While I applaud Glamour/Hanes Hand in Hand (the sponsors of the national ongoing breast-health program that hosted the evening) for promoting awareness of breast cancer, I was concerned that at least one speaker portrayed breast cancer as a disease that can be "cured" so long as it is detected "early".

The cuts by Congress in Medicare are Medicaid will hurt women's health. Here are some facts: Over 70 percent of Medicaid beneficiaries between the ages of 18 and 64 are women. This means that approximately 9 million adult women under 65 receive health care through Medicaid. Most Medicare beneficiaries (57%) are women. Over 20 million women rely on Medicare for their health care services. Millions of poor elderly women rely on both Medicare and Medicaid: women with Medicare are about twice as likely as men to also receive Medicaid. This is not surprising since elderly women are considerably poorer than elderly men. Many become poor after caring for their spouses at home or in nursing homes. Sixty-five percent of Medicare beneficiaries with incomes below the poverty line are women.

In addition to physician and hospital services, Medicaid covers such critical preventive services on prenatal care, Pap smears, mammograms and family planning services. Since 75 percent of nursing home residents are elderly, Medicaid covers a significant portion of long term care costs incurred by women. It should be obvious that ruthless cuts to Medicaid and Medicare will hit women hardest. We may live longer, but those additional years are often of poor quality. And, if Congress prevails, women's last years will be harder still. All this is not even considering the adult children of elderly parents who will be squeezed by these cuts. (This information is provided by the Office on Women's Health and the Women's Legal Defense Fund).

In Ellen Goodman's recent column reprinted in the Post-Dispatch, she writes "Female Mutilation Immigrates to U.S." . . . "We don't want to believe that it happens here. It happens among people who regard a woman's sexuality as so dangerous that it must be eliminated. It happens in communities where women are taught that mutilation is the price of belonging . . . But now we are learning that female genital mutilation has been imported to America . . . Congress is finally confronting this reality. Two bills, sponsored by Pat Schroeder in the House and Harry Reid in the Senate, would make it illegal to perform FGM on a child in America."

The seven medical schools of the Chicago area will pilot-test a collaborative Women's Health Elective for fourth year students. "The major goal of this elective is to provide students with a cohesive approach to the delivery of health care to women and to demonstrate the gender issues that must be considered when treating women patients."

The September 22 issue of Science carried an editorial written by William H. Danforth, now chairman of the board of Washington University. The editorial was entitled "Universities Are Our Responsibility". Excerpts from the text are reprinted below.

Even in our skeptical technology-driven era, universities are monuments to the hope that through education and deeper understanding we can create better lives for ourselves and our children. In this respect they are, like the great Gothic cathedrals, symbols of the aspirations of an age. Those of us who work in these national treasures have a responsibility to understand the requirements of a changing environment and to act so as to keep universities alive and well.

After World War II, the modern research university evolved as a new institutional species. The environment was favorable; education had proved its worth, and policy-makers wanted knowledgeable, technically skilled citizens. Families were willing to sacrifice to educate their children. Scientific opportunities abounded and Americans had faith that science would produce a steady supply of boons. Support for research universities flowed generously from federal and state governments, foundations, corporations, and public-spirited citizens. Budgets grew and programs multiplied.

Today opportunities are outrunning resources. Increased knowledge holds no less promise, but science and scholarship are expensive, the rewards are often long delayed, and other societal needs press on policy-makers. When nutrients are in short supply, an institution must gather them more effectively, survive on less, or pursue both strategies simultaneously.

The hunting and gathering skills of universities are already highly developed, for during the long growth period, success depended on an increasing supply of financial resources. On the other hand, the skills universities need to do well with limited resources have atrophied from disuse. Efforts such as downsizing will have an effect but success in the long run will depend on the foresight, commitment, and will of faculty and staff.

If it was ever true that faculty members' pursuit of individual interests automatically created a great university, it is certainly not so now. Rather, the loosening of institutional ties has become a major risk, for today's successful university requires effective internal operations aimed at agreed-upon goals. Because faculty do the essential work of teaching and research, their participation and leadership are key. Also, faculty must embody and serve as guardians of the values that should permeate the institutional culture, including, at a minimum, freedom of exploration and expression, commitment to excellence in scholarship and teaching, and tolerance for differences.

Whether universities adapt successfully to the present environment will, in my view, depend on whether individual faculty members correctly read the needs of the era and take personal responsibility for the success of their institutions. I can think of nothing more important or rewarding than to help preserve our research universities for the next generations, so that they may continue to represent the highest aspirations of the American people.

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The WWW address for the AWN home page published in the last issue of AWNings contained a typographical error. The correct address is: http://hdklab.wustl.edu/awn. The AWN home page can also be accessed through the Washington University Home Page by choosing "Other Electronic Resources".

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The National Research Council recently released the results of a survey that ranked U.S. graduate schools in mathematics and science. The report ranked 3634 programs at 274 institutions. The programs were divided into 15 physical and biological science fields. Topping the list in many of the categories are MIT, Stanford, Harvard and the University of California, Berkeley. Washington University was not listed among the top five programs in any of the categories but was ranked ninth in Cell and Developmental Biology.

The report was primarily designed to help prospective graduate students evaluate programs. The NRC panel compiled data supplied by the institutions themselves on numbers of faculty, students, publications, and types of financial support. "Reputational" ratings were derived from surveys sent to over 8000 university researchers in 41 disciplines. Critics of the report claim that the reputational rankings penalize small and up-and-coming disciplines. The survey's reliability has also been called into question. Some programs received rankings even though they don't award Ph.Ds. And what many departments consider the most important measure of their success--how many of their graduates find jobs, and where--is missing. The major concern of programs that faired poorly in the rankings is that this poor performance could cost them money and students.

Arizona State University journalism instructor Larry Martel recently quizzed his undergrads on names every aspiring journalist should know. Among the most disheartening responses:

Alzheimer's - Imported beer