<p>Following Harvard President Larry Summers' statement that women may be biologically ill-equipted to study science, Princeton President Tilghman has greatly criticized his comments. The Daily Princetonian notes:
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"President Tilghman has been extremely interested in this subject and has written about it and talked about it for many years," she said. "These are things she feels very strongly about."
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Apart from issuing a public criticism of Summers' comment, Tilghman has gone further and has recently established a task force at Princeton University to "oversee gender equity". Joining hands with the Stanford and MIT presidents, she has co-signed a 700-word statement denouncing Summer's remarks about women in science. President Tilghman made a vow to ensure that Princeton would become "the "Ellis Island" for women scientists". Quotes taken from today's</a> Daily Princetonian news article</p>
<p>The controversial comments by President Summers were made at a conference nearly a month ago, yet President Tilghman is still fighting the issue, and it remains a "hot topic" in the Princeton University news. I don't think there is any other president who taken as strong as stand on this as has President Tilghman - I certainly don't see Yale's President issuing any public criticisms. </p>
<p>As the first woman and the first scientist to be president of Princeton University, and as living proof that women can and do excel in the sciences, do you think President Tilghman took Summers' comments personally?</p>
<p>Well, it seems so....I hope she doesn't try to institute gender quotas in BSE admissions. I definitely agree that women can excel in sciences and be on par with men, but it's also true that there are many more males pursuing science and engineering degrees. Part of it may be cultural, but I doubt that explains all of it.</p>
<p>I'm not sure what "taking it personally" means here. Summers' comments are representative of the way many people think and of the attitude against which women scientists have long had to fight in order to make their way. Tilghman has devoted her life to scientific research and to higher education and she wants very much to nurture women in science. I am thankful to have a daughter at Princeton whose president is a role model of this kind and who is speaking up to tell our young women and our society that women can contribute enormously to science and society. Although I don't always agree with Tilghman, I am glad she is using her power to make the academy more equitable for women and richer for having women's full participation.</p>
<p>Perhaps the goal is to encourage more females to apply to Princeton, which has never attracted as high a percentage of female applicants as the other Ivies, and this seemed like a nice opportunity to get some press coverage toward that end.</p>
<p>At Princeton last year, 53% of admits/enrollees were male, and 47% were female.</p>
<p>By way of comparison, Harvard, Yale and Stanford are essentially 50-50 in admissions now, with a slight edge to females.</p>
<p>Tilghman recently appointed a female "role model" to head Princeton's engineering program, which is just as male dominated as such programs typically are almonst everywhere (except Smith)</p>
<p>One wonders, indeed, whether Ms. Tilghman is in any institutional position to lecture the President of Harvard.</p>
<p>As a female scientist, President Tilghman may have been the recipient of similar comments like President Summers'. His remarks probably brought back the anger that she felt at that time. I will be studying Molecular Biology/pre-med at Princeton and I am glad to know that the president of the university that I will be attending believes that women can be very successful at careers in the sciences.</p>
<p>"I am glad to know that the president of the university that I will be attending believes that women can be very successful at careers in the sciences."</p>
<p>He never said women could not have very successful careers in the sciences.</p>
<p>You may not know that Tilghman often says things that are pretty unpopular at Princeton. She is not one to say things to make the school look good. Her point was not that Princeton is better, but that all of academia has room for improvement and that nobody should try to excuse the situation on the basis of innate gender differences. </p>
<p>Oh, Tilghman's feminist bent is well known. There are some old grads who say that with all the females she's sticking into key adminstrative slots that she's turning the place into a matriarchy! </p>
<p>And there are also those who grumble in P.A.W. that the shift to recruiting more ballet dancers and fewer competent football players is "ruining Princeton".</p>
<p>So it depends on your perspective, I guess.</p>
<p>Always remember Byerly's method. That is, when you don't like the message, attack the messenger. </p>
<p>Example (aside from what we have just seen).
Recently, Harvard's president, Mr. Summers, put his foot in his mouth (again, surprise!) when he told two undergraduates that if they wanted contact with their professors they should have attended Williams or Swarthmore (or the like). This conversation was reported in the Boston Globe Newspaper.
Clearly, Summers is a loose cannon and many now wonder whether he is appropriate for the academic world. But Byerly's response to the article was to launch a personal attack against the article's author.
With these attacks Byerly hopes to obfuscate matters to the point where we forget the original subject.</p>
<p>... which is whether or not President Tilghman, as a woman, has personal stakes in the field of science.</p>
<p>Is she indeed a feminist? Does this mean that semi-quotas will be used to ensure that a percentage of the highest ranking and most powerful positions on campus are granted to women?</p>
<p>
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You may not know that Tilghman often says things that are pretty unpopular at Princeton. She is not one to say things to make the school look good.
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Aparent5 - what do you mean by this? Could you give examples of these unpopuluar things Tilghman says?</p>
<p>Tilghman is a feminist--as in someone who looks for equality between men and women. It does not mean any sort of right-breast-missing, rough-hewn Amazon seeking to smash the constructs of culture and installing a Female Regime nazi-like in its extremity. </p>
<p>And ballet dancers are in fact, more athletic than football players.</p>
<p>As a feminist myself (and a male), Tilghman and what I read about her on DailyPrincetonian before applying helped tip the scale for ED to Princeton. I just loved everything she stood for, and I specifically remember her making comments about revamping Princeton so that it can better compete with the other schools (liberalization, first and foremost)</p>
<p>Anyways, I love her, and she SHOULD take Summers' comment personally.</p>
<p>Say what you will, but I find her weighing in in this manner gratuitous and offensive, "feminist" or not. </p>
<p>I don't begrudge her her ballet dancers in the slightest, and she is entitled to make Princeton over into her image of what it should be; but I think she should refrain from trying to run Harvard as well.</p>
<p>Byerly - do you beleive President Tilghman's criticisms are a publicity stunt to throw Princeton University into the limelight? Are you saying she has manipulated the situation to her advantage, in order to make Princeton the new haven (no pun intended) for women scientists?</p>
<p>I'm cautious in ascribing personal motives or discerning secret agendas, but a public act has predictable consequences which presumably must have been intended. </p>
<p>While Summers off-the-cuff speculations were not public, his attacker responded through a Boston Globe soulmate, and Tilghman, apparently, issued her pronouncement based on the Globe story.</p>