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A REVIEW OF H.R. 3007, THE ADVANCEMENT OF WOMEN IN SCIENCE, ENGINEERING, AND TECHNOLOGY DEVELOPMENT ACT
TUESDAY, MARCH 10, 1998
U.S. House of Representatives,
Committee on Science,
Subcommittee on Energy and Environment,
and
Subcommittee on Basic Research,
Washington, DC.
The Subcommittees met at 2 p.m., in room 2318 of the Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Constance A. Morella, Chairwoman of the Subcommittee on Technology, presiding.
Mrs. MORELLA. I'm going to call to order the Technology Subcommittee of the Science Committee hearing on H.R. 3007, the Advancement of Women in Science, Engineering, and Technology Development Act, but I like to call it the WISETECH Act.
As we move from an industrial to an information age, a workforce trained in the sciences and engineering is the central engine driving America's economic growth.
In the 21st Century, industries related to electronic commerce will continue to be the source of thousands of new businesses, millions of high-paying jobs, and vast creative opportunities.
According to the Department of Labor statistics, computer scientists and systems engineering and analysts will account for two of the top four fastest-growing categories of jobs between now and 2005.
Women make up more than 35 percent of the high-tech workforce, and yet according to a recent article in the Washington Post, only 4 percent of the Fortune 500 corporate officers in the telecommunications industry are women. So too, female executives make up only 11 percent of the corporate officers in the computer software industry.
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There's little question that significant progress has been made in integrating women into the scientific and engineering fields. This has been true in both the academic arena and the workforce. The percentage of medical degrees earned by women rose from 8 percent to 38 percent between 1970 and 1993.
Even more impressive, according to the Engineering Workforce Commission of the American Association of Engineering Societies, the percentage of women Ph.D.s in engineering has increased from .4 percent in 1970 to 12.2 percent in 1997. Now while such increases are impressive, in the case of engineers, it is a 3000% increase in just under 30 years, yet overall, the numbers are still low. For example, the number of computer science Ph.D.s earned by women has never risen much past 17 percent.
With respect to engineering, which includes electrical and computer engineering, the percentage of women in the workforce is still under 10 percent. Incidentally, that's lower than the percentage of female clergy, which is 11 percent, roughly.
The ripple effect of these figures is significant. The low numbers mean that companies such as computer firms have only a small pool of technical women to draw from when they're looking for their next vice president.
It can also be argued that the relative scarcity of senior women in some scientific and engineering fields reinforces existing stereotypes about those professions and discourages other women from entering the field. Women are not spread evenly through the science and engineering fields.
According to the 1996 study by the National Science Foundation, which is entitled, ''Women, Minorities, and Persons with Disabilities in Science and Engineering,'' women make up 22 percent of the entire science and engineering work force. Women, however, account for more than half of the sociologists and psychologists, but only 9 percent of the physicists. Further, the study found that while women make up 44 percent of the faculty in non-science and engineering fields, they comprise only 24 percent of the faculty and science and engineering and only 14 percent of the faculty in physical sciences.
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So clearly, these figures indicate that while we've come a long way since the 1970's, we still have a long way to go. Our Nation is currently facing a significant shortfall of high-tech trained workers. The fact that women are entering these professions at rates well below those of men mean that we are losing an enormous labor pool which could contribute significantly to addressing the information technology labor shortage.
The high-tech gender gap continues to leave many men and women shaking their heads in puzzlement. The computer industry is a newer one with no centuries-long legacy of sexism to overcome. What's keeping women out of technology at this critical time, and what can we do about it? Are careers in technology incompatible with family life?
It's my understanding that the pace of work is intense, and these are hard tradeoffs that women have to make. This is true, however, of most careers.
In order to answer some of the questions, I've introduced H.R. 3007, the Advancement of Women in Science, Engineering, and Technology Development Act. H.R. 3007 would set up a Commission to study the barriers that women face in the fields of science, engineering, and technology.
The Commission would identify and examine the number of women in the fields of science, engineering, and technology and the specific occupations where they are underrepresented. The Commission also would describe the practices and policies of employers relating to the recruitment, retention, and advancement of women in science, engineering, and technology. The Commission then would determine if these practices and policies are comparable to their male counterparts, and issue recommendations to government, academia, and private industry, based on successful programs.
In addition, the bill would direct the National Science Foundation to conduct a study of the educational opportunities available to women who want to enter the fields of science, engineering, and technology.
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The National Science Foundation would then be required to report its findings, within 1 year, and issue recommendations to Congress on how to improve educational opportunities for women who wish to enter the fields of science, engineering, and technology. NSF already has a good backdrop to just pursue further these objectives.
H.R. 3007 would be a first step in countering the roadblocks for women in our rapidly evolving high-tech society. It will help women to break through that glass ceiling, as well as the silicon ceiling. And it will help the Nation's high-tech economy to continue to flourish in the 21st Century.
Countering the barriers for women in the fields of science, engineering, and technology will bring our Nation closer to creating a highly effective, high-tech workforce which in turn will help both women and men, and promote economic prosperity.
I look forward to hearing from our distinguished panel today on their insights as women with first hand knowledge of the issue on H.R. 3007, and how to increase women in the fields of science, engineering, and technology development.
And it's now my pleasure to recognize the Ranking Member of the Technology Subcommittee, Mr. Barcia.
Mr. BARCIA. Thank you very much, Madam Chairwoman. I want to join my colleagues, and especially our fine Chairwoman, in welcoming everyone to this hearing.
First, I would like to note that 5 out of the 11 Democratic members on the Subcommittee on Technology and the Subcommittee on Basic Research are women. And as such, I will be very brief, and defer to their first hand experience on this topic.
I commend Chairwoman Morella for introducing House Resolution 3007 and for holding this hearing on the issue of women in science, engineering, and technology. The Science Committee has a long history in looking at the participation of women, minorities and persons with disabilities in the fields of science and engineering.
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In 1980, the National Science Foundation Authorization Act established a Commission on Women and Science. This Commission, which has expanded its focus to include minorities and persons with disabilities, issues a biennial report to Congress providing insight and recommendations that would enable all Americans to fully participate in the fields of science and engineering.
In addition, the National Science Foundation publishes a biennial report entitled, ''Women, Minorities, and Persons With Disabilities In Science and Engineering,'' which provides a comprehensive report on our progress in this effort. In 1986, the National Science Foundation Appropriations Act established a National Task Force on Women, Minorities, and Persons with Disabilities in Science and Technology.
This Task Force examined the current status of these groups in federal agencies and federally assisted research programs identified exemplary state, local, and private sector programs and developed long-range plans to improve opportunities for women, minorities and also persons with disabilities.
It is appropriate that 10 years after the Task Force issued its comprehensive report that we reexamine this issue.
I hope that we can learn how to build upon our past experiences to provide a level playing field for women and minorities in science and engineering.
In preparing for this hearing, I realized that this is not a straightforward issue and one that does not have simple solutions.
From our Committee Staff, I want to thank Dr. Enzema Frazier who earned her Ph.D. in nuclear physics from Michigan State University, Dr. Gene Frutchi, who earned her Ph.D. in soil science from Cornell University, and Dr. Beth Robinson, who earned her Ph.D. in geophysics from MIT, for providing their perspective on this subject.
I want to thank our witnesses for taking the time to appear before us today, and I look forward to working with Chairwoman Morella on this very important legislation.
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Mrs. MORELLA. Thank you, Mr. Barcia.
I appreciate particularly the fact that you recognize that we have a great number of women on our Technology and Basic Science Subcommittees, and the fact that you recognize the achievements of the staff people who are women who've done a terrific job.
So thank you.
I wanted to recognize also the Chairman of the, or Acting Chairman of the Basic Research Subcommittee, because we are doing this as a joint hearing, so it's a pleasure to recognize Mr. Pickering.
Mr. PICKERING. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. And I want to recognize and commend your leadership on this very important issue as we start today.
As Madam Chairwoman mentioned, two of the House Subcommittees are meeting jointly today to highlight the importance of the topic at hand; increasing the number of women among the ranks of scientists, technicians, and engineers. Despite accounting for nearly 50 percent of the total workforce of the United States, women are still underrepresented in engineering and technical fields, as well as in some of the sciences. For example, fewer than 20 percent of engineers in the United States are female.
There are indications that women, from the earliest stages of their careers, are being dissuaded from pursuing their interests in science and engineering. This is disturbing and disheartening for a number of reasons, not the least of which is if our Nation is to continue to be a competitor in the global economy, we are going to need a healthy pool of highly technically skilled citizens and enduring scientific intellectual infrastructure.
This can only be achieved if both halves of the workforce are included in this mix. Though the actual numbers should be a cause for concern, the trends are more encouraging. The number of women receiving degrees in math and science, as a percentage of science and engineering degrees awarded, are on the rise.
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And as the numbers of women in science and engineering careers also continue to increase, if these trends do continue, then it's something that I hope that we can say that this Committee and our work here helped to encourage and to promote.
Today's hearing will examine these issues in more detail, and includes discussion of a bill addressing the issues facing women already or presently considering entering into the fields of science, math, engineering, and technology.
This legislation introduced by the Chairwoman of the Technology Subcommittee, Mrs. Morella.
I look forward to hearing the witnesses' perspective on this important issue, as well as their comments on the legislation, and I also hope to look for those things that the Mississippi University for Women, Mississippi State University, and those in my home District can use to promote women in my home State of Mississippi in the fields of engineering, science, and technology.
Thank you.
Mrs. MORELLA. Thank you, Chairman Pickering, and I appreciate having this as a joint hearing with both Subcommittees of the Science Committee.
And I want to recognize the Ranking Member of the Basic Research Subcommittee, who also serves on the Technology Subcommittee, Eddie Bernice Johnson.
Ms. JOHNSON of Texas. Thank you very much, Madam Chairwoman. And thank you very much for having this hearing. I want to join you in welcoming our witnesses today in this hearing on the participation of women in science, engineering, and technology. We all live in a world which is becoming increasingly technology-oriented.
The future economic vitality of the Nation will depend on having a workforce with skills grounded in basic knowledge of science and math and a cadre of highly trained individuals pursuing careers in science and engineering fields. Nothing is more apparent to me than my District's lack now of having the talent with many, many jobs available.
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The Bureau of Labor Statistics projects that while overall rates of entry into the labor force will decrease between now and the Year 2005, the number of women will be growing twice as fast as men. By the Year 2005, nearly two-thirds of all women will be working and they will comprise nearly half of the total U.S. labor workforce.
The demands of the industry for high technology skills will not be met if efforts are not made to tap the half of the human resources base that has been traditionally underrepresented in science and engineering careers.
The trends for women in science provide some reason for hope. On the basis of the 1980 and 1990 census figures, the percentages of women in the scientific and engineering workforce has increased in nearly all fields, although often from a low base level.
Similarly, the proportion of female Ph.D.s in science and engineering has been growing. For example, before 1973, only two-tenths of 1 percent of the Ph.D.s in the engineering labor force were women, but of the cohorts graduating between 1983 and 1992, who entered the workforce, 9 percent of them were women.
This is still a small number, but a big increase. And I might add that since 1973, I've been working on this area. Even with favorable trends, much improvement remains to be made and serious concerns needs to be explored. A disproportionately high number of girls lose interest in science during the elementary and middle school, and low numbers enroll in advanced high school science and math classes. The proportion of women entering undergraduate studies in the physical sciences, computer sciences and engineering, remains relatively low. And there are indications that women are advancing in their careers in science and engineering field at a slower rate than men.
The problem of attracting and retaining women in careers in science and engineering is not a new problem and not an unstudied one. Today, we hope to explore how well the problem has been characterized and what is known about possible approaches to address it.
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In particular, what have we learned from first studies of the past that have not been acted upon and what should be the focus of any new study? I'm also interested in the views of our witnesses on whether existing federal programs are properly targeted and effective. The National Science Foundation, for example, administers programs to increase the numbers of women in science and engineering career pipeline and to provide support for the professional development of women in academia. The views of our panelists on the value of these programs would be welcome.
I appreciate the attendance of our witnesses today and I look forward to our discussion. I thank you.
Mrs. MORELLA. Thank you, Congresswoman Johnson.
I'd now like to recognize the Vice Chair of the Subcommittee on Technology, the gentleman from Minnesota, Mr. Gutknecht.
Mr. GUTKNECHT. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman, and Ms. Chairman, I welcome the opportunity to participate in this important hearing today.
First of all, I'd like to take a minute to give a special thanks to a witness who has taken time out of her busy schedule to come all the way from Minnesota.
It's not all that great a sacrifice, though, because the windchill factor in Mankato this morning was 20 below 0. But we're delighted to have Dr. Ann Quade, who is an Associate Professor at Mankato State University, an excellent school in my District, where she has taught computer science courses since 1984.
Ms. Quade, thank you so much for being with us here today. We all look forward to hearing your testimony.
And I might say parenthetically about Mankato State, Madam Chairwoman, we would love to have you come out and see some of the very exciting technology things that are happening, particularly with cellular technology.
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We have an exciting program going forward out there, and thanks in part to the leadership of people like Dr. Quade and Dr. Rush, the President of Mankato State University.
Women play a crucial role in our society, from loving mothers and wives, to executives, researchers, engineers, astronauts, farmers, and of course Members of Congress.
Women have repeatedly proven that they can succeed in any and all areas of our workforce. But I am concerned, however, that in some areas, there's a lack of participation by women.
We need to find out why certain areas of the workforce appear to have fewer women working in them than one would expect.
Congress now has the opportunity to look into this apparent lack of participation by women in certain fields of our workforce. I believe H.R. 3007, the Advancement of Women in Science, Engineering, and Technology Development Act, is an excellent step in the right direction. By establishing a Commission, we can get the facts and see what barriers are out there for women, and more importantly, start bringing those barriers down.
Madam Chairwoman, I applaud your leadership demonstrated for scheduling the hearings on this bill. I also applaud your leadership for sponsoring H.R. 3007. Considering the Science Committee has been looking into the issue of science and math in our classrooms, I find this bill to be extremely timely.
I look forward to hearing the testimony from this excellent panel that you've assembled today. And I thank you for the opportunity to introduce Dr. Quade to the rest of the members.
Mrs. MORELLA. Thank you, Mr. Gutknecht, for your comments, and for also pointing out the distinguished career and the work of Dr. Quade and the work that's being done at Mankato State University.
We've been joined by Ms. Stabenow from Michigan, who is able to, I guess, wend her way out as Mr. Barcia did.
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Ms. STABENOW. Good afternoon, Madam Chairwoman. I would just briefly indicate that it's a pleasure to have all of you here. It's such a distinguished panel.
I'm looking forward to your testimony today. I want to commend our Chairwoman for H.R. 3007. I'm very proud to be a cosponsor of this bill.
It's a very important step forward, and as a mother of an 18-year old daughter, I am particularly interested in opportunities for young women in the very exciting areas of science and engineering. All of you are role models, and so I'm very, very pleased to be a part of this today.
Mrs. MORELLA. Thank you, Ms. Stabenow.
Mr. Barcia mentioned before you arrived, the fact that there were so many distinguished women on the Technology and Basic Research Subcommittees, and great.
Our panelists today are Ms. Belkis Leong-Hong, who is President-elect of Women in Technology. She is also a constituent of mine. I'm very proud of the work that she has done; followed by Ms. Catherine Didion, the Executive Director of the Association of Women in Science, Washington, DC., and you can see we're both wearing our badges. Women in Science has done a great job.
You have heard about Professor Ann Quade. We're delighted to have her here. She's Associate Professor, Department of Computer Science at Mankato State University from Minnesota.
And we are joined by Monica Moman-Saunders, who is with Louisville Gas and Electric Company. She is the group leader of Engineering and Design, and she's representing the American Society for Mechanical Engineers in Washington.
Before I swear you all in, I wanted to recognize the Vice Chair of the Full Science Committee, who was here earlier, and for any opening comments he may have, Mr. Ehlers.
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Mr. EHLERS. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. I will be brief so we can get on with this.
I'm sorry I had to step out to meet with someone. I just wanted to add from my perspective in trying to discharge the responsibility that Mr. Sensenbrenner, the Chairman of the Committee, and Mr. Gingrich have given me to try to improve the Nation's science policy and also improve math and science education, one factor we are looking at—and I think it's an extremely important one—is what creates a problem for women, and, to a certain extent, minorities in the educational system vis a vis women in science?
I'll be very frank. I think we have a whole culture to change to really make some changes. I have experienced that with my daughters who did very, very well in math and science in elementary school. When they hit 9th grade algebra, their grades went down.
When I talked to them about it, their response was, you know, girls can't get this stuff. This was what was conveyed to them by their peers. I don't think it was conveyed by the teaches, but it's a cultural attitude, and I think it's very important for us to recognize that and do our best to defeat it, not just within the Congress, but throughout the entire Nation.
I hope that we can succeed in doing that. Thank you very much.
Mrs. MORELLA. Great comments. Thank you, Mr. Ehlers.
We've been joined by Mr. Bartlett from that great State of Maryland. Mr. Bartlett, would you like to make any comments before we proceed?
Mr. BARTLETT. Thank you very much. I am looking forward to the testimony of the witnesses. Thank you very much.
Mrs. MORELLA. Great, we'll remember that.
I'm going to ask the panelists if you'd please stand and raise your right hands, because it's a policy of the Science Committee to swear in those who are testifying.
Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
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Ms. LEONG-HONG. Yes.
Ms. DIDION. Yes.
Ms. QUADE. Yes.
Ms. MOMAN-SAUNDERS. Yes.
Mrs. MORELLA. The record will indicate affirmative response. I'm going to ask you each if you'd comment for about 5 minutes, and we'll just go one right after another.
And then we'll open it up to questions of the Subcommittees.
And so we'll start off with you then, Ms. Leong-Hong.
TESTIMONY OF BELKIS LEONG-HONG, PRESIDENT-ELECT, WOMEN IN TECHNOLOGY, FAIRFAX, VA
Ms. LEONG-HONG. Chairwoman Morella, Chairman Pickering, and distinguished members of the Subcommittees on Technology and Basic Research, I thank you on behalf of Women in Technology for the opportunity to speak to you today on H.R. 3007, which you have introduced to establish the Commission on the Advancement of Women in Science, Engineering, and Technology Development.
I have been asked to appear today as the President-elect of Women in Technology, a rapidly growing professional association that serves the diverse needs of technology professionals in all the disciplines and at all levels of their careers and studies. Today I would like to tell you who we are as an organization, and why we support this legislation.
Women in Technology, or WIT, is a nonprofit professional association. WIT is a relatively new organization, being formed in 1994. It is one of the fastest growing professional organizations in the United States. Based in Fairfax County, Virginia, the organization grew out of a vision by the founding President, Valerie Perlowitz, to provide a forum for women in the dynamic high technology industry and a network for leveraging the significant opportunities of today and tomorrow.
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From the inception of the organization, it was clear that there was a pressing need that was going unmet. When the first meeting was set up to see if such a group would be viable or useful, the response was overwhelming. Instead of the anticipated 30 or so participants, the number was almost 150. We clearly struck a nerve.
Under the leadership of the current President, Carol Walcoff, WIT's membership has increased steadily, reaching more than 700 today with strong continued growth anticipated. We especially want to reach women coming up through the ranks, including young women and women who have turned to technology as the wave of the future, to have access to role models and mentors.
There is not now any systematic ways for young women to receive mentoring on careers in science, engineering, and mathematics. We in Women in Technology are trying to fill the gap that exists in the Washington DC. metropolitan area. We have established a formal mentoring program to meet this need.
My statement for the record contains statistics on various differences in the success rates of women as compared to men in scientific careers. I would like to provide additional anecdotal evidence to reinforce the need for the Commission on the Advancement of Women in Science, Engineering, and Technology Development.
For example, there is the matter of one-third of all girls in our high schools reporting that they were advised away from taking advanced mathematics courses. We know that girls either match or exceed boys in achievement in science and mathematics, yet girls express less confidence in those areas.
I'd like to tell you about what happened to me. You might think that I was completely at ease with mathematics, since this was my major for my Bachelor's Degree. But this wasn't the case with regard to advanced algebra. After one of my high school teachers told me that he didn't know why I wanted to take this course, well, that power of suggestion was so strong that I developed a mental block with algebra. I had no problem with calculus or any other branches of mathematics, so I persevered and got my degree in mathematics after all. It was only after I became immersed in working with computer science that I saw the application of advanced algebra, and I then was able to overcome my mental block against algebra.
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Now, unfortunately, this is not a thing of the past. As Mr. Ehlers had indicated with the story about his daughters, a similar thing happened to my daughter, only worse. She had always had high grades in honor mathematics and the sciences. But after one of her teachers in her magnet high school program questioned her on her interest, the seed of doubt was planted, and she stayed away from math and sciences courses all the way through college.
My daughter recently graduated from Georgetown University in a field very remote from math and science. She has done well, but from her experience, we know at least some of the young women of Generation X have been challenged about pursuing science, engineering, and mathematics careers.
Perhaps the ready access to technology will help to swing the pendulum the other way; we do not know. This is another area where the proposed Commission could do important research into the solution for this generation and those to come.
While I'm expressing my own views and those of Women in Technology, I would like to comment on my own career. I serve as the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Plans and Resources with the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Command, Control, Communications, and Intelligence. I have been a member of the Senior Executive Service since 1988. I am a careerist, having entered federal service as a GS–7 mathematician. I began in computer science research and development. I was aware of what it would take to advance and get promoted. It required publishing, excellence in my field, organizational representation, giving technical lectures, and chairing technical committees.
I did all of these things, yet when my supervisor counselled me on the best way to become a GS–9—mind you, this is at the entry level—he told me that I should become an administrative assistant. His words left me with feelings of isolation and self-doubt, yet I held my ground, although he made sure that I was not promoted for another couple of years.
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I assumed that this was an isolated difference of opinion. And perhaps it was. But as I talked to women in science and technology today in both the private and the public sectors, I fear that my story is repeated more often than not.
Now, we also know that women leave scientific and engineering careers twice as often as men, and the Commission could look into the contributing factors to these statistics as well.
Throughout my career, I have met both adversity and advocacy, but today I'm here, thanks in large measure to bosses and mentors that believed in me and gave me the opportunity to excel, mentors like Lt. General Emmett Page, Lt. General Al Edmonds, Lt. General Al Short, Cindy Kendall, and John Springett. They all gave me a helping hand. As you can see, only one of those mentors is a woman.
Throughout my early career, I have had to work largely without female role models and mentors. Even today, sadly, there is a dearth of female role models and mentors as DOD downsizes. These days, I am called upon to mentor to our rising young professionals, and this I do with great pleasure, since I know personally the great difference it can make.
The technological nature of work is increasing, not just in the DOD and the Federal Government, but throughout industry. Women must be better educated in and more comfortable with science, engineering, and technology.
That is why Women in Technology is solidly behind the proposed Commission. We're grateful to you, Congresswoman Morella, for introducing this bill.
We support its enactment. We look forward to providing you with any support you ask of us in implementation, and as you move towards establishing the Commission on the Advancement of Women in Science, Engineering, and Technology Development Act.
I thank you for the opportunity to testify.
[The prepared statement and attachments of Ms. Leong-Hong follow:]
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Mrs. MORELLA. Thank you, Ms. Leong-Hong, for your excellent testimony, particularly the personal experiences.
I want you all to know that your testimony that you have submitted, in its entirety, will be included in the record, so if you care to add something else or to synopsize in some way, please do.
I'm pleased to recognize Ms. Didion, but before I do, I wanted to mention that we've been joined by Congressman Etheridge from North Carolina. We're delighted that you are here.
Thank you. Ms. Didion?
TESTIMONY OF CATHERINE DIDION, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, ASSOCIATION FOR WOMEN IN SCIENCE, WASHINGTON, DC
Ms. DIDION. Madam Chairwoman and members of the Subcommittee on Technology and the Subcommittee on Basic Research, I appreciate this opportunity to appear before you in my capacity as Executive Director of the Association for Women in Science. I'm here today to discuss the current status of women in science and engineering, and the proposed legislation, H.R. 3007.
We are a nonprofit organization established in 1971 with 6,000 members representing all disciplines of science and engineering. We are also the recipient of the 1997 Presidential Mentoring Award.
It has been well documented that women tend to drop out of the sciences and mathematics fields at all levels of the pipeline. Women scientists are often discouraged from an early age. Even Barbie dolls have been manufactured to say math class is tough. A girl who is having trouble with math is often told that her difficulties are normal, rather than being challenged to improve.
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By age 9, girls already lag behind boys in their hands-on experience of science. By 13, they are less likely to engage in the activities that indicate pleasure and interest in science, such as reading relevant books or participating in science hobbies.
At the undergraduate and graduate levels, there is abundant evidence that women are more strongly affected than men by the absence of positive feedback from their teachers and the lack of attention from their departments.
The AWS Mentoring Project, which has involved thousands of undergraduate and graduate women found that 77 percent of the students perceived barriers for women in science, and that 62 percent thought that the AWS Mentoring Project helped address those barriers.
All students are affected by poor science teaching and the lack of faculty involvement and commitment, but women are particularly vulnerable to both. Assumptions are made that scientists are born, not raised. Many researchers have tended to assume that the vast majority of scientists were students who had made their pivotal decisions early in life.
Yet recent data asks us to reconsider these assumptions. Nearly 60 percent of those who ended up majoring in the scientific fields had no intention of doing so when they were in 10th grade.
These figures show that almost as many students decided to major in the sciences after their sophomore year in college than those who did during their sophomore year and continued with the plan.
Anecdotal data supports these findings. A number of important women scientists made their career choices quite late, certainly well after adolescence.
For example, Melissa Franklin, a physicist who was the first woman to become a tenured professor of physics at Harvard University, first dropped out of high school. Instead of blaming women's under-representation in science on their multiple roles or on their inherent incapacity, society must adapt a more systemic approach to increasing the number of women in science and improving their prospects once there.
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Fundamental change is needed in expectations within and beyond the scientific community, so that women can make realistic decisions to enter and stay in the sciences.
Many problems stem from the seeming incongruity between scientists and women. Women fade out of science because they cannot reconcile the two images society offers them, a nurturing wife and mother, on the one hand, and on the other hand, an sterile idea of what a scientist in a white coat is in the lab.
This image is developed at an early age. A 1990 study of the National Science Teachers Association in which elementary students were asked to draw a picture of a scientist found that 99 percent of the boys and over 90 percent of the girls drew a picture of a white male scientists, usually in a lab coat with hair and glasses askew, and often mad-dog scientist or something written on the coat.
When I received the invitation to testify today, I had sent a notice to our network of 76 chapters. I asked what was the most compelling issue for women in science. I received numerous responses, many from the Congressional Districts represented by members of the Science Committee and the Subcommittees as well. I would like to share a few of them with you, and focus on two recommendations that were present in almost all of the responses.
The first recommendation is to promote effective mentoring systems with adequate reward structures. The Department of Labor and federal agencies still today refer to scientific occupations selected by women as, ''non-traditional careers,'' implying that the women must somehow be gender-confused if they are in the sciences or engineering.
Women in science are often counselled to lose their femininity and divorce themselves from any appearance of personal life. This rises often to ludicrous levels such as a recent Westinghouse Science Talent winner who stated that as a young woman in science she was told that she could not wear fingernail polish or makeup and be taken seriously in her quantum physics class. I don't remember that as being one of Newton's laws, but it must have been.
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[Laughter.]
Ms. DIDION. I heard from a young midwestern woman recently that, ''As an undergraduate Mexican female, I was very interested in the field of chemistry, yet I didn't go to a private school or to a public school where they offered strong science courses.''
Mentors and role models are needed to serve as teachers and guides to help young women scientists advance their careers.
Men are, unfortunately, cast as part of the problem, but rarely as part of the solution, which they must be. The vast majority of successful women scientists have had male as well as female mentors who are critical to their success. These relationships should be formalized, long-term, and rewarded whenever possible. An AWS members shared her thoughts on the need to provide some support to encourage mentoring.
Quote, ''Many students, girls in particular, are turned off on science before they're out of grade school.'' Among the many solutions to this problem is encouraging partnerships grade school teachers by federal programs like the one sponsored by the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health.
A fundamental problem with these partnership programs currently available is that they expect the scientists to participate on a volunteer basis. When I canvassed my colleagues, many were willing to get involved in the grade school programs, but no one could afford to do so unless it involved some partial support.
Perhaps this is not the most compelling issue for all women scientists, but I believe it is a compelling issue for the future of science.
The second recommendation is to support career flexibility. A young mid-career woman scientists shared her fear, ''I am worried that it is not realistic to have children, a career as a research scientist, and retain my sanity.''
She commented on the difference between her male colleagues who do not appear to have elevated stress levels and her female colleagues who often have family responsibilities that conflict with scientific research. She cited the example of the woman who had to pick up her child by 5:30 p.m. every day, even if she was in the middle of setting up an experiment, she had to run out and pick up her child, and often the experiment had to be repeated the next day.
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This is not an unusual situation for women in science to find themselves in. A Harvard study found that 62 percent of married women, but only 19 percent of the married men in science has a spouse with a doctorate. In fact, a 1990 American Physical Society survey determined that 80 percent of the women physicists in this country who are married are married to male physicists. Often it is difficult for dual career couples to find equivalent positions, and due to financial disparities between men and women's salaries, the woman's career tends to be secondary.
This is known as the three-clock problem: the biological clock, a woman's career clock, and her partner's career clock.
Unfortunately, these issues often get labeled as women's issues. But I would argue that both men and women today must confront childcare, elder care, and dual career constraints.
This Nation has a compelling responsibility to ensure that more men and women participate in the sciences and engineering challenges that lie ahead. In order to continue America's longstanding leadership in the global scientific community, we must utilize all of our Nation's talent, regardless of gender or race. Women are receiving more of the requisite training, yet there is still a lag in terms of productive employment.
H.R. 3007 can help us ascertain what are the effective policies that can address the under-representation of women in the sciences and could help alleviate the increasing shortage of skilled technical workers.
On behalf of all women in science and engineering technology, I encourage you to support H.R. 3007. Thank you.
[The prepared statement and attachments of Ms. Didion follow:]
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Mrs. MORELLA. Thank you very much, Ms. Didion. I appreciate it. And congratulations to Women in Science for the mentoring recognition that you got.
I'd now like to recognize Professor Quade.
TESTIMONY OF ANN M. QUADE, ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR, DEPARTMENT OF COMPUTER SCIENCE, MANKATO STATE UNIVERSITY, MANKATO, MN
Ms. QUADE. Chairwoman Morella, Chairman Pickering, and members of the Subcommittees, thank you for this opportunity to offer testimony on behalf of the most worthy piece of proposed legislation that is clearly related to the strategic problems involving business today. Clearly, that of a skilled workforce in the areas of computers.
Numerous indicators point to this as an issue in today's economy. The Information Technology Association recently stated that 200,000 to 300,000 jobs today are unfilled in the area of information technology because of the labor pool. The Department of Commerce recently stated that within the next 10 years, we will see another 1.3 million positions that require the same type of individual go unfilled. We need to address these issues if we are to have a viable economy within this country.
Please let me share with you some information from my university, Mankato State University in Minnesota. Last year in the 1997–1998 pool, we looked at 120 recruiters coming on campus to look for students to fill a total of 2,800 positions. We additionally had 50 to 60 recruiters telephoning in, wanting students to fill positions. We had 94 positions to offer. We had 100 percent placement. But on the other side, if you can take a look and realize that we left 2,700 positions unfilled for those industries.
As we go ahead and take a look at this, I don't believe that a factor in the number of students that are pursuing careers in computer science is a salary issue. If we take a look at the Great State of Minnesota, and what our students are demanding in terms of salaries, we see that they command upwards of $50,000 for bachelor's degrees in computer science. We see now that our graduates are having several offers of different types of perks including signing bonuses, moving expenses being paid, and in addition to that, the latest, their college loans being paid off.
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Now if we're looking to go ahead and increase the pool in terms of graduate students, that is, graduate students both male and female on computer science, if I would leave that to you, what would you rather choose, a job at $50,000 a year or to go on and pursue higher levels of education?
As of the last date, 1994, that I was able to find data or at least relevant data on this issue, it was evident that comparing the issues from the early 1960's through 1994, we saw a peak in the number of computer science graduates in 1986. Since then, that number has gone down, and increasingly we see now, from 1986 to 1994, we've seen a decrease of almost 42 percent in the graduates in the area of computer science.
Now, if we span and look at that a little bit further, we see that was a decrease of 36 percent in the males and over 50 percent in the females. At first when I saw that statistic, I was questioning. I said this must have something to do with the number of students that are enrolled in our colleges and universities. I went back and took a look at that.
Out of the number of students that were enrolled in 1989, we were drawing, computer science as a whole, was drawing 3 percent of that population into our undergraduate programs. Now we're just trying to squeak by at 2 percent.
So it's not the number of students that are in the pool, it is what is happening with those students. Why aren't we drawing them to computer science? Now, as indicated from these statistics, we cannot be content just to say that we want to look at one-half of the population. We need both halves of our population to go strong and to be committed to this problem.
It's quite perplexing to me why women have not entered into the area of computer science. I've looked at three areas that have been male dominated. First, at law. Well, look at law degrees. We're looking at over 50 percent of the graduates in law school today being women. I looked at medicine. Forty percent of the class of 1998, in terms of medical schools, is women.
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I went and I looked at business. We look at IBM, as an example. They've targeted women as being their number one resource for the maximum number of new businesses started each year. They are averaging at 1,400 new businesses each day are being started by women.
To me, I would think that computer science might be a very enviable spot to be in. Telecommuting might be an example. What better ways to be able to continue your family at home and be able to commute via network capabilities.
To be successful in these aforementioned areas, law, medicine, and looking at the last area of course of business, women need to be able to solve problems analytically, they need to be able to handle complex technology, and to communicate with others.
Those are the same skills that I find necessary for those majoring in computer science.
There've been several trends that have been identified. The AAUW has done considerable amount of work on this, the American Association of University Women.
The NSF has looked at these issues, and this is not something new, the issues that we're here talking about today.
We've gone ahead and identified several areas that have seemed to be roadblocks in the past for women in science. We've looked at the achievement in the high school curriculum. We've looked at areas of self-esteem. We've looked at girls' attitudes towards science and math. We've looked at their achievement in science and math.
We've looked at mentoring. We've looked at the influence of the adults in their lives, their individuals, the teachers, the parents that spur them on in these areas. I look at myself, and I'm thinking, you know, I must not have gotten all of this a long time ago. Because when I was in high school, and of course, I went to an all-girls' high school, my graduating class was 107 young ladies, young women, I must have not gotten this.
Because I dearly love biology. I dearly love math. And I dearly love computer science. But if I look back at what spurred me into those careers, I have to go ahead and agree with the two previous speakers; there were people there that mentored, there were people there that cared, and they were role models for me.
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And more importantly, no one ever said, you can't do this. If anything, they were role models to spur me on.
Are computer programming classes being taught in high schools today? Are they being taught by qualified individuals? Is there something that counselors or instructors can do in a high school level to go on and spur this issue?
As some of you have expressed with your daughters, I too have an 18-year-old, and she is planning to major in engineering and/or computer science, which is rather interesting.
But a group of her friends were over the other evening and I asked them, you know, they are bright young ladies, they're in the AP advanced placement calculus courses, they're in the advanced placement chemistry courses, they're in the advanced biology courses. And I said, you know, why haven't you, you know, what do you think about computer science.
And the thought was what do you do. What do people in that field do? And I'm thinking, you know, you need to come and spend some time with me, and I'll make sure that we're okay on that.
We have a programming, and our school is fortunate to have, a single programming class. It had only the last quarter or last semester, 10 people enrolled in it. One girl, our daughter.
What are we doing in that area to promote both young men and young women to look at that career choice? Do students associate computer science with application software or surfing the Web?
I do a fair amount of undergraduate advising for incoming freshmen at our university. And many of those students that are coming to us in the area of computer science, the first question I'll ask them is why do you want to go into computer science. And they'll say, well, you know, I kind of like word processing and surfing the Net.
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I don't think we've gotten our message out. I don't think we, in the area of computer science, have gotten our message out in terms of opportunities and exactly what we do to promote our case.
If we want our Nation to meet the real needs of the future growth, it's time that we take these issues and find out what's behind them.
I support, without reservation, this bill, which would establish a commission to investigate these very issues.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement and attachments of Ms. Quade follow:]
Insert offset folios 31-40
Mrs. MORELLA. Thank you very much, Dr. Quade.
You all are role models and I can see the mentoring you do is just extraordinary.
And I'm now pleased to recognize Monica Moman-Saunders, who is a professional engineer.
I just met with some professional engineers before this hearing who are pushing the ISTEA, the Transportation Bill, obviously.
Delighted to have you here.
TESTIMONY OF MONICA MOMAN-SAUNDERS, P.E., LOUISVILLE GAS AND ELECTRIC COMPANY, GROUP LEADER, ENGINEERING AND DESIGN, REPRESENTING AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR MECHANICAL ENGINEERS, WASHINGTON, DC
Ms. MOMAN-SAUNDERS. Thank you.
Madam Chairwoman, Chairman Pickering, and members of the Subcommittees, my name is Monica Moman-Saunders, and I'm a volunteer member of the Board of Minorities and Women of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers.
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I also work as a group leader of engineering and design for Louisville Gas and Electric Company in Louisville, Kentucky. I appear before you today on behalf of the ASME, Board on Minorities and Women.
We, along with the American Chemical Society, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, USA, and the American Association of Engineering Societies to support H.R. 3007, and Advancement of Women in Science, Engineering, and Technology Act.
The ASME Board on Minorities and Women believes that the Commission envisioned by this legislation can play a critical role in identifying barriers to the recruitment, retention, and advancement of women in engineering workforce.
And more importantly, provide recommendations and identify models of success that can be applied to academia, government, and industry. Even though a considerable amount of work has been done in this area, there is still a clear problem that must be addressed.
The Commission should draw upon the resources of other groups and coordinate its efforts with those that are on-going. In 1996, the NSF reported that women remained more underrepresented in engineering than any other field. Some progress has been made. Since 1983, the number of women engineers has risen from 5.8 percent to almost 10 percent today.
But in mechanical engineering, women comprise only 6 percent of the profession. By comparison, women comprise 29 percent of lawyers and 57 percent of accountants in today's workforce.
In the 1996–1997 academic year, 19 percent of all engineering bachelors' and masters' degrees went to women, compared to 3.4 percent 20 years ago. However, more still needs to be done to recruit and retain women in the field of engineering.
ASME recently completed a study to determine whether real or perceived barriers exist that inhibit the participation of women and minorities in the Society.
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The study determined that mentoring and outreach are critically important in attracting and retaining women engineers. The importance of mentoring is echoed in other reports and studies on women in the engineering and scientific workforce.
Mentoring may be particularly important for women engineering students and young women engineers, where attrition from the engineering profession is a concern. Therefore, ASME's Board on Minorities and Women supports your effort to implement H.R. 3007 and applauds Congresswoman Morella and the Subcommittees for holding this hearing. This ends my prepared remarks on behalf of ASME.
I would now like to add a few personal comments about women in the technical fields. First, girls must start preparing early to move into these fields, and efforts must be made to increase their awareness of technical profession.
There's a television program called ''Bill Nye, the Science Guy.'' This is an excellent program. But we need one such as Kate Sal, the Engineering Gal.
[Laughter.]
Ms. MOMAN-SAUNDERS. We need to work with existing programs like junior achievement to introduce science, engineering, and technology into grade levels into the school system.
We also need to ensure that our teachers and counselors are familiar with technical careers.
My engineering education was an eye-opening experience. I was a top scholar in high school, but I was not prepared for the male-dominated environment I encountered in college.
As I moved through my college years, the number of women in my math and engineering classes dropped significantly.
I often wondered what happened to the other students. Why in my graduating class was there less than 2 percent women.
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Women often face barriers in the workplace also. Whether they are implied or real, they still exist.
Let me cite a few examples.
As a woman, I sometimes felt excluded from informal conversations where a lot of important information is shared. I call this the golf course syndrome.
Early in my career, I had to fight hard, harder than my male colleagues to be given the more complex career-building jobs.
When I look back now, I wonder why I had to be more persistent and more aggressive to achieve the same level of responsibility.
Also, I have observed many situations where the technical opinions of women are discounted or ignored. This can be very frustrating and discouraging.
And companies will continue to waste money and time until the opinions of all players on the team are valued.
H.R. 3007 may not change the attitude of some people working in technical areas, but it should increase the awareness of the problems that exist today.
As a female working in industry, and the mother of a 3-year-old daughter, who is a potential engineer, I am hopeful that this will change.
Because I look forward to the day when I can attend a technical symposium where the ratio of men to women is not 100 to 1.
I look forward to the day when I can attend a technical conference and not be mistaken as staff or the wife of a volunteer.
And I look forward to the day when the technical fields are truly diverse.
Thank you very much for this opportunity.
[The prepared statement and attachments of Ms. Moman-Saunders follow:]
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Mrs. MORELLA. Thank you very much, Dr. Moman-Saunders.
I think it's a great idea to have Kate Sal, the Engineering Gal. You know, Bill Nye was just here the other day. We did a hearing on math and science and I posed the very question to him, as a matter of fact, about, you know, how did he feel about women being involved.
He cited some of the same things that you have in terms of how somewhere along the line, they seem to be discouraged, and he thought it was critically important that we look ahead in terms of bringing them in.
And I guess that gets me to one of the points, and that is the need for education of the teachers all along the way.
One of the areas that we're also working on in this Committee is teacher technology training.
If you can have the teachers—and many of them are women because of the, you know, the traditions that we've had—if you can get them to feel comfortable with teaching math, science, what leads to engineering, computer science, then they're going to be able to use the mechanisms they have and the techniques far more effectively and inspire the young women.
Sometimes it's women who don't inspire young women. They are the ones who sort of stereotype them into well, you know, you want to go into this particular track or you should, or it's not very feminine or not very nice, or you'll never get a husband that way, or whatever.
So I guess you would agree, from your nodding, that is one of the problems.
And then another one is, it seems to me, coming through from what you have said is, the sense that if you do make it all the way, you're not discouraged, you're one of the few people majoring in it, they're dropping out of your education classes, but then you make it, and all of a sudden you're like isolated, you're like a hostage because you're different.
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And that, I think, from what I have read and discussed with people, is another reason why women drop out. It isn't really for family reasons, and they may say that, but it's that they don't stay with it necessarily, and then upward mobility doesn't come.
And I do know the real deficit. There was a report that just came out, like the real deficit information technology workers, and two-thirds of the new entries into the work force in the Year 2000 are going to be women and minorities.
And so this is a resource that we really haven't looked at.
In addition, Dr. Quade, to computer science is that whole sense of computer security. I launched a conference yesterday on computer security and we're just not training people. We're not training men as well as women, but very, very few women involved in that, and I think it's a whole area that we need to do more in. We offered fellowships in a computer security bill which hasn't passed the Senate, but passed the House, in terms of trying to inspire more people in that.
But I guess what I want to, going through all of that, to allow my colleagues to be able to have time to ask questions, can you give me like one good reason why you think this bill is effective in moving us forward?
We all have the same objectives, but what is it within the bill that you think is particularly effective?
Why do you support it.
And maybe I'll start off with you, Dr. Leong-Hong.
Ms. LEONG-HONG. Well, in researching for this testimony, I became aware, painfully aware, of how much we don't know about women in scientific careers.
We have a lot of descriptive statistics, but little in the way of knowing about abilities, motivations, disincentives and other underlying factors.
We don't even know if there's a problem or not.
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Just like things that happened to me during the early days of my career. I took those instances as things that were happening perhaps because I didn't agree with my boss, or because he had another agenda.
But as I go on and I talk to other women in science and technology, and very specifically in the computer sciences field, I find that my early experiences were not isolated, and that in fact there is some sort of a trend.
But there isn't, there haven't been many studies done in those kinds of disincentives, those kinds of attitudinal type of issues.
And so I think that the Commission could help clear the air, at the very least, on what's going on in our schools, in our companies, and in the government too, with regard to the participation of women in the scientific and engineering fields.
So this is the reason why I very specifically, and my organization in particular, are very supportive of your bill, and we hope that this will pass, and we'll support you in any way that we can.
Mrs. MORELLA. Thank you.
Ms. Didion?
Ms. DIDION. I think the important thing about H.R. 3007 are two factors.
First, to build on what was just stated, was that often data is not collected, but when it is, it's often collected in such a way that it's really not meaningful.
Rarely can you get good data that's been broken out by gender or race. Rarely can you tell there's been a focus on attraction, how to get young women interested in the sciences, but not in retention.
And unless you look in terms of a lifespan career, whatever great attractions you have, unless you are retaining the students, they're not very effective.
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So I think just having the information, having the agencies work together on collecting the data would be very, very important because data can be very powerful, can be very persuasive.
In many cases, even within the National Institutes of Health, data has been used to support and help address issues with women in science when they looked at promotion rates and tenure rates and salary levels.
The second thing is I think is that there are some effective mechanisms that exist out there, but they're not very visible, and I think having the knowledge of what works, and having some mechanisms of sharing that it works, so that you don't have agencies and institutions struggling with what do we do, but they have models that they can replicate and copy is cost and time effective.
And then the third is that I think there's a recognition that we're all in this together. That this is a concern that impacts this Nation, industry, academia and government, and that we need to encourage more crosscutting measures.
And I think that that can be done effectively with a commission that has explained in more of a large picture what the issues are.
Mrs. MORELLA. Thank you. Well said.
Dr. Quade?
Ms. QUADE. A couple of issues come to mind.
In researching for this presentation, I was constantly searching for the word ''computer science'' computer science, computer science. And I only found two things, science and math.
Girls in science, girls in math. Girls in science, girls in math.
Boys in science, boys in math.
So I asked myself, well, if you are in computer science, what are you in? Are you in science or are you in math?
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And I was forced to have to make a distinction and I haven't found anything in the literature that even addresses the issue of computer science, computer information science, any of the related issues that deal strategically with our Nation in a crisis mode right today.
It isn't there.
And in looking at this bill in terms of what I would like to see and what the major components of it are for me is, first of all, let's see some work done in the area of computer science. Let's use that as a focal point.
Let's not just look at math, let's not just look at science, but let's look at that area of computer science.
And once we have that starting point, perhaps then we can more effectively put into place other kinds of things in our high school environments or perhaps middle school or even elementary school that would go ahead and aid us in that cause.
Another point, Chairwoman Morella, that you just made, and that is the idea of computer security. The totally new environment that computers are taking us to, whether it's data warehousing, whether it's computer security, whether it's encryption, all of the new fields that we're constantly being bombarded with, we need to make sure that we understand what they are, and we need to be able to get that message out to the people, to our students who are going to be our source to fill those positions.
That is what I see as the benefit to me.
Thank you.
Mrs. MORELLA. Thank you very much.
We include within technology the concept of computer technology. Thank you.
Ms. Moman-Saunders?
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Ms. MOMAN-SAUNDERS. I see this bill, I see that this bill will lay the groundwork for change. If it does just one thing, I think it has the ability to increase the awareness of everybody. It's awfully important.
One other thing, you mentioned that if we could possibly better educate our teachers and our counselors so they will not tend to discourage our girls to not major in engineering later on. Through this bill I think we can come about, we can have a better mentoring program. I also see we can use this bill as a way to market technical science and engineering professions as being something that is fun to do, because it really is. And somewhere along the way, our girls are discouraged or they think that I can't do engineering, it's not fun anyway.
And I'm here to tell you that it really can be fun because I enjoy being an engineer.
Mrs. MORELLA. That's splendid.
I am now going to recognize Mrs. Bernice Johnson.
Ms. JOHNSON of Texas. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. You know, I have been fairly active since the early 1970's with various programs, trying to encourage women and minorities to enter into these areas.
We've been over the fact that many become discouraged and leave the field. There is a 1994 National Research Council report called Women Scientists and Engineers Employed in the Industry, Why So Few?
It primarily cites work environment issues as a key element in retaining women in the science and engineering workforce. Inasmuch as we have all pointed out now that coming very soon, the majority of the people in the workforce will be women and minorities, what role can the Federal Government play in encouraging the private sector to adopt a more family-friendly work environment, and do you think that will help?
I mean, women will always be the people that give birth to children in a certain age period in which they do that, and then after that's over—but during that period, it's usually shortly after they have completed college, at a time when most of them are entering into professions, you know, from their beginning.
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And it has to be some consideration for that. It's something that's very natural. In fields where there is very little tolerance usually will not keep women involved.
Ms. MOMAN-SAUNDERS. I have to agree with you. I'll address that.
You cited work environment issues, and what role can government play?
Ms. JOHNSON of Texas. Play in encouraging the private sector.
Ms. MOMAN-SAUNDERS. Industry and the private sector?
Ms. JOHNSON of Texas. Yes. Or, is there a role?
Ms. MOMAN-SAUNDERS. You know, I have struggled with that question myself. What role can government play, because you can't mandate private industry to do any particular——
Mrs. MORELLA. Why don't you move the microphone closer? Great.
Ms. MOMAN-SAUNDERS. Thank you. I think that just by—it goes back to the awareness issue. If you put these studies out and you can just raise the awareness, because, as I stated, I don't think the bill can change the attitude of a lot of people out there.
But what we can do is change the attitude of people to come. I may not be the beneficiary of this bill, but maybe the girls coming along behind me, the females behind me may be the beneficiaries of the bill.
Somewhere along the way, we have to change the attitudes. If we do the—if the bill passes, and the study is done and is made public, hopefully industries will look at it, and somewhere along the way, I just feel that it will definitely increase the awareness, and, somewhere along the line, change the attitudes.
Ms. DIDION. I had a quick comment I wanted to make.
I would argue actually for a stronger language than encourage. I agree, but I actually think there's a lot of federal regulation that can even be enforced more.
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Let me just give you two quick examples: The last decade was the decade of the brain. NIH and several other agencies funded lots of conferences and research that was done.
In fact, the largest conference, which was given in Europe, was a conference on the decade of the brain. It included many neuroscientists and biologists, of which we agreed, was a fair representation of women scientists there. Not one woman scientist spoke at the podium in the entire conference. Yet our federal dollars funded that conference.
And there has been some activity within the National Science Foundation and elsewhere to argue that there should be appropriate, not mandated, not quotas, but appropriate representation of women and minorities at federally-funded conferences and research.
I have talked to pharmaceutical companies. They watch very closely what NIH does in terms of the tone of who is on the committees, who is on the study sections? How is that stated?
So, I think there are ways that we don't realize our dollars are expended towards research and education that it's not only what science is being done, but who is the science for?
The science research is for our public. You know, we work on behalf of public and our constituents.
If we don't have them represented in the science that we do, then we wonder why they don't—they come and say what is the value of this support? There has to be more of that connection.
The second thing that I think is really important is that there has to be a realization that for both men and women, that's why I don't want this to become a women's issue, that both men and women have to have an opportunity to go what I call not full throttle on their career.
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More agencies are becoming better about allowing more regulations and relaxing in terms of career advancement and having flex time and having, you know, child care facilities.
But in most federal agencies, it's up to your supervisor to approve it. And so that there are still a lot of instances where technically the laws are on the book, but the ability to say not only is it sanctioned, but it's approved.
NIH right now has a reentry program, a mentoring program for scientists who have left the career and have come back in. There are men and women who are now taking advantage of that program. We need more of them.
Ms. LEONG-HONG. I would like to add on to what has already been said.
I think that in a number of areas, the Federal Government can help. In the area of awareness programs, I think a helping put in place an awareness program about the fun part of being in science and technology, but also to encourage women to enter the field and to stay in the field.
Second, to provide incentive for companies to sponsor women in studying for scientific careers or who retain women in the scientific careers; third, it may also be beneficial to reward educational institutions that provide assistance to women who pursue scientific career fields.
Last, in the grant area, it's come to my attention that women receive a very small percentage of grants that are given for research and development in the sciences and technologies.
Ms. JOHNSON of Texas. Thank you.
Mrs. MORELLA. Thank you. Those are very good answers.
You know, during the reauthorization of the Elementary Education Act, actually I had legislation that was incorporated within it that would allow, under the Eisenhower Program, math and science program, that there would be some workshops to try to sensitize teachers about the kind of role that they play in promoting and encouraging females in math and science, and we should add now, technology.
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I'd like to recognize Mr. Gutknecht.
Mr. GUTKNECHT. Thank you again, Madam Chairwoman. This has been very interesting.
My only regret is that when we had the science guy here last week, we had C-SPAN. Unfortunately, C-SPAN isn't here today.
As I have listened to this, I really think it is unfortunate that what we really need to do is just publicize people like you.
Professor Quade, one of the things I think I'm going to do is write to Dr. Rush and at least encourage him to allow you time off to go out and meet with school students around the State of Minnesota.
I say that not because you probably need more to do, but I think that just going out to schools and just telling people what you've told us here today, about the opportunities that are out there, not only for young women but for young men as well, but I think in the fact that a woman would come and tell the story, it's seems to me is a powerful indicator.
I say this in part because I have a daughter myself who was very, very good in math, and she's a junior in college now. She's an accounting major.
I tried to explain to her how many opportunities there were in computer science and math, and least sort of pushed her in the direction of being a math major.
One of the things she said—and maybe I can't say this in front of this distinguished panel—is, when she was in high school, she was very good in math, but she didn't want to be seen as a math nerd. I don't know if you've ever heard that term before.
Ms. QUADE. Yes.
Mr. GUTKNECHT. But that's a concern, too. I think that somehow we have to break through some of those stereotypes. Second, she really didn't know, and frankly I didn't know what to tell her, you know, what do math majors do? What do computer science people do?
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That's unfortunate living in Rochester, because we have an awful lot of computer science people who live and work next door to us who work in that Big Blue Zoo at IBM and we don't know what they do. Unfortunately, they don't let many people come in and see what they do.
That's another thing, it seems to me, we have to do, is get industry to open up more to students. There has been a great concern, I think, in the past—and maybe rightfully so; I don't rightly know—particularly where there is a lot of research going on, that they don't want to show too much of what they really do.
But those walls are starting to come down as well. But my only comment, and perhaps any of you can respond to it, is, is there anything we can do—and I do love the comments about NIH. It seems to me that we ought to, Madam Chairwoman, if that bill comes through our Committee for reauthorization, we ought to at least at some point find that provision, and behind it just put at least an asterisk where we say we really mean it, just to remind them of the importance.
Again, not in terms of a quota basis, but encouraging them to put women out front where they can be seen and heard. I think that's a good idea.
But in terms of getting more people like you out in front of students, to at least make them aware of the enormous opportunities that are out there—frankly, I've heard a lot about the cellular technology program, but I have not heard that much about—this was news to me about all the opportunities that are available at Mankato State computer science.
What can we do? Is there something we can do from a policymaking standpoint? Maybe make available some stipends or earmark some money through some of the various science appropriations that come through this Committee?
Are there little things we can do to help push that along to get people out in front of students and so forth?
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Ms. QUADE. Just making that statement is great. I think that's the first step.
Another kind of an interesting idea that's been spinning for some time in my mind is, you know, in our computer science program, successful computer science programs or technology programs at the undergraduate level throughout our country have internships that are available for students. It's a great opportunity for students to get involved and see, towards their junior or senior year, what's happening in their area, in their discipline.
What's wrong with encouraging partnerships with business into the schools? Can't we start to look at some kinds of internship possibilities in a high school level? Isn't that something that we could do, summer types of internships, some type of a commitment at that level from business to try to get students who are actually looking for something to do during the summer, who perhaps are looking for some type of a small stipend to get involved in those kinds of programs?
It would be a good foot in the door. It would solve two problems: First of all, getting the student interested in the organization, in the business; and, second, getting the business interested in the educational process.
Mr. GUTKNECHT. Anybody else? I'm taking notes here.
Ms. DIDION. I think the other area that's of critical importance—and I would argue that you start at the junior high level—it would be career exploration.
I have a 12-year old daughter who has seen Titanic three times. I'm sure I'm not the only one who has this.
Yet, you know, a lot of what they know about the Titanic was done by the Alvin Submarine. There has been no connection of the science behind the whole movie.
Like, I have met many young children who are interested in environmental careers. But they don't understand the critical importance of mathematics in terms of modeling or chemistry to that.
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So, career exploration, I think, would be a wonderful component to do that.
One of the things that we've been talking about in addition to internships is actually giving opportunities to shadow for short-term, like a shadow program of a week nature or something.
I actually participated in one program. I'm not exaggerating, the young girls who were 12 and 13 surrounded the woman with pencil and paper and said, what is the name of your job?
It was like, I have to know now, because I may never get the chance. I'm going to go home and tell mom and dad, I know what I want to be now.
So, I think the opportunity to have some type of shadowing program that can be sponsored along with the internships, maybe of a short term would really help. I think that career exploration—young students don't really understand what they can do, so it's hard for them to make those connections.
Unfortunately, in many cases, the faculty or the teachers don't know either.
Ms. LEONG-HONG. I'd like to add to that also. A few years ago I was asked to serve as a judge on a high school science fair here in Fairfax County.
One of the things that absolutely amazed me was the level of knowledge and expertise of these very young high school students. At that point in time, I wish I had summer internship jobs that I could handed out to these kids.
A couple of the kids that I found absolutely remarkable had actually sent me e-mails later on. Because of where I work, there were some very definite timeframe in which you had to apply for scholarships and so forth, I couldn't give them a scholarship.
But ever since then, I have been talking to business partners to see if they would partner with the association that I was representing to give a stipend or a summer internship.
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Now, it would be a wonderful idea to follow on with the idea that Professor Quade had just proposed, if your Committee could provide or form a partnership with industry and provide Congressional scientific, and technical internships for kids.
Certainly we have them for public administration, for public affairs and public policy issues, but we don't have it for the scientific and the technical fields, and I think this would be a wonderful idea.
Ms. QUADE. We're seeing also that in many of the companies that come on campus to recruit, that they would rather try to sponsor students along the line than pay the money for a headhunter to be able to go out and find them. That's kind of what we're trying to build here, is some type of a rapport and some type of relationship.
I think it would be very—I think that business, approached appropriately, would be very receptive to that idea.
Mr. GUTKNECHT. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman.
Mrs. MORELLA. Very interesting comments.
Mr. Ehlers?
Mr. EHLERS. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. Unfortunately, I was pulled out for several meetings in the anteroom, and I would not feel right about asking questions at this point. Thank you for the opportunity.
Mrs. MORELLA. Mr. Bartlett, I saw you down there listening, taking notes. I'm delighted to recognize you for questioning.
Mr. BARTLETT. Thank you very much. I really appreciated the testimony, probably because of my background. Dr. Ehlers and I are the two scientists in Congress.
I started a basic science career. I ended up with about 100 papers published. Then I moved to the engineering world and was awarded 20 patents. So in a former life, I've had opportunities to work in both science and in engineering.
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One of the jobs I held in science was at IBM where I worked for 8 years. While I was there working for IBM, we knew at IBM that we in IBM and the United States was probably going to lose its superiority in computers to Japan.
The reason we knew that was because every year Japan turned out more and better scientists, mathematicians, and engineers than we did, than we were in this country. And it was obvious to us at IBM that if that continued—and it did continue—that it was inevitable that IBM and the United States was at risk of losing its superiority in computers.
I have been a strong supporter of high tech activities. I support the Space Station. I supported the Superconducting Supercollider. I thought that it was—how great it would have been if we could have provided just the missing link that Stephen Hawkings needs to synthesize his mathematical coordination of synthesis of some of the great mysteries of the universe.
I think we need these high tech activities that capture the imagination of our people, and very importantly inspire young people to go into these activities.
That happened back when we had this new frontier, the 10 years of putting a man on the moon. Young people by the droves were attracted to science, math, and engineering.
We need something today to do that. As you very appropriately pointed out, the big deficit here is women. We have too few men going into science, math, and engineering, and far, far too few women going into these skills.
The fact that a future commander of a space shuttle will be a woman, I think, will do more than any government study could do to challenge women to go into careers of science, math, and engineering.
Because we have such a dearth of our bright young minds going into these fields, we clearly need to challenge women to go into these fields as well as more men to go into these fields.
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I think I'd like to associate myself with the remarks of my colleague, Congressman Gutknecht, that what we need most are appropriate role models. I'm also sorry that C-SPAN is not here today because what our young people need to see is you all.
What we need is to know how we can expose you and many other women like you to our young people so that they will see that there is, indeed, a challenge, a role for women in these disciplines.
I think that Golda Meir and Margaret Thatcher did more to convince women that they had a future in politics and government than any government study could possibly have done. We still don't have enough women in government and politics, but it is improving.
Monica Moman-Saunders mentioned changing attitudes. I think that what will change attitudes most effectively are role models, not more government studies. In thinking about these attitudes, I remember the experience of our youngest son who is working on his doctorate in chemical engineering at Carnegie Mellon.
When he met a girl that he dated who finally became his wife, she disguised the fact that she was a straight-A student, because she felt that Ross wouldn't be interested in her if—she didn't know Ross very well—that Ross wouldn't be interested in her if he knew that she was as smart or smarter than he was.
So, we really do need a change in attitudes, don't we?
And, you know, her experience testifies to, I think, the experience of many, many girls. Gill mentioned that his daughter didn't want to be thought of as a math nerd. Society is party responsible for the fact that we don't have more women—maybe largely responsible for the fact that we don't have more women in these areas.
We really do need to change attitudes. What we need, and I know what you want, is a level playing field with no discrimination. If what this study ends up with is more federal bureaucracy and more central control, then we will have failed.
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Let me mention a couple of concerns I have with legislation like this and where it could lead. We certainly do want more diversity in the workforce. If in promoting this we do something which is clearly antithetical to the principle of promotion and recruitment on the basis of merit, then we've done women and every other worker a disservice.
Clearly, the laboratory and the workplace should be composed of the best scientists, mathematicians and engineers, not of some artificial gender ratio developed to promote diversity. So we have to be very careful that the results of legislation of this is not some artificial quota.
It's also unclear why we should need to sensitize employers. The last thing the Federal Government ought to be in, from my perspective, is socially reengineering our society.
Employers should be sensitive to the demands of business and research. Employers need to recruit and retain the brightest and most qualified scientists, engineers and computer specialists.
To that end, the women that qualify for these positions should receive these positions with no bias or discrimination. And there is today, still some bias and discrimination because women are not thought of as being competitive in fields that have traditionally been masculine fields, as all of you pointed out—science, math, and engineering.
Third, there are many problems in our education system. These need to be solved at the local level, not by the Federal Government.
I still would like to identify myself with the remarks of my colleague, Gill Gutknecht. The best solution to the problem that we all recognize is you, and getting you out in front of the public helps us understand how we can help to—and there are many, many great role models for women out there. It's just that our young people are not exposed to you.
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What can we do to help you be more visible to more of our young people so that more of our girls—and, by the way, our girls start out being much brighter, apparently much brighter and smarter in grade school. They make better grades than the boys, they work harder.
And if we can challenge them and get them captured at that point in their education, I think we're going to see women competing at least equally, and perhaps more competitively with men.
What can we do to help get more exposure for you and other role models like you?
Ms. DIDION. May I just make a quick comment? I agree with a lot of what you're saying, and my interpretation of the legislation is that it doesn't conflict with that.
But one particular note. We have a national network of 76 chapters. And the local level is imperative to do the outreach. But what we can provide the local level is to provide them resources, materials, mechanisms so that they can do the outreach, they can be the role models.
And I think often what can happen is that if there is an opportunity to have knowledge, whether it be a database, whether it be a collection of resources, whether it be knowledge of existing programs that are out there, or some sense of what even is an effective program, that these are efforts that scarce local resources should be poured into, that helps the local level.
We have had programs in Michigan and Alaska, West Virginia, throughout the United States that have been very, very effective at the local level.
But what we've allowed them to do is to really focus on that local level in a way they can share.
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The second thing that's exciting I see that happens in many cases is that particularly with employers, is you're right, that's their job to figure out who they should hire. But I think in many cases what happens is that—and none of us what quotas. We all want to be hired on the basis of merit.
But I love scientists who tell me how that's scientists' objective, that there are no biases, but we all, for a variety of different reasons, bring our bias to the table. We all make assumptions about what we have as experience as being the experience for all.
And I think partnerships and having, for instance—I'm facilitating right now with the Department of Commerce, IBM, and Merck, and actually IBM and Merck are right now interacting about sharing what works well at IBM that Merck can copy in terms of hiring and keeping women and minority scientists.
That happened because of some initiatives of the Department of Commerce. So I think that the things we can share without necessarily creating any bureaucracy or structure, it's more informational.
I think that in that way information can be very useful. Mr. BARTLETT. What we are challenged with here is really very important to our future. To the extent that we fail in recruiting adequate scientists, mathematicians, and engineers, we risk our economic competitiveness, because it's very clear that we're going to have trouble being economically competitive with countries that are doing a better job of educating their young people in these very important disciplines than we are.
Ultimately, it threatens our national security, because we will not continue to have the best weapons systems in the world if we do not have the best scientists, mathematicians, and engineers in the world.
So the challenge that you bring to us is a very important one. And we are failing to fill those needed slots, and to the extent that we can inspire women, we're going to do a better job of filling those slots that will ensure our economic survival and our national security as well.
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Thank you very much for your testimony.
Mrs. MORELLA. It's a pleasure having Mr. Bartlett on this Committee because he sometimes poses things that need to be posed.
I want to assure him as you have, that there are no quotas being established in this bill at all, and no government bureaucracy is intended. It is going to pull together all of the information that may be out there that looks to why are they not staying with it, why are they not getting into it at all? What happens ultimately then with mobility, too, even upward mobility?
So all of that would be looked at with the two-pronged approach, with the Commission and then looking at the National Science Foundation for its part of it. Where they already have some basic material, they'll just be expanding that kind of basic material.
I think it's a partnership, as you mentioned; I really do. I think that employers have a role to play, too, not being mandated by law, but whether it's through internships, whether it's through family-friendly workplace policy which helps men as well as it's going to help women, telecommuting, whatever it may be.
I also think about the media. You know, we don't talk about that, but I was thinking of it as you were discussing the issue. The media have a role, too.
Why can't the media begin to show that engineer gal, or programs of that nature. They could serve a function, too, where they spotlight and show that this is pretty desirable to be a woman who is in a field like that.
I think the mentoring that Mr. Bartlett also brought up obviously is important. Wherever you've got women—I can—you know, there's a law school nearby, American University Law School, founded by women for women. It was only like a decade ago that they started really having women as law students, and now they have women who are law professors as well as law students. They're like 51 percent.
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The same thing is happening, as was mentioned, in medicine. Somehow we have lagged behind when it came to the hard sciences.
Now we talk about you look at statistics and you're going to see that some of those life sciences, which are the NIH sciences kind of thing, biology, you're going to see a higher percentage than you see in some of the other sciences.
There are a number of internships in that regard. We're very grateful for those, but I think there could be more in the other sciences and thinking of computer science. That's where we've got to do a lot of the filling in.
So, I think that it's something that we all have to work together on. It's not going to be a giant step overnight, but this bill, I think, helps pull things together.
You know, it's really an advancement or a progression from a bill in—I think it was two sessions ago that I introduced—didn't have the technology part of it then. But it passed the House but never got out of the Senate.
So now we have changed it. We've crafted it so it reflects what we think can be done easily. And in terms of looking at what our statistics are with women in these fields, what we can learn, what is working.
Those will be recommendations for all of society. If Mr. Bartlett doesn't have any other questions then, are there any final comments that any of you would like to make?
[No response.]
Mrs. MORELLA. After it goes through these Subcommittees and the Full Committee, it would then be jointly referred to the Education and Workforce Committee, and I hope that you will also follow through with enlightening people about the value of it, and that it's no enormous problem. It's just simply something that should pass that is going to begin to plan a course of action for us to take for the benefit of our whole country.
That being the case, I want to thank you all for being with us. Dr. Leong-Hong, and Ms. Didion, Dr. Quade, Dr. Moman-Saunders. I never know whether it's Doctor or not, but to me, you're all doctors because you're trying to cure an ailment.
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So, thank you all very much. The Committee is now adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 3:46 p.m., the hearing was adjourned.]
48–824CC
1998
A REVIEW OF H.R. 3007, THE ADVANCEMENT OF WOMEN IN SCIENCE, ENGINEERING, AND TECHNOLOGY DEVELOPMENT ACT
HEARING
BEFORE THE
COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON TECHNOLOGY
AND
SUBCOMMITTEE ON BASIC RESEARCH
U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED FIFTH CONGRESS
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SECOND SESSION
MARCH 10, 1998
[No. XX]
Printed for the use of the Committee on Science
COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE
F. JAMES SENSENBRENNER, Jr., Wisconsin, Chairman
SHERWOOD L. BOEHLERT, New York
HARRIS W. FAWELL, Illinois
CONSTANCE A. MORELLA, Maryland
CURT WELDON, Pennsylvania
DANA ROHRABACHER, California
STEVEN SCHIFF, New Mexico
JOE BARTON, Texas
KEN CALVERT, California
ROSCOE G. BARTLETT, Maryland
VERNON J. EHLERS, Michigan**
DAVE WELDON, Florida
MATT SALMON, Arizona
THOMAS M. DAVIS, Virginia
GIL GUTKNECHT, Minnesota
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MARK FOLEY, Florida
THOMAS W. EWING, Illinois
CHARLES W. ''CHIP'' PICKERING, Mississippi
CHRIS CANNON, Utah
KEVIN BRADY, Texas
MERRILL COOK, Utah
PHIL ENGLISH, Pennsylvania
GEORGE R. NETHERCUTT, JR., Washington
TOM A. COBURN, Oklahoma
PETE SESSIONS, Texas
GEORGE E. BROWN, Jr., California RMM*
RALPH M. HALL, Texas
BART GORDON, Tennessee
JAMES A. TRAFICANT, Jr., Ohio
TIM ROEMER, Indiana
JAMES A. BARCIA, Michigan
PAUL McHALE, Pennsylvania
EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas
ALCEE L. HASTINGS, Florida
LYNN N. RIVERS, Michigan
ZOE LOFGREN, California
MICHAEL F. DOYLE, Pennsylvania
SHEILA JACKSON LEE, Texas
BILL LUTHER, Minnesota
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DEBBIE STABENOW, Michigan
BOB ETHERIDGE, North Carolina
NICK LAMPSON, Texas
DARLENE HOOLEY, Oregon
ELLEN O. TAUSCHER, California
VACANCY
VACANCY
TODD R. SCHULTZ, Chief of Staff
BARRY C. BERINGER, Chief Counsel
PATRICIA S. SCHWARTZ, Chief Clerk/Administrator
VIVIAN A. TESSIERI, Legislative Clerk
ROBERT E. PALMER, Democratic Staff Director
Subcommittee on Technology
CONSTANCE A. MORELLA, Maryland, Chairwoman
CURT WELDON, Pennsylvania
ROSCOE G. BARTLETT, Maryland
VERNON J. EHLERS, Michigan
THOMAS M. DAVIS, Virginia
GIL GUTKNECHT, Minnesota
THOMAS W. EWING, Illinois
CHRIS CANNON, Utah
KEVIN BRADY, Texas
MERRILL COOK, Utah
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JAMES A. BARCIA, Michigan
BART GORDON, Tennessee
EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas
LYNN N. RIVERS, Michigan
DEBBIE STABENOW, Michigan
PAUL McHALE, Pennsylvania
MICHAEL F. DOYLE, Pennsylvania
ELLEN O. TAUSCHER, California
*Ranking Minority Member
**Vice Chairman
(ii)
Subcommittee on Basic Research
STEVEN SCHIFF, New Mexico, Chairman
SHERWOOD L. BOEHLERT, New York
CONSTANCE A. MORELLA, Maryland
JOE BARTON, Texas
GIL GUTKNECHT, Minnesota
THOMAS W. EWING, Illinois
CHARLES W. ''CHIP'' PICKERING, Mississippi
PETE SESSIONS, Texas
JAMES A. BARCIA, Michigan
BOB ETHERIDGE, North Carolina
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LYNN N. RIVERS, Michigan
SHEILA JACKSON LEE, Texas
BILL LUTHER, Minnesota
WALTER H. CAPPS, California
(iii)
C O N T E N T S
March 10, 1998:
Belkis Leong-Hong, President-elect, Women in Technology, Fairfax, VA
Catherine Didion, Executive Director, Association for Women in Science, Washington, DC
Ann M. Quade, Associate Professor, Department of Computer Science, Mankato State University, Mankato, MN
Monica Moman-Saunders, P.E., Louisville Gas and Electric Company, Group Leader, Engineering and Design, Representing American Society for Mechanical Engineers, Washington, DC
(iv)