黑料门

By Hannah Hepfer

Ariana Grymski knew from a young age that the hard sciences were for her. 鈥淚鈥檝e always loved math,鈥� she said. 鈥淚n kindergarten, I鈥檇 ask my mom to get math books so we could play with them.鈥�

Freshman year of high school, though, she got a B- in the subject. 鈥淚鈥檓 pretty sure I cried,鈥� she said. 鈥淢ath was kind of my thing.鈥� After high school she decided to take a gap year, but didn鈥檛 want to go a full year without studying math so she signed up for a course online.

When she came to 黑料门University Chicago, Grymski instantly felt a connection with Emily Peters, an assistant professor of mathematics and statistics. 鈥淪he gets to know you on a personal level and makes you feel like you鈥檙e doing math with her,鈥� said Grymski, a double math and physics major who expects to graduate in 2020. 鈥淚 love going to her office hours because if you don鈥檛 understand something she鈥檒l do whatever it takes to help you understand, like draw out notes or have you work on the board.鈥�

It wasn鈥檛 until her sophomore year that Grymski discovered physics, and she took to it quickly. By the first month of her junior year, she knew she wanted to major in it. But her love of math has only grown under the guidance of Peters, and she鈥檚 come to enjoy the group work that Peters puts forward in class. 鈥淵ou really have to think about the problems she gives us and one person doesn鈥檛 dominate,鈥� she said. 鈥淲e all have to come up with ideas and help each other.鈥�

A University-wide commitment

Grymski is one of many female students excelling in STEM鈥攕cience, technology, engineering, and mathematics鈥攁t Loyola. On a national level, women tend to be underrepresented in these fields, as the that women comprise 47 percent of the total U.S. workforce but hold only 24 percent of STEM jobs. And , while women earn 57 percent of all undergraduate degrees they make up only 35 percent of undergraduate STEM degree recipients.

Loyola, however, is bucking that trend. A by Emsi and The Wall Street Journal found that 黑料门ranks seventh in the nation among colleges and universities for overall percentage of STEM graduates who are women. Using data from 2015-16, the report found that 344 of 706 STEM graduates at 黑料门鈥攐r 48.7 percent鈥攚ere women, putting the University well above the national average. The report also noted that 黑料门has 鈥渉ad a constant presence at the top of the rankings in recent years.鈥�

STEM programs at 黑料门are incorporated in multiple schools and stretch across undergraduate, graduate, and continuing education programs, with nearly 30 undergraduate degrees and close to 40 graduate and continuing education programs focusing on STEM fields. Most recently, 黑料门launched an engineering science program鈥攚ith specializations in biomedical, computer, and environmental engineering鈥攖o round out the spectrum of STEM offerings.

Loyola鈥檚 attention to STEM topics also extends to the Quinlan School of Business, where four graduate programs are now STEM designated鈥攚ith many of those graduate students being women. Among the roughly 380 students in the Information Systems and Supply Chain Management majors and minors, for example, women actually outnumber men by a 51-49 percent ratio. That鈥檚 due in part to an effort to recruit undecided Quinlan freshman鈥攎any of whom are women鈥攊nto those majors.

鈥淥nce we present to them the opportunities in these majors鈥攖he combination of STEM and social skills needed for success, and the great reputation of our department鈥攖he students become quite interested,鈥� said Nenad Juki膰, director of the Masters of Science in Information Systems Management and Graduate Certificate Programs in Business Data Analytics and Information Systems at Quinlan. 鈥淲e always have special outreach to our female students to explain how these areas are available to them.鈥�

The University鈥檚 commitment also extends to local grade schools, who participate in , a full-day event that brings middle-school girls from Maywood and Melrose Park to Loyola鈥檚 Health Sciences Campus for a day of educational science experiments and learning about women science pioneers. Immunology graduate students Abby Cannon and Anya Nikolai started the initiative as a project of the group that they also founded.

Cannon explained that targeting middle-schoolers was a strategic move in helping young women shape their future careers. 鈥淚nterest in science drops off at this age, so we wanted to target these girls and hopefully help keep up their interest in science as they get closer to high school and college,鈥� she said.

On the Lake Shore Campus, Neha Goel took similar initiative in starting a group to support women interested in coding. Goel, a graduate student fellow in the Center for Textual Studies and Digital Humanities, started Loyola鈥檚 first chapter of . The group, which has chapters at schools around the country, provides a space for young women to learn, teach, and explore coding in an inclusive and supportive environment where they won鈥檛 be treated differently because of their gender.

Willetta Greene-Johnson, a professor in the physics and chemistry departments, agrees that 黑料门is unique in both its numbers and inclusiveness towards women in STEM. She said that only about 20 percent of female students take an interest in the sciences in high school and that usually carries over to college, making the high numbers of women in STEM programs at 黑料门particularly unusual. She credits a culture of distinct professionalism among faculty.

鈥淚 really want to give kudos to Loyola,鈥� she said. 鈥淚鈥檝e had four chairs and no issues over 25 years. They鈥檝e been very respectful. It鈥檚 safe to say that鈥檚 not the typical experience.鈥�

She knows because she鈥檚 lived it. Greene-Johnson recalls gender discrimination as far back as high school, including a time when her 10th grade geometry instructor threw her exam at her and said loudly, 鈥淵ou got the highest grade. Girls aren鈥檛 supposed to be good at math.鈥�

Graduate school was worse. Gender insensitive jokes were exchanged as though she wasn鈥檛 there, conversations among other graduate students or faculty would stop when she walked in the room. And the best internships and scholarships went to male students. But she persevered, becoming the first African American woman in the country to obtain a PhD in theoretical physics.

Now, Greene-Johnson has steadily seen more women entering鈥攁nd thriving鈥攊n the STEM fields, noting that 30-35 percent of chemistry graduate students and nearly 50 percent of undergraduates in the physics department are women. 鈥淲e have women now who are not afraid to take on chemistry or physics or coding,鈥� she said.

Setting an example

Margaret Faut Callahan, Loyola鈥檚 acting provost and chief academic officer and provost of the Health Sciences Campus, observes that young faculty members are often drawn to the University after they observe the caliber of the current female STEM faculty. 鈥淭hey see these successful female scientists here who are then there to help them grow,鈥� she said.

That hasn鈥檛 always been the case for women interested in STEM fields. Peters, for example, recalls feeling socially disconnected as a young woman studying mathematics鈥攑articularly in graduate school, where she was often the only woman in class. 鈥淚 remember looking around and noticing the men were sitting next to each other talking about material,鈥� said Peters. 鈥淣obody was sitting next to me so I didn鈥檛 have anyone to talk to while the lecture was happening.鈥�

Peters is part of a team that recently won a SEMINAL (Student Engagement in Mathematics through an Institutional Network for Active Learning) award鈥攁n initiative through the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities to revamp first-year mathematics curricula for STEM majors. She鈥檚 dedicated to changing perceptions about math, including the belief that its difficulty level makes it prohibitive. She urges female STEM students to be proactive about their own growth and expanding their knowledge base.

鈥淔ind a mentor early on, get to know your professors and don鈥檛 be afraid to ask questions,鈥� she said. 鈥淭ake responsibility for your learning because I guarantee your professor will be delighted and you will get more out of class.鈥�