USC Gift Aims to Draw Women Into Sciences

An anonymous donor has given $26.5 million to USC, designating most of the money to help attract more female professors into science and engineering and to encourage middle school girls to focus on science education.

About $20 million of the gift will create new faculty positions in the sciences, upgrade laboratories, increase student scholarships and fellowships and pay for child care.

The other $6.5 million will be used to build a new research wing of the campus building that houses USC’s School of Social Work.

The twin purposes of the gift reflect the interests of the donor, who insisted upon anonymity, USC officials said.

“It’s a great gift and we are very excited about it,” said Jean Morrison, one of two women in USC’s department of earth sciences. “There are so few of us in science, it should have a significant impact.”

Although female professors have made great strides in closing the gender gap in most academic departments, science and engineering remain largely male bastions--especially at major research universities.

Mirroring the statistics of other private universities, about 30% of all USC faculty members are women. But women make up only 11% of USC’s science professors and 6% of the engineering faculty. The numbers plunge more precipitously among professors granted lifetime tenure. In engineering, for instance, only 3% of tenured professors are women; in physics it’s 4%.

Debate over the gender gap in science and engineering has raged for decades. Massachusetts Institute of Technology last year embraced an internal study pointing the finger at subtle acts of discrimination, such as excluding women from positions of power or shortchanging women on laboratory space.

That study was later challenged by one female professor as “a political manifesto masquerading as science.” But the ensuing academic row left unanswered the question of how to alter the gender mix.

That’s the aim of the donor’s gift, said Sarah W. Bottjer, head of USC’s biology department. The donor got a degree in social work at USC, Bottjer said, and “feels quite strongly about advancing the careers of women.”

Instead of a hiring a couple of senior women professors, Bottjer said, a new faculty group, called Women In Science and Engineering, has encouraged USC to invest the $20 million and use the earnings to develop a long-term program that nurtures young scientists.