UC Merced Connect: High school girls interact with female scientists

Fifteen-year-old Callie Nance has her dreams for the future down to a science.

Physics, specifically.

That’s why the recent Dinner With a Scientist event at UC Merced was perfect for her.

“Seeing all of these women – it’s a big thing for us to get out and see that there is so much more for us than just what we experience in Mariposa,” Nance said.

Nance and 55 other ninth- through 12th-grade girls from the Mariposa County Unified School District toured the campus and visited labs led by female scientists. Then they sat down for dinner with 14 women – some professors from UC Merced and some in science-related careers in the community, all of whom can be mentors and role models for the girls.

“I don’t know how else they would really hear about this,” said DonnaLee Hartman, a retired community service officer and crime scene processor. “That’s how I learned about my field – high school career day. The FBI came with displays, but I noticed there were no women in the pictures.”

“A lot of times, high school students have only vague ideas about what they want to do,” psychology professor Rose Scott said. “That’s why it’s important for them to have contact with people whose careers are interesting to them. We can talk to them about how we got to where we are.”

Last week’s event, hosted by UC Merced’s School of Natural Sciences, the Mariposa branch of the American Association for University Women and the Mariposa Youth Impact Project, is one of two Dinner With a Scientist events held on campus each year. The other is hosted by the Merced County Office of Education and is coed, but this one was only open to girls.

Each participant applied and had to write about herself and her interests, and organizer Trish Gilger, who founded the Mariposa Youth Impact Project and matched each girl with a scientist or a woman who works in science-related field, such as Hartman. Each woman had a table of four to six girls, and was encouraged to bring artifacts, props, pictures, brochures or other materials to help describe what they do.

The girls met with two scientists they are matched with, and this year Gilger and other organizers added a third round in which each girl chose a third scientist whose work interested her.

“Our girls are relatively isolated geographically, so it’s important to expose them to options they might not have known they had,” AAUW branch co-president Dawn Johnson said. “This event is such a perfect alignment with our mission of empowering women.”

Sociology Ph.D., master’s approved

Current and prospective graduate students have new degree options at UC Merced, which recently received approval from the UC system and the Western Association of Schools and Colleges Senior College and University Commission for master’s and doctoral degrees in sociology.

Sociology students at UC Merced previously could only obtain a doctorate in social sciences. Having a formal doctorate in sociology will better equip those students to find research jobs and open doors of opportunity as professors at colleges and universities, said sociology professor and chair Nella Van Dyke.

Students have the opportunity to work with faculty members on important research topics relevant to the Central Valley, the state and nation, such as race, health care and education. And they leave the program equally prepared for careers in academia or elsewhere.

“Most graduate programs focus exclusively on training students to become professors, in spite of the fact that there are many research jobs available to well-trained sociology Ph.D.s,” Van Dyke said. “Our program trains students for academic careers as well as applied research careers in nonprofits, higher education, and public and private agencies outside of academia.”

This story was originally published October 7, 2015 at 2:34 PM with the headline "UC Merced Connect: High school girls interact with female scientists."