Honors Chemistry Imbalance

First week of classes: My first semester Honors General Chemistry (G-Chem 1) class is 85% women. Last year, my second semester Honors General Chemistry (G-Chem 2) class was also 85% women. I thought it was just a statistical blip given the smaller class sizes of the Honors section, but perhaps this is the new normal for the gender imbalance. Over the years I’ve regularly taught in the Honors program (although not every year) and the classes have been typically two-thirds women and on occasion it can reach closer to three quarters.

Where have all the men gone? I’m not sure. Are they picking “easier” majors? Are they on average less willing to work as hard as the women academically, and staying away from the more challenging classes and programs? Chemistry and Biochemistry, the two majors offered by my department are among the most challenging majors in my college. There’s just a lot of intensive lab-work and it is time-consuming, although the students learn a lot and are well-prepared for future careers in science. (In landing biotech and pharma industry jobs, our students tend to beat out the local competition – the more research-intensive universities in the area – simply because our students spend more time in lab and are better trained on average.)

On the first day of class, all the men opted to sit in the back row while the women mostly occupied the front seats. (None of the women sat in the back row.) In the second class, one of the men moved up. My writing on the board tends to be small. (I warn the students ahead of time on the first day.) Eventually almost everyone tends to move up if the room isn’t completely full. That being said, the men were vocal participating in class discussion from the back row, so this group was certainly engaged in the material. There are some interesting gender dynamics in the classroom, as discussed by Jay Howard in his excellent book Discussion in the College Classroom. (I blogged about one aspect of the book here.)

Our first week was spent on concepts familiar to most of the students since they’ve all taken at least one chemistry course in high school (and likely did well, otherwise they wouldn’t be in the Honors program). We moved quickly through the basics, and I had fun the first day of class bringing the Greek philosophers, the alchemists, and early ideas of the atomic theory. On the second day we went through units, measurements and calculations. This coming week we will delve into the structure of the atom and the interaction of light and matter, so some of the material will be new and even familiar things they’ve seen will be tackled in more depth. I’m looking forward to showcasing my chosen theme for G-Chem 1 this year: “Hidden in Plain Sight: Elucidating the Secret Structure of Matter”!

My other class, Research Methods, is closer to two-thirds women, typical of the norm I’ve encountered in my classes. It is not an Honors section and is required of all majors in my department. Due to an influx of majors in recent years, my department has made a major overhaul to the course streamlining it to reduce the workload (it’s now a half-class for the students) and allowing us to accommodate the larger numbers. This is my first time in the new format, but I’m looking forward to it. The final project of the class is to write a research proposal in chemistry or biochemistry that is peer reviewed. But along the way we have prepared activities along the way to get the students’ creative juices flowing. My colleague calls them “creativity stokers”. I did my first two this week and they both went well and generated lots of class discussion. Looking forward to the coming week!