Liberal Arts College vs. Research University

Jennifer Punt took all the right roads to obtaining a professorship at a large research university. After her undergraduate years, she earned a combined degree in veterinary medicine and bioengineering at the University of Pennsylvania. Then she completed a high-profile postdoctoral fellowship at the National Institutes of Health.

But today Punt isn't at a prestigious research university, where biologists with her resume are expected to work and complete research. Instead, she is at Haverford College, a small liberal arts school in Pennsylvania.

Is she a failure? Ask Punt, and she'll answer with a resounding, "No."

"I was strongly encouraged to take the option to go to a large research university by my post-doc supervisor, who could not at the time understand my desire to teach or do research at a small college," she said. "However, I continually scanned the job lists of the Amherst, Swarthmore, Haverford and Oberlin positions. That was clearly where my heart was leaning."

"I know that when I tried to visualize myself in a large university — and I had by that time a great deal of experience with them and was thrilled with how much they could offer — I felt a large part of me shrivel and waste away," Punt added. "I didn't want to devote my life and career exclusively to clawing one's way up the scientific hierarchies."

And according to statistics recently released by national science organizations, Punt is not the only young female scientist to shun the life of a researcher at a top university.

According to the American Institute of Physics, the percentage of faculty positions held by women at Ph.D.-granting institutions — that is, research universities — increased from five percent in 1994 to six percent in 1998. That percentage, however, increased from seven to 11 at small liberal arts colleges during the same time period. In addition, the percentage of women in the chemistry departments of liberal arts colleges grew from 37 percent in 1995 to 42 percent in 2000 — a higher percentage than at research institutions.

Why are female scientists opting for what some may describe as the less glorious world of liberal arts education? Some women point to the opportunity for one-on-one interaction with students at smaller schools, while others, like Punt, simply say the intense pressure of a prestigious research institution is not for them.

MIT leapt into the national spotlight last year when it released a study showing that women in its departments face systematic discrimination. The study found that female scientists at MIT were given lower pay for the same work that men did, and were short-changed on everything from lab space to research assistance.

Despite the report, many University professors and graduate students said they believe the allegations of lingering discrimination at research institutions are out of place. Chemistry department chair George McLendon, for instance, said his department is actively seeking more female faculty members.

"I can tell you that Princeton in general, and chemistry in particular, are committed to recruiting and promoting the development of female faculty," he noted. "Though we are fortunate to have a few excellent women on our faculty, I will be more pleased when we can have better representation."

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The chemistry department goes out of its way to recruit female professors, said Cherie Purring GS — who is currently applying for positions at liberal arts schools.

"Every department seems to be eager to hire women because there's a shortage of them," she explained. "Princeton is doing a lot for women professors who don't want to take the traditional path to tenure — they are really accommodating for them."

In some ways, the low number of female scientists at large universities like Princeton is a self-perpetuating cycle, with the low number of women already in the department serving as a deterrent to prospective female professors. At Princeton, there are only two female physics professors and three female chemistry professors. Women who are unimpressed with these numbers might be more attracted to liberal arts colleges, Princeton molecular biology professor Trudi Schupbach said.

"Small liberal arts colleges were probably always more open to taking in women faculty," she noted. "That certainly can make a difference. If you can have a lot of interaction with women, you'll most likely take that job."

At Swarthmore College, five of the 11 full-time faculty in the biology department are women. "Of the hires, except the most recent, the last five people were all women," noted Elizabeth Vallen GS '92, a biology professor at Swarthmore. "This is rare in a research institute."

At research institutions, scientists are expected to run large laboratories year-round — which means they must frequently engage in competitions for grants, conduct considerable amounts of research and mentor graduate students and postdoctoral fellows. They often also must teach one or two courses per year. At a liberal arts college, however, science professors concentrate on teaching undergraduate students during the school year and then conduct most of their significant research during the summer. They publish less frequently and are not required to compete in as many grant competitions as their counterparts at research institutions.

For Punt, it was the last difference that solidified her choice.

"Perhaps I wasn't really sure that I could pour my passions into the process required to succeed in the university. Not the scientific process — that I thought I could handle — but the other part that is so important: the schmoozing and politicking part," she explained. "I am not contemptuous of it actually. But I wasn't sure I could be great at it. And, frankly, I wanted to be really good, and not just average, at what I devoted my life to."

University ecology and evolutionary biology professor Michaela Hau said more women than men probably have a disdain for the competitive aspect of a researcher's job at a large university. "Women are often more timid in academia and may find the stress too high at large research places or may think they're not qualified enough," she explained.

Those women who opt for the more stressful environment have to love what they do, Princeton professors agreed.

"Most of us who have stayed at large research universities want to do competitive research," chemistry professor Suzanne Walker noted.

And teaching loads compound the stressful environment, molecular biology professor Shirley Tilghman said.

"Employment at a research university requires excellence in both research and teaching. The pressures on faculty to excel at both are substantial, especially at top-tier institutions like Princeton," she said. "At liberal arts schools like Swarthmore, the emphasis is on teaching, although they often have modest research expectations as well. So these universities tend to attract people with different long-term interests. Most faculty at research universities must succeed at research in order to stay, and so they tend to be the more research-oriented scientists."

While they might not be in the lab as often, professors at liberal arts schools must teach twice — or even three times — as many classes each term as their counterparts at research schools. For women scientists who enjoy teaching, this can make a small school very attractive.

But it's not that teaching involves less pressure — sometimes it doesn't. Some scientists just discover during the course of their job preparation that they enjoy teaching more than conducting research.

"I personally enjoy teaching very much," said Amanda Norvell, a visiting professor at Haverford who completed her postdoctoral fellowship under Schupbach. "I love my research, but I want to be somewhere where teaching is valued as a skill. When I apply for tenure, I want teaching to be a big consideration."

A love for teaching may be the reason more women are at liberal arts institutions, noted physics professor Suzanne Staggs GS '93.

"Women relate to teaching. They relate well to the pleasure of it," she said. "Not that men don't. But some men think it's something you do when you're not doing research."

Especially for women considering raising a family, an emphasis on teaching can mean not only a pleasurable job, but also a flexible one. Though they must be in the classroom to teach and meet with students outside of class, professors at liberal arts schools do not have to work in the laboratory every day.

"It you are trying to excel at one thing — teaching — you may have more time outside work than if you are trying to juggle two large commitments at the same time," Tilghman noted.

"Why does this influence women more than men? They have the babies," she added. "And society still expects that women will have more responsibilities than men at home, despite the major strides that have been made in the last 20 years to encourage sharing responsibility between two parents."

For Rider University biology professor Julie Drawbridge, the flexibility that came with her job was a welcome benefit.

"I think it's a fundamental reason women are opting out of the rat race," she said. "I know that family concerns were an important reason I accepted my current job here at Rider."

But even after making the choice to work at a liberal arts institution, female scientists at these colleges must often face a lack of respect from people who believe they have forsaken science. Scientists at small colleges get less recognition for their work and fewer invitations to national conferences.

"This job is in a way less prestigious. It's not like I go to a national conference and they go, 'Hey you're Elizabeth Vallen,' " Vallen said. "So it's a bit difficult on your ego."

It was hard for her, for example, to realize during a graduate school centennial event last month that her former colleagues had more data and more research to present than she did, Vallen noted.

Punt said she periodically has to reaffirm her choice to work at a small college.

"My career move was not viewed favorably by many at the NIH. One adviser even told his post-doc not to waste his career as I had," she explained.

"I can't deny that I find myself defensive at times — and weary from explaining that yes, we do perform original, nationally funded research at Haverford, and no, I did not drop out of science," Punt continued. "But there are assumptions out there — that we are glorified high school teachers — that are detrimental."

For Vallen, it was her years in graduate school at Princeton that helped her realize why life at a name-brand research university was not for her.

"While I was at grad school I realized I liked to teach and that I was reasonably good at it," Vallen said. "Looking at faculty in the department, I saw that their jobs were stressful. For my personality, I'm leading a better quality of life here without these pressures."