Brown and White Vol. 131 no. 12

              The Brown and White Vol. 131 No. 12
Friday, October 21, 2016 ‘All the Lehigh News First’
Women in STEM continue to face hurdles
Senate club
recognition
process,
explained
From dining halls to food pantries
By SAM TOPP
Assistant News Editor
Eileen Pollack was one of the
first women to earn a bachelor’s
degree in physics from Yale.
In 1978, she wrote her honors
thesis on advanced mathematical
physics, and the paper was eligible
for publication in several scientific
journals. On her graduation day,
she left the manuscript at her
adviser’s office and left physics
forever.
“I did nothing with the degree,”
Pollack said. “I kind of fell apart
for a while and eventually made
myself over into a fiction writer.”
Pollack, the author of “The
Only Woman in the Room: Why
Science is Still a Boy’s Club,” vis-ited
Lehigh Oct. 13 to speak about
sexism in science and engineering
Carley Powers/B&W Staff
Eileen Pollack speaks about her latest book, “The Only Woman in the Room: Why Science is Still
a Boys’ Club” on Oct. 13 in the UC. The book, released last September, was named one of the
notable nonfiction books of 2015 by The Washington Post.
fields.
In 1970, women made up 7 per-cent
of all STEM workers in the
U.S. By 2011, that number had
risen to 26 percent, still 22 percent
under the national percentage of
total women in the workforce. As
previously reported by The Brown
and White, women currently rep-resent
28 percent of engineering
majors and 15 percent of computer
science majors at Lehigh.
Pollack said she had experi-enced
sexism within STEM fields
since high school. To see if things
had changed since the 1970s, she
went back to various educational
sites in her life. She found, espe-cially
for young women, little had
changed.
“The comments that I found still
being made to young women are
just astonishing,” Pollack said.
“One young woman at Yale said
her professor said, ‘I’ll grade you
on the girl curve.’ A friend in Ann
Arbor’s daughter was told by her
teacher, ‘Oh, you’re too pretty to
be this good at math.’ She lost a
This article is part of a series
about the role of Student Senate
on Lehigh’s campus.
There are approximately 300
Student Senate recognized clubs
at Lehigh.
The Student Senate club affairs
committee determines which
clubs Senate officially recogniz-es.
The committee then monitors
these recognized clubs to ensure
they meet Senate’s standards.
Recognized clubs are accepted,
not endorsed, by the university.
Recognized clubs receive fund-ing,
a table at the club fair and
other university resources such
as a group page on LINC —
an online platform for student
involvement opportunities — and
access to support from the Office
of Student Activities. Recognized
clubs also have the ability to
reserve rooms in university build-ings.
To become a recognized club, an
organization must first complete
an application online through
LINC. Once a club has applied,
the club affairs committee reviews
its application to determine if the
club fits Senate’s standards. The
club must consist primarily of
undergraduates, have an execu-
By ANNA SIMONEAU
Lead Visuals Editor
By TANNER BUSS
B&W Staff
Food recovery programs aim to reduce waste
Nicole Luchetta/B&W Staff
Unclean plates sit at the plate drop off April 19 in Rathbone. Lehigh Dining Services initiated the Zero Waste Challenge between the University
Center dining halls and Rathbone in an attempt to minimize waste.
Lehigh Dining Services and
Sodexo are implementing new
programs and using technology
to minimize post-consumer waste
and leftover food. The Federal Bill
Emerson Good Samaritan Food
Donation Act has allowed Lehigh
Dining to donate leftovers to local
food banks through its new food
recovery system.
Lauren Sleeger, the director of
Rathbone, has led the initiative
to limit waste in Lehigh dining
halls. The steps and procedures
used to limit waste begin before
food is produced. At Rathbone,
meals are made in batches and
statistics are used to anticipate
the amount of food that will be
consumed.
The Good Samaritan Act now
allows Lehigh Dining Services to
recollect food prepared for con-sumption
and donate the food to
the food recovery network. David
Joseph, the executive director
of Student Auxiliary Services,
assists the program, along with
several students who pick up and
deliver the food.
Sleeger or an executive chef
first decides whether food is
safe enough to be packaged and
donated. If food is deemed fit
to be donated, it is packaged in
disposable containers and either
stored in a freezer or delivered to
See POLLACK Page 4
See CLUBS Page 2 See FOOD Page 4
Author Eileen Pollack
visited Lehigh to discuss
the persistent issue of
gender bias in STEM