Before Dr. Nancy Andrews and her family moved to North Carolina, where she would become dean and vice chancellor for academic affairs at Duke University School of Medicine, she and her husband visited a number of prospective schools for their children.
"One principal had been told that he would be meeting the next dean of Duke University School of Medicine, and when we walked into his office he immediately reached out to shake my husband's hand and congratulate him on his new position," she said.
Dr. Andrews recounted this anecdote as part of her lecture, "Reflections on a Glass Ceiling," that she delivered Oct. 6 as part of Weill Cornell Medical College's annual Roy C. Swan Lecture.
"I'm not an expert on women in medicine or women in science," Dr. Andrews said. "I am a biologist, not a sociologist, but the under-representation of women in medicine is a serious problem and I feel obligated to help change it."
While women have comprised half of all entering medical school classes for more than a decade, the number of women whose career paths reach such professional heights as Dr. Andrews' does not reflect the same proportion.
According to the 2006 National Academies' report "Beyond Bias and Barriers: Fulfilling the Potential of Women in Academic Science and Engineering," for more than 30 years, women have made up over 30 percent of the doctorates of the behavioral sciences and 20 percent of the life sciences, yet less than 16 percent of the full professors in social and behavioral sciences are women. About 15 percent of life sciences professorships are held by women. Minority women, meanwhile, were cited as "virtually absent from the nation's leading science and engineering departments."
To buck these disheartening trends, Dr. Andrews, who arrived at Duke University after four years as the dean for basic sciences and graduate studies at Harvard Medical School, challenged herself constantly and remained optimistic despite the current statistics.
"I took chances and, more importantly, people took chances on me," Dr. Andrews said.
One of Dr. Andrews' most ardent supporters was Dr. David Rogers, a Cornell University Medical College alumnus and dean of the School of Medicine at Johns Hopkins University. Dr. Rogers, who passed away in 1994, owned a cabin next door to Dr. Andrews' parents' cabin on Seneca Lake. He helped spark her initial interest in medicine and science.
"He also gave me my first sip of beer," Dr. Andrews joked.
Along with mentors and role models for women scientists, Dr. Andrews called for a culture change in academia, one that places a premium on inclusiveness, fairness and equity; one with wider recruitment pools and an emphasis on diversification, based both on gender and ethnicity.