Help Students Be What They Cannot See: Q&A With Mary James

Stories From the Field

Help Students Be What They Cannot See: Q&A With Mary James

Mary James, Ph.D., is one of the few African-American women physics professors in the United States. She is also the dean of diversity at Reed College. She discusses her educational journey and how college instructors can help women and students of color succeed in STEM.

SPARQ: You got your Ph.D. in physics in the 1980s, when there were even fewer women in STEM than there are now. How did you get your start?

Dr. Mary James: I really liked science in high school. But after my first college physics course at Hampshire College, which does not give grades, I was convinced that I didn’t do well in the class and that I couldn’t be a scientist. So, I stopped taking science classes for a year.

I then had a heart-to-heart with my physics professor, who told me I had actually done well in his course. He tried to talk me into applying for a summer research internship at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC). I remember thinking, “I could never get into this. It’s not worth the stamp.” And so I didn’t apply.

The next year, that same professor started bugging me early in the fall. Finally, I applied just to get him to leave me alone about it.

To my surprise, I was accepted. I got on a plane and flew 3,000 miles to Stanford.

One day during the internship, I was sitting at a lunch table next to a few senior engineers who were talking excitedly about physics. It was in that moment — I remember it like an epiphany — that I realized that they got paid to do physics. That was their job. That was the first time I could imagine anyone being a physicist, let alone an African American woman.

SPARQ: And then what happened?

I returned to the linear accelerator after I graduated and worked as a junior engineer. From there, I decided that if I was going to do physics, I would have to get a Ph.D. And so I did, from Stanford University.

The whole thing was a backwards process for me. I didn’t have a big dream to be a physicist. Research shows that you need to be able to picture yourself becoming a scientist if you are to persist at it. If a career in STEM is outside your imagination, you can’t see yourself doing it. As an undergraduate student, I could not imagine myself as either a student or a practitioner in physics. I never had a woman professor in physics. I didn’t have any women role models, and there weren’t very many African Americans, either. The belongingness was missing.

But I got lucky. Other people — my professor and my boss at SLAC — could see possibilities for me that I was not able to see for myself.

SPARQ: Why are there still so few women in STEM at the graduate and professional levels?

James: Many STEM professors design introductory science classes to be a sieve. They have a very self-serving and lazy narrative, which is that their job is to separate the wheat from the chaff. They don’t really teach. They say, “By the end of this class, we will know who is good at this material and who is not.” The students who succeed in these classes are those who already know the content from a previous experience. They already have a skill set that professors should not presume a college freshman to have.

But what STEM professors’ narrative should be is, “This is a skill set that any reasonably bright person can learn, and it is our job to teach our courses in such a way that any reasonably bright person can learn this skill set.” Otherwise, many women students worry, as I did, that they simply do not belong in STEM. This belongingness uncertainty, as researchers call it, can ultimately drive women away from STEM.

Even when women do succeed in their classes, belongingness uncertainty can follow them into the workplace. When I was a beginning graduate student, I worked in a lab with over 200 employees. Only three of us were women: a secretary, a computer programmer, and me.

On one of my first days working there, a technician approached me and said, “Oh! I heard about you. But I can’t remember, are you a secretary or a prodigy?”

You see, to him, there were only two reasons I could be in that building: Either I was a secretary, or I was too good to turn down and so they had to take me. Women have internalized this narrative that they must be brilliant to belong in STEM. I have women come to me and say that they got a B+ and so they must change majors. Men who get a B+ do not ever tell me that; a decent grade does not dissuade men from majoring in physics. That’s because men automatically assume they belong. Women must constantly prove they belong.

SPARQ: What can STEM instructors do to support women students?

James: When we change the narrative about what we are doing, then we can do something different.

First and foremost, we should change the goals of our introductory STEM courses. Students should emerge from the course having the necessary tools to continue in the major and feeling like they belong. If it is truly an introductory course, it should be foundational. You can’t expect students to have two years of high school material under their belt when they walk in the door.

Second, instructors should let women know what is going on. Tell them that imposter syndrome (feeling like you are a fake) is a real thing. That belongingness uncertainty (being unsure whether you are welcome and can succeed in a domain) is a real thing. Stereotype threat (worrying about confirming negative cultural beliefs about your group) is a real thing. Fixed mindset (believing that intelligence levels cannot change) is a real thing. When I talk to women about these things, they always say, “It is so great to know that this isn’t just in my head, that there isn’t something wrong with me.”

Third, assign effective mentors. Exposing students to research and giving students good mentors is one of the most effective ways to run a STEM program where women and minorities persist to the end.

SPARQ: What can women STEM students do for themselves?

James: Don’t reject yourself. This is a very common mistake that women and underrepresented minorities make. I made that mistake the first time my physics professor told me to apply for the SLAC summer internship. I said it wasn’t worth the stamp; I rejected myself. If someone gets paid to reject you, let them earn their money. Don’t reject yourself.

And when you do get into a great graduate program, someone is likely going to tell you that you only got in because you are a woman. The right way to answer this person is to say, “That explains it! Because I never finished the fourth grade.”

This response shows the absurdity of their comment. The program didn’t just go out to find a random woman to let in because they needed gender diversity. No program will accept a student that they don’t think will succeed. That does nothing for them. If a program or workplace lets you in, they believe that you can be successful.

And after your witty retort, realize that the only reason someone would say this to you is to put you down. There is no upside to that comment. It is an insult. I want women to see these comments for the malicious insults that they are.

Women and men equally belong in STEM. And it is our job to help them succeed.