..............................................................................................................................................................
|
Try to imagine this. You're a teenage girl and a gymnast. Your coach is reminding you it's time to weigh in, a weekly ritual you have come to detest. "You've gained five pounds," he says. "You weigh as much as a horse. No wonder you don't have a boyfriend." Or this. You're 16 years old and you're trying to talk to your parents about a problem you think you might have, though you're not quite sure what it is. "I haven't been feeling good about myself for a long time," you tell them. "I don't feel motivated to do anything, and my grades are awful." Your mother suggests you see a doctor. "No way," your father argues. "My daughter is normal, she doesn't need to see a doctor." "Just forget it," you say. "This is all my fault anyway." These things really do happen, say the young women who gathered at Smith this July for the ninth session of the annual Smith Summer Science Program (SSSP). To illustrate, the members of one SSSP class, "Our Health, Our Futures," dramatized some familiar scenarios in their lives before a group of 50 educators and health professionals. Admittedly those who attend SSSP are gifted girls who have a proven aptitude and interest in the sciences, but they say they enjoy no immunity from the problems most teenagers today face. "As an adolescent woman competing to get into some of the top colleges in the country," said Jessica Chawla, a high school senior from Seattle, "the pressure to do well in academics and succeed in life is at times overwhelming. And even at this age I'm thinking about how I'll balance a career and family." Chantal Samonte, a 16-year-old from Maryland, said: "My life is too hectic. I'm taking so many AP [Advanced Placement] classes, I do homework until three in the morning. I'm also working-I have a job after school-but I'm still doing my chores at home and playing sports at school. In fact, the sports thing is a good thing for me. It's a great way to feel good about myself." Then there's the peer-pressure thing. "Sex can be empowering," a 17-year-old from Michigan said. "But it's not necessarily a good kind of power. Sometimes it's an issue of you giving in to the pressure. And you hear people talking about it [sexual activity] in the school hallways." Smith College has stepped into this discussion with a pioneering effort, "Our Health, Our Futures: A Project by and for Adolescent Girls." It will result in an innovative resource manual about teen health and wellness issues, to be used by and for teenagers all over the United States. Recent studies suggest that the project is coming none too soon. The Commonwealth Fund Survey of the Health of Adolescent Girls, completed in 1997, reports that "adolescence is a critical time for the current and future health of women. In these formative years, experiences of violence or abuse, risky behaviors, access to health care, and supportive relationships can either enhance or undermine teen health, as well as shape the quality of life in years to come." The survey found "disturbingly high rates of reported abuse, depressive symptoms and behaviors that can put health at risk and have potential lifelong consequences. Findings also indicate that a significant proportion of adolescent girls do not have access to health care when they need it, and when they do get care, physicians often do not address their concerns." In 1997 Smith College and the YWCA of Western Massachusetts, supported by a major grant from the Metropolitan Life Foundation and additional funding from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, teamed up to undertake the "Our Health, Our Futures" project. Work continued this summer with the 19 young women enrolled in the related class, who were invited to discuss, research and write about women's health issues. The project represents an unusual collaboration among Smith faculty members and undergraduates, adolescents enrolled in SSSP, and staff and young people at the YWCA. A key outcome is that in 1999 Smith will publish the resource manual for national distribution and create a Web site about teen health and wellness issues. "This project is really important," said Amanda James, a 16-year-old high school junior from Maryland. "It gets girls talking to each other about their problems rather than just having someone-usually an adult, no offense-talking at them." Barbara Brehm-Curtis, associate professor in Smith's Department of Exercise and Sport Studies and one of the manual's four authors, agreed with Amanda: "The manual isn't all that the project is about. It's also about getting girls to sit down with each other and with a trusted adult and then to start talking about these issues. It's really about encouraging these girls to use the resources available to them to get help with the problems they face." The other authors working on the manual are Dr. Leslie Jaffe of Smith College, whose specialty is adolescent medicine; Kerry Homstead, director of social services for the YWCA, whose expertise is in adolescent health issues and youth programming; and Dr. Angela Diaz, chief of the Division of Adolescent Medicine and director of the Adolescent Health Center at Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York City. The manual is innovative in that it is using a group of teens as advisers and editors and will include essays and stories written by the girls themselves. "The direct involvement of teenagers in the creation of the resource manual will result in the incorporation of authentic adolescent voices and experiences," says Gail Scordilis, director of SSSP and the senior Smith administrator overseeing the project. "By looking at issues of girls' health and wellness, including academic stress (which is especially relevant for the gifted students who attend SSSP) and nutrition and diet, and looking at overall barriers to a girl's successes in life, we figured that this might be a broader way of serving more girls. It has great potential for promoting healthy behaviors early on and thus improving the health and quality of adult life for American women." Sanctioning Success This is not the only effort Smith is making to promote healthy behaviors and educational success for girls and women. SSSP, for example, is one of the nation's only science research programs for high school girls, according to Scordilis. It was founded in 1990, amid reports that female students were showing less interest in the sciences, to encourage young women to pursue science careers. Nearly half of the young women who attended the program this year were students of color, coming from both private and public schools, inner cities and suburbs. Some 50 percent of the participants received financial aid to attend. They included a group of girls from western Massachusetts selected to receive scholarships from Bell Atlantic, which contributed $20,000 to support Smith's program. Since 1992 Bell Atlantic has made possible the participation of 76 girls. Helping Girls Walk the Walk, Talk the Talk Meanwhile, as this summer's "Our Health, Our Futures" workshop for educators-who were selected nationally to attend-was winding down, another workshop was gearing up. Sixty math and science teachers and counselors representing 26 schools and seven states were gathering at Smith for the 15th annual Current Students/Future Scientists and Engineers Program. The purpose of this program is to work with educators on encouraging female students to continue with math and science studies throughout high school in order to take advantage of expanding career options. Smith launched the event in 1983 to address a reported decline in the number of students preparing for scientific and technical careers. "I am a great fan of these workshops," said John Connolly, Smith provost and dean of the faculty. "Far too few girls, especially girls from minority groups, are realizing their potential in these fields, particularly in engineering and environmental sciences." Yet some young women manage to forge ahead into the sciences even though they, like Brita Dempsey '00, "hated science in elementary school." As she said during a panel discussion about women choosing science careers, "I thought science was really stupid." Nonetheless, Dempsey is now a biology major at Smith with a concentration in botany. She also spent part of her summer as an SSSP intern. But how did she get from hating science to embracing it? Fortunately for her she had some good teachers, those who she says were "really excited about what they taught. They were the ones who offered help and encouragement after class. They were the ones who made me answer the hard questions. They challenged me and expected a lot of me, so I gave them that." Keynote speaker David Sadker, co-author of Failing at Fairness: How America's Schools Cheat Girls, pointed out to workshop participants how sexism persists in the schools despite heightened vigilance against it. "The legacy of inequity continues beneath the veneer of equal access," he said. "Although the school door is finally open and girls are inside the building, they remain second-class citizens. "It's a little premature to declare victory," Sadker added. "We've made progress with the battle, but it's not over yet." According to program director Casey Clark, the distinguishing characteristics of this three-day workshop include its follow-up activities. Participants are asked to develop and, starting in the fall semester, implement in their own schools plans to help young women and minorities overcome obstacles with math and science. Next spring Smith program leaders will hold a follow-up session with this year's group of educators. In the Summer, as a Smithie There were also some first-time visitors to the Smith campus this summer. Girls from a New York City public school and a group of male and female college students from Florida lived the life of college students in Smith houses this summer.
During their four-week stay at Smith, the seven visiting students from East
Harlem's Young Women's Leadership School were eager participants in Smith's summer science
classes. Jerrey Roberts photo. Seven girls from the Young Women's Leadership School (YWLS) in New York City's East Harlem took part in SSSP, receiving full scholarships to stay on campus for four weeks. Nearly two years ago Smith and YWLS formed a partnership that is expected to benefit both schools. Celenia Chévere, the school's principal, selected the girls who attended Smith's summer offerings and feels they were given a unique opportunity. "The girls are very excited about Smith," she said. "They are lovely girls, very smart girls who are serious about their work and headed towards a science focus with their studies." The girls were chosen based on their academic records, motivation levels and likely potential in the sciences. "There's lots of enthusiasm in the air about getting these students here," said Mentha Hynes, outreach coordinator for the Office of Institutional Diversity. "This is the first opportunity to bring these kids to the Smith Summer Science Program, and we want to continue to fold them into the program each year." Hynes, who is also interim assistant dean for multicultural affairs, sees partnerships such as this one as a way to establish a strong link with communities of color and to actively develop a diverse student community on campus. "We anticipate that our efforts will yield in communities of color a greater appreciation of the Smith community and understanding of the benefits of a liberal arts education," she said. Leslie Cortez, a YWLS eighth-grader and a member of the "Our Health, Our Futures" class, noted that her first trip to Smith gave her a chance to get to know her classmates better and learn more about the health issues that affect adolescent girls. "I've had a great time," she said. In early August, 50 honors students from Miami-Dade Community College (M-DCC), both men and women, aged 18 to 26, spent a week at Smith and participated in an intensive, one-week honors retreat taught by Smith and M-DCC faculty. With five campuses in the Miami area, M-DCC has more than 125,000 students and enrolls and graduates more minority students than any other college in the country. In 1997 and M-DCC formed a partnership that helps Miami-Dade women who have taken an approved series of courses enroll at Smith as transfer students. This summer's retreat, hosted by Smith, marked the first time Miami-Dade ran its honors program outside Florida. The students who participated-described by Hynes as an "exceptional group whose diversity is quite interesting"-each earned an academic credit for attending the seminar "Family: Myth, Metaphor and Reality." In addition to participating in daily class sessions, they toured the Five College area and Boston. Like the partnership with the East Harlem school, this tie with M-DCC is part of Smith's ongoing effort to increase the diversity among its student population. "We are reaching out to traditionally underrepresented populations," Hynes said, "and planting seeds of possibility early, with the intent that someday we will be welcoming more of these students into the Smith community." When several of the young women in the "Our Health, Our Futures" class were asked if they were considering Smith for their college years, some said yes, some said maybe. Frances Reade, a high school senior, already has had two college interviews, one at Smith and another at a nearby women's college. "I really like Smith," she noted, adding that the decision as to where she enrolls will come down to the financial aid offered. "My mother says Harvard," said Samonte, who is a high school junior in Maryland. "But I'm thinking more seriously about an all-women's college. It's done so much for me already, these summer science projects here. I'm feeling a whole lot better about myself now." |
..............................................................................................................................................................
NewsSmith is published by the Smith College Office
of College Relations for alumnae, staff, students and friends.
Copyright © 1998, Smith College. Portions of this publication may be reproduced with the permission
of the Office
of College Relations, Garrison Hall, Smith College, Northampton, Massachusetts 01063. Last update:
9/23/98.
Made with Macintosh
