Friday, September 10, 19 976 THE MICHIGAN DAILY .Page Fifteen Friday, September 10, 1 ~ ~76 THE MICHIGAN DAILY Page Fifteen - __ -~ - -- - - - -- - - - , IF NUMERICALLY SPEAKING: Clinic seeks to rid macho math myth Jobs exist for law school grads-but don't be picky he Great Lakes- ___Steak-C ~ ~ i LUNCH: au DINNER Week S. S f~at PRIME RIB AGED STEAKS SEA FOOD M-F 11:30-2:30 Seven Nites a TATE ROAD t Ellsworth 994-3737 MIDDLETOWN, Conn. (P) - She's the only female student in the mathematics class. If she doesn't understand a concept she may be afraid to ask for clarification. If she knows the correct answer to a question she may not raise her hand to respond. And her teacher may discour- age her from succeeding. SHEILA TOBIAS says those things happen to some female students because American so- ciety looks upon mathematics as the domain of males. The result: women become anxious, are shut out of careers and may suffer psychological damage. But Tobias, associate provost at Wesleyan University, has helped to organize a math clinic to encourage women to confront the problem head-on. "It's obvious in this culture that mathematics is considered a masculine field," says Tobias. "We assume that adolescent girls shy away from math, give it less attention and actually show hostility toward it to dem- onstrate their femininity." THE CLINIC, onerating under a federal grant from the Fund for the Improvement of Post- Secondary Education, provides math courses and psychological counseling. Although the math avoidance problem is more acute among women, Tobias says about half the persons who have used the clinic are males. Tobias, who says she hasn't taken a math course since high school and admits to being a bit uncomfortable with the subject, says the clinic isn't intended to mass produce mathematicians. ITS PURPOSE is to make people more competent in using math in everyday situations and in breaking down resistance to the subject based on factors other and desire and ability. "A check In a restaurant, a checkbook at the end of the month . .. will seem to them to be no more than an ordinary everyday problem to solve," she says. The clinic, she adds, "is going to cause people to be less for- giving when their daughters or female friends show weakness in math. "THE SECOND thing it's go-. ing to do is make female stu- dents angry," when they feel math teachers are giving them less attention than male sto- dents because of their sex. Tobias says she has received reports that females who did well in math in high school were ridiculed by their peers and' teachers. That, she says, may turn women off the subject. "Being unpopular is pretty severe punishment when you're 16. years old," she adds. BECAUSE society steers fe- males into nonscientific courses and fields, women who succeed in math are not treated the same as men, she says. The good female performerl is punished and the poor per- former is forgiven. An ambitious parent may permit a daughter Tobias says: "If one starts avoiding a difficult mental prob- lem in adolescence one can de- velop avoidance patterns and not confront other inadequacies." 1 i r i i a to fail algebra or not even take ABOUT 160 persons, mostly algebra on the assumption that Wesleyan students, used the it is appropriate for a daughter clinic in the year beginning Sept. not to do well in mathematics." 1, 1975, says Tobias. She says Bonnie Donady, a learning she expects more to use it in disabilities counselor at the the second year. clinic, says a study of the 1973 "I don't think people before freshman class of the University us put counselors into a mathe- of California at Berkeley shows matics learning situation," she that 57 per cent of the males! says. "It's an almost therapeu- DENVER (UPI) - If a law school graduate tends bar is it a sign law schools are over- producing attorneys? University of Denver Law School Dean Robert Yegge be- lieves otherwise - claiming some graduates tending bar are "too picky" about jobs. "THERE IS THE perception that lawyering is working for a large firm making $100,000 per year and there is nothing else for a lawyer to do," he said. "That is a folk notion. The jobs are there, but not in that conventional sense." Although there are not enough "traditional" positions for graduates of the nation's 160 law schools, Yegge said in an interview, opportunities in business, industry, government, education and communications are abundant. Legal training has always been an advantage, Yegge said, but as society has become moret complex and all enterprises gov- erned by more laws, the need for attorneys has increased. "I HAVE A theory that the law degree is the equivalentl of a bachelor's degree at the turn of the century. Law is such a part of today's world, that legal training is an in- troduction into almost any- thing."I There was a time when only biy business and the rich could es that an increase in the num- ber of lawyers has led to more personal damage suits, includ- ing malpractice. "I see the increased number of such suits as good. If a per- son has beenhwronged by a physician, he has the right to redress. If there are more peo- ple able to get their rightful redress, they hurry for more lawyers." i and only 8 per cent of theefe- males had taken four years of high school math. That prepara- tion was required to take any calculus or intermediate level statistics courses at the college. THE LACK of math training' keeps women out of many col- lege major areas and careers where such experience is re- quired, she says. For some people, she says, math avoidance "is a phobia, a fear. It really needs to be brought out in the open and examined." tic situation." Tobias says the clinic gives people a chance to talk openly about their feelings toward mathematics and to recognize that they can succeed in the field despite what teachers, parents and others have told them. Wesleyan Prof. Robert Rosen- baum is co-director with Tobias of the clinic. The federal grant that pays for it is shared with Wellesley College in Wellesley, Mass., where a similar project is being done. Lg fl l % ll *ilt *1161 .tUalt.+ -Y- .-. hire lawyers, Yegge said, but More legal actions are being that has passed with middle filed as the result of legal aid income persons retaining attor- neys more frequently and legal and community legal services, aid offices providing services he said, while the number of for the poor. consumer rights and sex dis- crimination cases also has in- ll 1of these things take moe read. lawyers. Of course, you willl creased. never make that $100,000 per ''These areas didn't really year, and some law students exist 10 or 15 years ago and don't want it. Most of the law- they have the legal profession yers that are tending bar are dealing with nonrich, noncor- too picky and have limited their porate clients," he said. "I see own possibilities." such suits as a positive and necessary force for change in YEGGE ALSO rejected charg- our society." I TK E invites you to a BEER BASH Sot.-Sept. 11th, 9:00-.? 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