By Hannah Hildebrandt
Baltimore Watchdog Staff Writer
More than 100 Johns Hopkins students and faculty members gathered at the university’s Mattin Center Courtyard last Tuesday for the ribbon cutting ceremony of an exhibit recognizing 23 notable women of Johns Hopkins University.
The exhibit, “The Women of Hopkins,” displayed portraits of the 23 women in the once empty window panels of the buildings surrounding the heavily trafficked courtyard.
The idea for an exhibit was created after a series of gender equity workshops hosted by Dr. Karen Fleming, a biophysics professor at the university.
During these workshops, Fleming and her students discussed a scientific paper that showed men in the science field were 25 percent more likely to be hired than a woman with the exact same experience, education and credentials.
After these workshops, the Diversity Leadership Council – which includes Fleming – decided to reach out to the university to earn funding for a project to represent outstanding JHU women in male-dominated professions such as medicine, business, music and politics.
“We want to honor them and celebrate them. Hold them as role models for these next generations of women,” said Dominic Scalise, a graduate student in chemical and biomolecular engineering at Johns Hopkins, as well as a member of the organization Achieving Gender Equity in Science (AGEIS).
Scalise said she hopes the exhibit shows young women that a scientist is not only “an old white man in a lab coat” but that there are scientists who are women and women of color.
This included Dr. Gail Kelly, one of Johns Hopkins first black female undergraduates. Kelly attended Tuesday’s ceremony and was honored with cutting the ribbon of “The Women of Hopkins” exhibit.
Fleming spoke to the crowd of students and faculty about the importance of recognizing these women in a public space. She hopes that female students can find heroines in male-dominated fields and recognize that capability is not correlated with gender.
She recalled the barriers that the early female students of JHU had to face that could have prevented their success, adding that the first woman to receive her doctorate from Hopkins, Dr. Florence Bascom, was forced to sit behind a screen during her classes as to not disturb the male students.
“Heroines like the women of Hopkins expand their horizons and give them confidence to dream that they can and will someday be one of them,” Fleming said.
Female students in the crowd recognized the importance of women in science by nodding and quietly agreeing as they listened to Fleming encourage them to continue working hard and going after their dreams in the Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) fields.
“It’s important that women understand that they have power and an extreme impact on the world,” said Jennifer Le Blanc, a public health graduate student. “Each [woman] represents courage and strength, and they each exemplify what we should all strive to be.”
Scalise said she hopes that with the success of the grand opening of “The Women of Hopkins,” the Diversity Leadership Council and AGEIS will be able to renew the exhibit next year with more funding from the university.
More funding will allow them to recognize more women, put up more portraits, invite the honored women back to Hopkins to speak at ceremonies and workshops, and permanently keep the exhibit at the university.