Dear Nancy,

Your impact continues!

I just got back from a four-day review of one of the best universities in mainland Europe. It was a great international group including a former prime minister of a European country and the immediate past president of the Royal Society of London. Rita Colwell was our chair.

As you know, some regions of Europe are even more behind the curve with women in academia – students and faculty – than we are in the US. There are cultural issues of a very interesting sort and too long to discuss here. Bottom line is that at the very top there is a serious will to change, but at the elementary school level the idea of women going into science is often so foreign that it is like being from Mars.

Your recent Faculty Newsletter article was cited by the group several times during our discussions. It is really a helpful document because it displays so clearly the absolute excellence and accomplishment of so many women who have joined the MIT faculty in recent years. The mounting influence and success of NSF's ADVANCE program was also held up as an exemplar.

 -- Chuck
[Charles M. Vest
Professor of Mechanical Engineering
President Emeritus, MIT]

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Dear Nancy,

Your Faculty Newsletter article is excellent! It will have major repercussions nationally.

All the best,

VVV
[Virginia Valian
Distinguished Professor, Psychology and Linguistics
Hunter College and CUNY Graduate Center]