Shameful Gender Discrimination at UC Davis Veterinary School

January 13 2011, 3:47pm

I have been distant the last few days, dear readers, because I have been pensive. You see, a few days ago I received an email from a reader from UC Davis and I have been questioning whether it was a good idea to share with you. But, after reading an especially lame post today at Science 2.0 about how women create gender discrimination in their own minds, and after verifying with this reader that it was alright to share the intimate details of the email with you, I have decided to share it and I hope that you will share it with others.

To be honest, I am a bit floored by it all.Figure 1: An artist's rendition of Isis being floored.  The source image is from this incredible photo blog.As I mentioned, earlier in the week, I received an email from a student at UC Davis. I won't directly reproduce her email here, but the back story is that she is friends with a veterinary student at the university and, as a result, became privy to a communication sent fro the presidents of the 3rd year students to the rest of the class.  The note reads:Dear Colleagues,One of our classmates recently gave birth and will be out of class for an unknown period of time. This means she will undoubtedly miss one, or more, or all quizzes in VMD 444.  Dr. Feldman is not sure how to handle this and has requested the class give input and vote.  He has provided us with 6 options on which to vote and is open to any other ideas you may have.  Most likely a CERE poll will be up next week and a voting will close no later than Wednesday.  If you have other suggestions please email them to Dan or I ASAP. We will alert you to the opening of voting. Below are listed the options that Dr. Feldman has suggested. Please reserve comment on these options and provide us your opinion on them by voting when the time comes.  Thank you for your understanding in this matter.a) automatic A final gradeb) automatic B final gradec) automatic C final graded) graded the same as everyone else: best 6 quiz scores out of a possible 7 quiz scores (each quiz only given only once in class with no repeats)e) just take a % of quiz scores (for example: your classmate takes 4 quizzes, averages 9/10 points = 90% = A)f) give that student a single final exam at the end of the quarter (however this option is only available to this one student, all others are graded on the best 6 quiz scores and the % that results)Please let us know if you have other thoughts on how to handle this situation and please keep your eye out for the upcoming vote.Thank you for your time and consideration,Your PresidentsIn response to this woman's pregnancy, the class has been given the option to choose this woman's fate including 1) Just giving her an 'A' or 2) Giving that careless floozy a 'C'.  If she had earned an 'A', why would the 'B' or 'C' be an option?  The arbitrary nature of these options is baffling.  I also fail to see how the issues related to this individual student are of concern to the entire 3rd year class of a veterinary school.The Dr. Feldman mentioned in the note is Edward Feldman DVM, Chair of the Department of Medicine & Epidemiology at the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine.  According to his biography, He has taught small animal internal medicine for more than 25 years and authored more than 50 book chapters, authored or co-authored more than 140 peer-reviewed scientific publications and more than100 scientific abstracts. Dr. Feldman is a cofounder and former president of the Society of Comparative Endocrinology, a special interest group open to all veterinarians. He is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Norden Distinguished Teaching Award, the California Academy of Veterinary Medicine's Award for Teaching Excellence, and SmithKline Beecham Award for Research Excellence. He has co-authored two textbooks, the Textbook of Veterinary Internal Medicine with Dr. Stephen Ettinger, and Canine and Feline Endocrinology and Reproduction with Dr. Richard Nelson.Yet, despite his extensive teaching experience and awards, textbooks, and research publications, Dr. Feldman simply could not figure out how to deal with a the academic status of a pregnant student.  Figure 2: "What should we do with that pesky knocked up student, Rover?  Just give her a 'C'?"From subsequent emails that I have exchanged with folks about this:A friend showed me a class-wide email the student recently sent, stating that Dr. Feldman had not spoken with her before he asked the class presidents to send out the poll (I'm pretty sure this is really, really bad...).  Another friend of mine reports that the professor asked the class to participate in the poll, while the relevant student was sitting in his class and that he basically ignored her when she pointed out that she was present and absences wouldn't be an issue. In my mind I imagined Dr. Feldman swaggering in to class one day, frowning, and saying...Alright, kids.  We got a dilemma.  Jolene done gone and got herself knocked up.  What are we gone do about it, now?And, I have to admit. Although I could see the name and affiliation of the person that sent me the email,  I thought at first that someone might be messing with me.  It was unbelievable to me that someone would treat a pregnant student this way, leaving her fate to the whim of her classmates.  So, I emailed Dr. Feldman for comment.  He replied promptly...Dear Isis, thanks for your note. i have no comment on the email you received which was to be sent only to members of the UC Davis, School of Veterinary Medicine, current 3rd year class. Regards, Edward C Feldman...thus confirming that Dr. Feldman had indeed asked his 3rd year class to set up a poll to determine this woman's fate and that Isis the Scientist was most certainly not supposed to have read the emails related to this woman's delicate condition.  I have asked the presidents of the 2012 class for comment, but have not received it.  Should I receive comment from them, I will publish it here in its entirety.Several at UC Davis have been upset by the treatment of this veterinary student and, with the agreement that I not share the name of the university official with you, I have been given this private email sent from a high ranking university official in response to a voiced objection.  I feel comfortable sharing this with you because this official was warned that I might write about this:Thank you very much for your concerns. I certainly do not agree with the manner in which Dr. Feldman dealt with this issue, and can think of many other more suitable ways. However, the issue is much more complex than at first it seems for both the student and the faculty.  Within a professional school that has a very intensive and lock-step curriculum, there are many issues to consider in these circumstances.Which sounds to me an awful lot like, "Sure he could have been more tactful about it but she did go and get herself knocked up.  It's not our fault that she went and got pregnant.  After all, we didn't put the bun in her oven.  If she wanted to be a serious professional, she'd have been more careful.  We have a rigorous program here with no room for reproduction from anyone but the farm animals."Online resources for graduate students and postdocs starting families were difficult to find on UC Davis's website.  What's interesting is that UC Davis has a Faculty Training and Development Program with Work-Life Faculty advisors.  Dr. Phil Kass of the veterinary school writes:The Faculty Work Life program began after I became a full professor, so I wasn't in a position to take advantage of its opportunities. Nevertheless, I strongly support its existence for a number of reasons. For one thing, about 80% of the vet school's graduating class is women, but the gender distribution of our faculty hasn't come close to catching up. We need to do everything we can to make academic careers much more appealing to the next generation of veterinarians - a generation that will predominantly be female. And on another level, the idea that young faculty should have to choose between family and career is antediluvian to me. It's a moral issue: the University should be doing everything possible to encourage faculty to achieve their academic potential while not forcing them to sacrifice their personal and family lives as well. I see the Work Life program as the first - but not the last - step in moving toward a more enlightened policy towards a family-friendly academic life.So, maybe UC Davis, and specifically the veterinary school, only support reproduction after you've become faculty.  There are two pieces of this that relegate it all to a special category of crazy.  First, it appears that there are policies in place at UC Davis that could have guided Dr. Feldman's decision without involving his students.  According to the UC Davis website, a student with passing grades in a course may ask for a grade of "Incomplete" and finish at a later date.  The medical school has a very reasonable formal planned educational leave policy in place which allows students to suspend their studies and return a few weeks to one year later (although apparently this student asked for no additional time).The other part of this that bothers me is that it is not the responsibility or privilege of students in a graduate program to determine the fate of their peers.  This is why there are graduate faculty and if Dr. Feldman was truly so baffled about what to do with this student, he should have turned to his peers or more senior university officials for guidance.  My heart breaks for this woman to have been shamed in front of her peers this way.  To have been presented as a problem that must be voted on and dealt with.  I can't imagine what she must have felt like to know that her peers were given the option to assign her an 'A' or a 'C', depending on what they thought she deserved. How are her peers in any position to determine her performance in a course in which they have no expertise?Figure 3: At UC Davis, we don't need no stinkin' graduate faculty.  We just give each other grades!Certainly her performance in the class to that point should have been more important than the opinion of her peers.  The fact that the choices include "You can reward her with an 'A' or punish her with a 'C' for getting herself pregnant" is nothing more than shameful.  There is no situation I can realistically ponder where an 'A' would be given as a choice if she did not in some way deserve it.Truly, truly shameful, and this situation absolutely broke my heart. I believe that Dr. Feldman's actions reflect a failure of the most senior leadership at UC Davis to educate their faculty in the treatment of pregnant students.  As such, I would ask something I rarely ask of you.  I ask that you write the chancellor at UC Davis, Linda P.B. Katehi  (an online form is available here) and ask her office to further investigate Dr. Feldman's actions.  Women should not be discriminated against, punished, or shamed for their decision to reproduce.  No matter how "intensive and lock-step" the curriculum is. Read the comments on this post...