To the Editor:

Re: “Urry: Mentors aid women in sciences,” 10/12: Mentors do aid women in sciences, and the Women in Science at Yale advising program is a wonderful resource. But as long as women are faced with the choice of either pursuing academic science or having a family, there will be a lack of female scientists and science professors.

In order for women to stay in science at Yale, we need day care services that graduate students and postdoctoral students can afford, full coverage of dependent health care, and a real maternity leave policy that ensures health coverage for mothers and babies. We cannot “make our world what we want it to be,” as Urry puts it, without making the academic world accessible to women who want families.

Rachel Novick GRD ’07

Oct. 14, 2004

The writer is a third-year graduate student in Ecology & Evolutionary Biology.