USD Magazine, Summer 2000

and qu·etly res ape undergraduate students enrolled at USD is slightly above the national average, with 57 percent female to 43 percent male.

Like their counterparts at other liberal arts universi- ties, USD administrators have grappled with the num– bers, only to find themselves facing an unenviable and possibly unsolvable equation: How to man- age the gender gap without discouraging either sex, or, equally as compelling a question, should the gap even be closed?

Controversial Issue, Controversial Reasons

"Women have done a great job of developing an interest in once

male-dominated activities like ath– letics, business and the sciences," Lazarus says. "Because of that, we knew (this shift) was coming. The questions then became, how do you manage it; why would you want to stop it?" It shouldn't be stopped, according to Joni Finney, vice president of the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education. More women go to college than

men, she says, simply due to economics - men still get better paying jobs then women without a college degree, so women need the education to level the playing field. "Nobody made a big deal out of the fact that for

decades, even centuries, there were more men going to college than women," says Finney, whose think tank views the gender gap as a non-issue. "The numbers now are just slightly greater for women. And it's due to the fact that for women, the economic returns of a college degree are much more significant than for men." Even more emphatic is USD philosophy Professor Harriet Baber, who says the gap will only be closed once women achieve parity in the labor market. "Essentially, it's a matter of choice. Women have to be more qualified in any given field than men to get a job, and women choose to go on to college as a response to the discrimination in the labor market." Others say the disparity is the result of boys falling behind girls in elementary and high schools. The reasons are as numerous as they are controversial: Three-quarters of students diagnosed coday wich learning or emocional disabilicies are boys, wich many of chem on medicacion. Boys lack role models ac home and in school - only 16 per– cent of elementary school ceachers are men. Female students cend to be more coopera– cive chan males, thereby viewed more favorably by cheir ceachers. And men, no longer che sociecal breadwinners, have lowered cheir career expectations. All chis leads, chey say, to a gradual disinteresc in educacion among males. "I believe we firsc need to stop defining boys as che enemy, because chey're noc," says USD sociology Professor Anne Hendershott, who is writing a book on redefining deviam behavior. "We have been concencracing on girls, viewing chem as the victim in schools, while accive boys are being labeled deviant. The pendulum has swung so far toward women, chat we need to gee it back into balance." ace o college campuses.