The panels will be organized around several themes: the political economy of social and environmental sciences, scientific knowledge and discourses of difference, modernity and medicine and natural vs. national science.

Michelle Rowley, assistant lecturer in the gender and development studies program, University of the West Indies, St. Augustine, Trinidad, will deliver the keynote address “Border Conversations: Interrogating the Seams of Science” at 3:15 p.m. A roundtable discussion, moderated by Rowley, will follow the talk.

The conference begins at 9 a.m with introductory remarks, followed by the first panel, “The Political Economy of Social and Environmental Sciences. Participants include Bates senior Bradley Wilson, on “Producing Sustainable Coffee”; Rachel Narehood Austin, assistant professor of chemistry and environmental studies, Bates College, on “A Post-Modern Approach to Assessing Environmental Risk: Gauging the Human Health Risks Posed by Lead Exposure”; and Lillian Guerra, assistant professor of history, Bates College, on “Cuba, Cubans and the Harvard Summer School for Cuban Teachers: Making a Science of Civilization.”

The second panel, “Natural/National Science, Modernity and Medicine,” begins at 11 a.m. Panelists are Scott MacEachern, associate professor of anthropology, Bowdoin College, on “Genes, Tribes and African History”; Susan Bell, professor of sociology, Bowdoin College, on “Sexuality, Culture and Social Change: Connecting ‘Women’; and ‘Science’ in Microbicide Research”; and Kiran Asher, assistant professor of political science and women’s studies, Bates College, on “The ‘Global Environment’ Discourse and Biodiversity Research in Columbia.”

Following a break for lunch, the third 90-minute panel, “Scientific Knowledge and Discourses of Difference,” begins at 1 p.m. with Anindyo Roy, assistant professor of English, Colby College, on “Labor Visibility and the Colonial Apparatus: The Case of Leonard Woolf”; NeEddra James, a Bowdoin College religion major, on “Imaging and Imagining the Black Female Subject in 19th-Century Anthropology”; and Patricia J. Saunders, assistant professor of English, Bowdoin College, on “Those Who Insist on Be(Come)Ing: Anthropology and the Task of Translating Identity for Caribbean Subjects.

The 3:15 p.m. keynote address and roundtable discussion will be followed by a 90-minute reception at the Benjamin Mays Center. For more information, call 207-786-6472 or 207-725-3670.

The conference is sponsored by the Women and Scientific Literacy Project; the political science department, the environmental studies program and the Office of the President at Bates College; The Hewlett Group; and the English department at Bowdoin College.

Bates was selected from a field of 76 applicants, each with a strong women’s studies program and an institutional commitment to improving the campus climate and curricular offerings for women in science.

Each selected institution has formed a campus team of six members guided by a team leader to facilitate the project. Math professor Bonnie Shulman leads the Bates faculty team composed of Pam Baker and Sharon Kinsman, biology; Elizabeth Tobin, history; Mark Semon, physics; and Georgia Nigro, psychology.

“It’s quite an honor,” Shulman said. “It was a nationwide competition and the award means that Bates will now be a leader in the movement to improve science education for women.”

Along with other participants, Bates will develop new courses on women and science, incorporate new scholarship on gender and science into the existing curriculum and develop innovative teaching methods for women studying science. The project will produce several publications about the curricular changes developed on these 10 campuses and ways schools can successfully bridge the gender-science gap.

The 10 institutions were chosen by a national panel of leading women science scholars. The Women and Scientific Literacy (WSL) project is directed by the Association of American Colleges and Universities’ Program on the Status and Education of Women (PSEW) with a $857,244 grant from the National Science Foundation.

An annual stipend of $10,000 goes to Bates for the first two years of the project. Other resources available include a national science consultant to guide their projects, bibliographic and curricular resources, access to a moderated e-mail discussion group and participation in two national conferences.

Other participating institutions include: University of Arizona; Barnard College; California State University – Long Beach; Greenfield Community College; University of Illinois at Chicago; Portland State University; University of Rhode Island; Rowan College of New Jersey; and St. Lawrence University.

Founded in 1971, PSEW is one of only two women’s offices in national higher education associations, and the sole one whose central mission is to improve undergraduate education.