When Kristin Bowman-James came to Kansas University in 1975 to teach chemistry, she was the only woman in the department.

Now, the department has the highest percentage of women among the nation’s top chemistry departments.

“At the time, I just plugged along and didn’t think about it much,” Bowman-James said. “If we’re not seeing a number of good women and minorities in the department, we’re not utilizing the full potential of the work force.”

Chemical and Engineering News, a trade publication, last month reported that the seven women on KU’s chemistry faculty who make up 29 percent of the department’s faculty give KU the highest percentage of women among top-50 chemistry departments.

Nationwide, according to the report, women occupy 21 percent of faculty positions in chemistry. Other top schools included Rutgers with 26 percent, Pennsylvania State University with 22 percent and the University of California-Los Angeles with 20 percent.

KU’s 29 percent still lags behind the universitywide percent of female faculty, which is nearly 37 percent, according to the Office of Institutional Planning and Research.

“It’s partially a generational thing,” said Craig Lunte, the chemistry department’s chairman. “There was a lot of discrimination, and people used to think women shouldn’t be in science. That thinking has dramatically changed.”

When Bowman-James came to KU, she said, she tried to fit in with the men in her department. She chose not to join chemical societies for women.

But when she became department chairwoman in 1995, she said she began to realize the three women in the department didn’t represent much progress over her 20 years at KU.

She recruited four of KU’s seven female faculty members during her tenure as chairwoman, which ended last year.

“We were fortunate we had good women candidates,” she said. “We didn’t go out of our way to dig at the bottom of the pile. These were the top candidates.”

Kansas University chemists, from left, Cindy Berrie, Heather Desaire, Cynthia Larive and Kristin Bowman-James share a laugh at a Malott Hall lab while examining samples which may ultimately be used as sensors for environmental contaminants.

Lunte stressed that the high percentage of women wasn’t a result of affirmative action.

“The fact they were women never came up in the discussions,” he said. “That was just a bonus.”

He said having more women on the faculty should help recruit more faculty and more women students.

“It’s nice to be recognized for doing something that is, quite honestly, in our own best interest,” he said. “It’s ridiculous if you’re going to develop any top-notch program to think you wouldn’t consider half the world’s population.”

¢ KU chemistry faculty

The most recent female addition to the chemistry faculty is Heather Desaire, an assistant professor who started in August.

“I noticed immediately when I got the list of people I’d be talking to (in job interviews) that the number of women was substantially higher than other places,” she said. “It was reassuring that the department was a friendly place for women to work.”

She said she probably would not have come to KU if she would have been the only woman, as Bowman-James did in 1975.

“I think it would’ve made a difference,” Desaire said. “There are some places where there may be one or two other women in the department, and it’s a situation where women are always afraid to object to something.”