Still Chilly in 2010: Campus Climates for Women By Annemarie
Vaccaro, Department of Human Development and Family Studies,
University of Rhode Island Much has changed since Roberta Hall
and Bernice Sandler published their original chilly climate
series in 1984. Yet hostility, invisibility, and the feeling of
being an outsider are still realities for many undergraduate and
graduate women (Vaccaro 2010). Since female undergraduates now
outnumber males, one could assume that gender inequality is a
relic of the past. But parity in numbers is only one small piece
of the gender inequality puzzle (Subrahmanian 2005), and chilly
climates continue to exist, particularly for women with multiple
marginal identities. Mere numerical or proportional
representation tells us little about women’s lived experiences
when it comes to educational policies, practices, and programs.
Campus climate is not merely tied to head counts, but to
students’ attitudes about, perceptions of, and lived experiences
with an environment (Peterson