NNEEWWSSMay 4, 2012 The Critic, Page 8

Sarah AubeCritic Correspondent

There are over 100 moremale students than there are fe-male students at Lyndon StateCollege.

54 percent of LSC studentsare male, which is opposite ofthe national average for collegegender ratios.

The current national aver-age shows most undergraduatecolleges as having nearly 60 per-cent female students Bed-week.org 2011C.

=I think every guy wishesthe ratio was not as predomi-nantly male at Lyndon,> says IanSullivan, a senior majoring in so-cial science and secondary edu-cation. =Though it@s always goodto have a few guy friends oncampus.>

He says that he feels hismale and female peers performsimilarly academically.

=There are some girls thatare very driven, and some pro-crastinate and wait till the lastsecond. It@s the same way withguys though,> says Sullivan.

The gender split can also beseen department by department.

The greatest percentage offemales in a department is found

in pre-nursing, with 97 percentfemales.

For example, mountainrecreation management is 82percent male students, with thegreatest percentage of males inany department.

=I think part of that has todo with the field itself,> saysThom Anderson, mountainrecreation management depart-ment head. =It@s probably moreattractive to men. I@m guessing.>

Anderson says that thoughmany people see it this way, thefield is not just for men.

=We want to have morewomen in our department,> saysAnderson. =We need both gen-ders because we are leading allkinds of different groups.>

Anderson says that themales may sometimes think thatthey are better but that thewoman perform equally to theirmale counterparts, and also usu-ally take on more leadershiproles in the classroom than themales do.

=We have plenty of femalesdoing that and they love that,and they@re awesome at that,>says Anderson of the womenstepping up as leaders.

Nicole Pfahl, a mountainrecreation management major,

says she does not mind being inthe gender minority in her de-partment.

=I feel like they appreciateand respect me more. I feel likeI was underestimated at first.Then you kind of have to proveyourself worthy> says Pfahl.

After pre-nursing, the de-partment with the highest per-cent of females is psychologyand human services. This de-partment is 88 percent female.

Margaret Sherrer, depart-ment head and professor of psy-chology and human servicessays, =I think the gender splitamong our department majors isvery similar to academic depart-ments at other colleges and uni-versities that offer degrees in theso-called �helping professions�such as social work, human serv-ices, and nursing which tend toattract females in higher num-bers than males.>

Sherrer says she is more in-terested in attracting qualifiedstudents to the program thanwhether they are male or female.

=I think Admissions has asimilar attitude about attractinginterested students regardless ofgender,> says Sherrer. =Again, Ithink this is a larger societalissue with respect to the female

domination of the helping pro-fessions.>

According to Sherrer, thefact that it is a predominantlyfemale department does notmean that the males in the de-partment do any worse academ-ically or practically.

=We�ve always had out-standing male students who are

strong academically and are alsovery skilled in working withclients in the field,> says Sherrer.

Mariah Ogden, who is a sen-ior majoring in psychology andhuman services, says of the gen-der difference, =It doesn@t reallymatter to me. I@m here to learn,not to meet a mate.>

Balance of the Sexes

Morgan ForesterWeb Editor

This Sunday, May 6 TeamLSC will endure one of the mostdifficult challenges in the ath-letic world, Tough Mudder.

The team, Jason Clark,Aaron Cornell, Jonathan Dame,Stuart Farina, Joe Kill, GregLedoux, CJ Mauro, DarcieMiles, Leah Morgan, AllisonPoulin, Takuya Shimamura,Meagan Swahn, Sara Swahn andJaclyn Toney, will travel to Mt.Snow where the Vermont ToughMudder competition will takeplace Saturday and Sunday.

Some of the team memberstook a minute from their train-ing to share their reasons for

partaking in the competitionand their goals.

=I was challenged to do it,>says Leah Morgan. Stu Farinathreatened to tell her father thatshe wasn@t going to participate.=Its one of the toughest eventson the planet so if you can getthrough that you can getthrough anything.>

=I was very interested afterthe exercise science team did itlast year and just to set a goal formyself to finish,> says DarcieMiles.

Also inspired by last year@steam Megan Swahn will also bea rookie in Tough Mudder 2012.

=I went last year as a specta-tor and as soon as they took offI got pumped and tried to keep

up with them,> says Swhan. Meagan is joining her sister

Sara Swahn who competed lastyear. She recalls the obstaclesfrom her last competition.

=They were all sucky. Thereare signs throughout the wholecourse saying ?remember yousigned a death waiver@.>

Swahn adds that this waivermeans you do not have to do allof the obstacles, it@s your life torisk or not risk.

Part of last year@s trainingteam, though not part of thecompeting team due to schedul-ing conflicts, a certain memberof the team is more than eagerto get out there, regardless ofthe potentially deadly obstacles.

=I@m hoping to be first for

our team! I@m hoping to finishunder three hours which I havebeen told is do-able,> JosephKill.

Each team member hastheir own reason for competingand their own goals for the com-petition but they have all beentraining hard. Many of them arepart of a circuit training class ledby team captain Jonathan DameMonday and Friday mornings at8 a.m. while others have taken tothe outdoors to get ready.

=We went up to the DLyn-donE Town School and ran upsand pits and used the gym topractice for the obstacles,> saysMorgan.

Even as they train for this

year@s big event Dame is alreadyjoking with his teammates aboutnext year@s competition.

=Our shirts next year shouldsay ?I threw up on Mt. Snow@.>

After ten miles and 30+ ob-stacles, including mystery obsta-cles, meeting them at the end istable after table of protein bars,bananas, Gatorade, MuscleMilk, water and a free beer. Ofcourse this event is not just toprove strength and willpower, al-though it does both, all proceedsfrom Tough Mudder events gotowards the Wounded WarriorProject to help soldiers injuredin battle receive whatever careand assistance they need.

Dept Female MaleAtmospheric Science 29% 71%Business 43% 57%Education 87% 13%Electronic Journalism Arts 31% 69%English, Philosophy & Film 56% 44%Exercise Science 39% 61%Explorations 61% 39%General Studies/Liberal Studies 65% 35%Math/CIS 28% 72%Mountain Recreation Mgt 18% 82%Music & Performing Arts 27% 73%Natural Science 42% 58%Pre-Nursing 97% 3%Psychology/Human Svcs 88% 12%Social Sciences 39% 61%Visual Arts 43% 57%

Take on the Challenge: Tough Mudder

Tough Mudder competitors Joe Kill (left) and Sara Swahn (right) prepare for the challenge Photos by Morgan Forester

Chart provided by LSC

Percentages of Female and Male Students by Department