Lisa Damour is the co-director of the Center for Research on Girls at Laurel School. She says plenty of gains have been made in closing the gender gap. The problem that remains, she says, is kind of like plumbing.
DAMOUR: The way I like to think about it is a leaky pipeline that you know if you think about secondary schools, primary schools as a pipeline to college, so much happens in the primary and secondary education that basically the girls have fallen out of the pipeline towards engineering or technology that they don't even have the option by the time they get to college.
Damour says that matters because those fields are increasingly important in the 21st century.
The Symposium will share techniques in developing girls' interest in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and math--the so-called STEM subjects--areas Damour says are lacking a strong female presence.
DAMOUR: Despite the fact that women are making up 55% of the college population, they're only making up 15% of computer science undergraduates, and 21 of the physics undergraduates, and 22% of the engineering graduates…"
The Symposium runs through Thursday.