Scientist honored for her role in mentoring women

When Rosalie Crouch, Ph.D., recently stepped forward to accept the Arrow Award at the Medical University of South Carolina, it was clear why she’d been chosen to receive it. The annual honor recognizes people who support and encourage women faculty at MUSC, something Crouch has been doing for about four decades.

“This has been one of my passions, as many of you know,” Crouch said. “Trying to understand why there have not been more women at the top. Most seem to stop at the assistant or associate professor level.”

While plenty of women attend medical school, she said, few end up in academic leadership roles. That means the role models and decision-makers at some medical schools are disproportionately male. 

MUSC recognized the imbalance and created the Initiative for the Advancement, Recruitment and Retention of Women, the program behind Crouch’s Arrow Award. The program offers everything from mentorship to family resources to information about MUSC’s promotion and hiring practices.

“We’ve got to learn how to essentially harness women’s intelligence and make working environments so they can succeed,” Crouch said. “Women do have this biological factor. Not all women, but many women want to have families. That affects their careers and how they handle their careers.”

Crouch spoke from experience. She’s now a grandmother as well as a distinguished university professor and interim director of ophthalmology research.

When Crouch arrived at MUSC in 1975, she started as a faculty member in the College of Medicine's departments of Ophthalmology and Biochemistry. At the time, the Vietnam War was ending, the Watergate scandal was winding down and women were playing a growing role in the U.S. workforce. Time magazine declared it “The Year of Women,” pointing to the achievements of Betty Ford, Billy Jean King and other female luminaries.

But Crouch noticed something else. “The reason I became intrigued with this is that I realized that so much talent is being wasted.  Often the smartest people in the class,including the science classes, were women, but they seemed to drop out - I think mainly through social pressures and expectations.”

Crouch decided to try to encourage women who were interested to stick with their work, creating a support system to help them achieve their professional goals without giving up their personal dreams. Their support helped her as well. Crouch held several leadership positions, including dean of the College of Graduate Studies. She was also the Medical University’s first female provost and vice president for academic affairs and she directed the Molecular and Cellular Biology and Pathology Program.

Along the way, Crouch became “one of the best vision scientists of our time internationally,” according to long time friend Darlene Shaw, Ph.D. Shaw serves as chairwoman of the Arrow Initiative’s steering committee, associate provost for education and student life and professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences.

“Rosalie has been a role model for women who want to be very effective in their careers but also have an active family life,” Shaw said. “And she’s been very active in mentoring women.”

Deborah Deas, M.D., is one of those women. Deas, a parent who’s also a professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, senior associate dean for medical education in the College of Medicine and a member of Arrow’s charter committee, has relied on informal mentoring sessions with Crouch at MUSC’s Wellness Center. They swap stories about their families and work and discuss issues while exercising.

“Rosalie has always been willing to give advice and mentor, and she constantly promotes the careers of women,” Deas said at the award ceremony. “Thank you for inspiring us to be great leaders, great mothers, researchers, administrators and finally for being ourselves.”

Crouch hasn’t finished advocating for women. The world has changed in many ways since 1975. Instead of fighting in Vietnam, American troops are battling extremists. Watergate is a chapter in our history books, and the idea that women are an important part of the workforce is widely accepted. Now, she wants to see more women at the top and is encouraged by what she’s seeing at MUSC and other institutions.

“You hear the leaders of major companies saying we’ve got to do something to quit wasting half our brain power,” Crouch said.

She didn’t sound ready to give up her work at MUSC any time soon. “It’s just been a very special place to me. I seem to have a little trouble leaving it,” she said, laughing along with the audience.