If women students feel a slight chill in the classroom, unconscious sexism could be the culprit, the director of the Center for Women Students said in a discussion yesterday.

Sabrina Chapman addressed problems women students and faculty face in higher education and offered ideas for action women can take to improve the situation during a "brown bag" luncheon at CWS, which was cosponsored by the Returning Adult Student Center.

About 20 women and one man attended.

Discriminaton against women can be found in three forms in higher education -- male-oriented academic curriculums, women faculty ratio to women students, and everyday classroom actions, said Chapman, who concentrated on this last area.

Course content in higher education lacks information about women, Chapman said, commenting that male-dominant language usage, male definitions of success, and male behavior are taught to women through "the prism of white maleness."

"(Classroom discrimination) makes me feel inferior in a small way and then it begins to add up as it happens again and again," said Chandra Ford (junior-nutrition).

Classroom discrimination is not a new topic at the University.

The Strategic Study Group of the Status of Women, formed in 1985, studied the University's classroom climate for its third report, and made recommendations to University President Bryce Jordan in a document dated July 1987.

In the report, the study group asked the University to further research the occurrence of what it deemed improper faculty behavior toward women students:

-- Ignoring women students while recognizing men students.

-- Calling directly on men students but not on women students.

-- Using classroom examples which reflect traditional stereotypes.

-- Interrupting women students.

-- Using the generic "he" and "man" to represent both men and women.

In these areas and others, the committee said primary research about classroom climate is lacking. The most recent study -- involving women students in the College of Agriculture --was performed in 1982.

"The primary problem perceived by the women in the College of Agriculture relates to prejudicial attitudes," stated the 1982 survey.

Because of a lack of primary research on this topic at the University, the strategic study group recommended a greater effort of self-examination and action to be taken to improve women student's experiences here.

"We try to enable students who are working on these issues to confront them in the classroom by developing, one, direct communication techniques; two, assertiveness; and three, knowledge of University procedures," said Chapman.

Women students in higher education nationally comprise about 53 percent of the student population, Chapman said. However, women faculty members account for only 25 percent of the faculty population. At Penn State, the ratio is 52 percent women students to 18 percent women faculty members, Chapman said, adding that women faculty members of color comprised less than 1 percent of this population.

Of these women faculty members at the University, they tend to be clustered at the lower end of faculty status positions and in the areas of liberal arts, education, health and human development, Chapman said.

The importance of having a more equitable ratio of women faculty to women students lies in actual classroom participation, she said. A Harvard study suggests that women students will talk three times as much in class if a woman faculty member is teaching as opposed to a man, Chapman said. Increased participation in class makes the learning process more active and heightens self-esteem and self-confidence, she added.

"I think it's definitely true -- especially when professors make jokes about women," said Julie Parr (senior-social work), who attended the discussion.