This page is no longer being updated and remains online for informational and historical purposes only. The information is accurate as of the last page update.
For questions about page contents, contact the Communications Division.
Amid cultural wars over the rising rate of teen pregnancies, Trustee Scholarship recipient Katharine Wolchik ’05 (Randolph, N.J.) is crunching the numbers that will provide a factual basis for analyzing this national crisis.
A double major in mathematics and economics & business, Wolchik is working with Susan Averett, professor of economics and business, to study abstinence education in the United States over a 10-year period.
The two are collaborating through Lafayette’s distinctive EXCEL Scholars program, in which students assist faculty with research while earning a stipend. Lafayette is a national leader in undergraduate research. Many of the more than 160 students who participate in EXCEL each year go on to publish papers in scholarly journals and/or present their research at conferences.
“Between the 1980s and 1990s, there was a change in policy across the nation regarding teaching abstinence as opposed to providing contraceptives for teenagers,” says Wolchik, whose main task is to collect the data that Averett and her colleagues will later analyze. She is calling officials in 10 states that kept year-to-year records on abstinence education from 1987-97 to obtain the information. The study will examine the birth rates among teens before and after abstinence education was implemented in an effort to determine whether it has been effective.
According to Averett, abstinence-based sexual education in public schools was an outgrowth of welfare reform over the last decade or so.
“The question is whether or not it has been a sound policy,” she says. “That is something we hope to study over a long period of time and Kathy is providing the raw data which will be the basis of the study.”
Wolchik is intrigued by the opportunity to apply her mathematical skills in a real-world context.
“This is more than collecting numbers for the sake of gathering numbers,” she says. “There is a real economics context here. If teen pregnancies increase, there is a burden for society to shoulder. Teen mothers often have no job, they require social services, and they pay no taxes. So there is a real serious reason to be examining the two alternatives.”
Wolchik credits her mathematics adviser, Arthur Gorman, associate professor of mathematics, with encouraging her to engage in research.
“He was very good in getting my name out there among the faculty,” she says. “Last semester, he and I worked together in developing a meteorology course that uses mathematics at its core. He got my name out there for this spring semester and I had more opportunities than I could choose.”
Wolchik decided to work with Averett because “she is my economics adviser and we became close when I took her Women in Economics course. Even though my involvement with this project will be just for the spring semester, I feel that I am helping launch an important study.”
Averett, who will continue the study next year while on sabbatical, says that Wolchik is a “terrific asset to the economics and business department. She brought a special energy to our Fed Challenge, an academic competition based on the operations of the Federal Reserve Bank. My only regret is that she will not be on board to help me with the study next year.”
With an eye to graduate study in applied mathematics, Wolchik says that professors Gorman and Averett represent “the heart of Lafayette education. Professors really care. They don’t want you to just walk through your four years here, they want you to be challenged.”
In addition to competing in the Fed Challenge, Wolchik is a member of French Club, plays intramural soccer, dances ballet and hip-hop, is a mathematics lab proctor and chemistry tutor, and has been nominated to the honor societies for both majors.
She is a graduate of Randolph High School.
As a national leader in undergraduate research, Lafayette sends one of the largest contingents to the National Conference on Undergraduate Research each year. Over the past decade, an average of 34 Lafayette students have been invited to present results from research with faculty mentors, or under their guidance, at the conference. Forty-two students were accepted to present their work at the conference last month.
Selected from among Lafayette’s top applicants, Trustee Scholars have distinguished themselves through exceptional academic achievement in high school. They receive from Lafayette an annual minimum scholarship of $7,500 (totaling $30,000 over four years) or a grant in the full amount of their demonstrated need if the need is more than $7,500.