NYT reporter answers questions about 'New Math'

Alex Williams' Sunday Style piece in The New York Times about dating culture on campuses where the gender ratio skews towards females has provoked a flurry of conversation. Many online comments have questioned whether the story paints a realistic portrait of UNC, or if it focuses too heavily on a narrow population within the campus. Williams agreed to answer Assistant State & National Editor Tarini Parti's questions about the article via e-mail.

Q: What made you want to write about gender ratios at universities?

A: The story was inspired by the recent American Council on Education study mentioned in my piece about gender ratios in colleges in general. The study shows that, since 2000, 57 percent of college students in America are women, only 43 percent men. Most of the talk surrounding the issue has revolved around larger policy issues, such as whether any effort to even the ratio might discriminate against deserving women. But my editors and I were interested in the social consequences of such a striking imbalance—in particular, what does it mean to people’s dating lives to go to a school where the gender balance is lopsided. This was an aspect of the gender-gap story that hadn’t been written about much, and we thought was interesting. We wanted to hear the voices of students on the matter.

Q: What schools did you consider?

A: Not only did I consider many other schools, I included several others in the piece. I quoted students from University of Vermont, University of Georgia, Fordham University in New York, and Florida State University. In general, I was interested in schools that reflected the national numbers, in other words, schools that were at least 55/45. As I make clear in the piece, many schools are actually pretty even in gender, and some go the other way. For example, I hoped to have space to include your neighbor and rival, North Carolina State, which of course skews in the opposite direction, with more men, so students there have their own unique experiences. I did talk to some UNC students who talked about dating NC State men for that very reason, but in a piece like this, you can never find space to include everything interesting you find. And since the national study was talking about American colleges in general tilting female, I wanted to look at schools that tilted female.

Q: Why did you pick UNC?

A: I considered traveling to a lot of schools, but UNC seemed like a good choice to talk to students because, at nearly 60/40, it has a pronounced imbalance. Also, it was a school with a top-flight reputation and lots of intelligent students who seemed very articulate, and from my initial interviews with students before traveling there, many seemed to have strong opinions on the matter. So I traveled to North Carolina and talked to a lot of students. Clearly, I devote a lot of space to UNC because I thought it was a good example of a national phenomenon. But I don’t consider this a piece about UNC. I think a lot of the points reflect students’ experiences at a lot of schools that have a gender gap. To me, it’s a story about a national phenomenon—at least for those schools where there is a gender gap—and that’s why I quoted students and experts from other schools around the country, as well.

Q: How much time did you spend in Chapel Hill?

A: I was there for four days.

Q: How did you pick the bars where you interviewed your sources?

A: Since this was a story about dating culture, I wanted to go to places where students went to meet potential dating partners. Students I talked to said that there weren’t many organized events like on-campus dances where people met people, and that a lot of dating happened at fraternity parties and bars, which is the same story I was hearing from students at other schools around the country, as well. So I wanted to go out on the front lines, so to speak, of the dating culture and talk to people in that sort of “singles” setting. Students at UNC told me that people mostly went out to places on Franklin Street, and so I had some students take me out and show me around the scene. But this wasn’t just a “bar” story. I did a lot of reporting on the telephone, as well as at Starbucks, etc.

Q: How did you pick the students that you interviewed?

A: On a story like this, you really just talk to anyone who seems eager to talk. Some were, some weren’t, so I went with those who were.

Q: Did you think the sources were representative of UNC's population?

A: Yes, generally. I talked to freshmen, sophomores, juniors, and seniors, science majors and liberal arts majors, people who said they dated a lot and people who said they didn’t. It wish I would have had space to explore the experiences of gay students, but by definition, a story that seeks to explore the dating culture at a school with a gender imbalance calls to mind the heterosexual experience. That was just one of several aspects of this issue which I would have liked to include if I had had the space. But the gender ratio issue in general could be a book-length topic, and my piece was just one 1,500-word article.

Q: Some have said that they were interviewed while being intoxicated. What is your response to them, and do you think there's anything wrong with reporter's interviewing people in bars?

A: Even though this story is not a “bar” story, per se, there is an inevitable nightlife component to it, and if you’re reporting about nightlife, you have to go to where the nightlife happens. This is not unusual for a reporter like me who does a lot of stories involving dating, socializing, and nightlife. I talk to a lot of people at bars and clubs for a lot of different stories. To accurately reflect the dating culture of any university, it helps to see what’s going on at bars popular with students and frat parties. Reporters are not going to be admitted into private frat parties, but bars are public places which, by definition, are filled with people at least 21 years old who are old enough to make their own decisions about what they want to say, and to whom, and if they don’t want to talk, no problem. Some of the people I spoke to were having beers and enjoying their night out with friends, which is what you do at a bar, but they were all articulate and were making points clearly. And they all seemed to have thought, and talked, a lot about the issue of “the ratio,” which is what you’re looking for as a journalist—people who have clear opinions on the topic at hand.

Q: What has the reaction to the story been like? Were you expecting any kind of negative response?

A: This piece has really provoked a lot of dialogue, that’s for sure. I’ve heard from lots of people who loved the piece, lots of people who didn’t. That’s kind of what you anticipate with a piece like this. Everyone has their own experience, and their own point of view, and I knew going in that this was a piece that people were going to have strong opinions about