Iowa State Daily Editorial Board: Troy McCullough, Tim Davis, Jennifer Holland, Kathleen Carlson and Jenny Hykes.

Very rarely does a professor’s job end outside the classroom. Many are committed to research. Many work as advisers. Many devote a lot of time to individual students.

For some, the added stresses of being a professor are even tougher because they are the only female professors in their respective departments.

This is the case for Professor Judy M. Vance in the mechanical engineering department, Professor Carole Heath in the chemical engineering department, Professor Alison Flatau in the aerospace engineering department and Professor Kristen Constant in the materials sciences engineering department, and maybe others whom we haven’t yet heard about.

On top of their normal job requirements, these four women are pioneers at Iowa State.

You can even go as far as to call them role models — role models for female students in these departments, and role models for prospective female faculty members in these departments.

That surely isn’t an easy thing to live up to, but they are doing it.

Low numbers of women in certain fields is not a situation that is unique to Iowa State. For various reasons there are still many fields — specifically science and math-related fields — that are dominated by men.

It would seem that the first step toward gender equality in these fields is having good role models — at least four Iowa State departments have those role models already.