Yesterday, RPI held a colloquy gathering three national experts in women’s advancement in academia for a panel discussion at the kick-off celebration for RAMP-UP, the Reforming Advancement Processes through University Professions initiative.
The initiative aims to improve the advancement opportunities for Rensselaer faculty and serve as a national model for advancement reform, according to Cheryl Ann Geisler, professor and chair of the Language, Literature, and Communication department and the project’s principle investigator. The program will include mentoring programs, faculty workshops, faculty advancement coaches, and pipeline searches to recruit senior women from industry or national labs. Acting Provost Robert Palazzo presented the first pipeline search to find and recruit a woman in the area of energy and environmental engineering to a full-time, tenured full professorship in the 2007-2008 academic year.
Seven professors were awarded with Career Campaign Awards, including Professors Blanca Barquera, Biological Science; Audrey Bennett, Language, Literature, and Communication; Janice Fernheimer, Language, Literature, and Communication; Mariana Figueiro, Architecture and Lighting Resource Center; Tomie Hahn, Arts; Lupita D. Montoya, Civil and Environmental Engineering; and Ingrid Wilke, Physics. Professor Keith Nelson of the School of Engineering was also presented with the Faculty Coach Award for his work in mentoring and helping to guide women in their academic advancement. The faculty coach program will be piloted by the School of Science and the School of Engineering.
The panel members present included professors Shulamit Kahn of Boston University, Robert Drago of Pennsylvania State University and Carol Colatrella of Georgia Tech. President Shirley Ann Jackson moderated the discussion, which focused on women’s issues, especially within the context of academia. Kahn presented statistics showing that approximately 47 percent of all doctoral degrees are being awarded to women. Within the past few years, she mentioned that as of 2005, a majority of doctorates in life sciences are being given to women. Social sciences, besides economics, are now up to 56 percent women, she said.
“Things are not all roses,” Kahn said, “Women are now being a little more afraid of going into life sciences.” On the whole, only 24 percent of full professor positions in the United States are held by women according to a report by the American Association of University Professors, and women still make only about 81 percent of the money that men do for the same positions. Often, many women drop out of the academic field during the post-doc period, which can extend for five or more years before entering the tenure-track. Often, this is the period when many women will have a child. Nonetheless, professorship numbers for women are continuing to see growth. Kahn is the author of “Does Science Promote Women?”
Drago, the author of “Striking a Balance: Work, Family, Life” and “The Avoidance of Bias in Caregiving,” said that of the female faculty, almost three-quarters are contingent, meaning part-time or not tenure-tracked. Of those, two-thirds of those are part-time. He termed this the “mommy track.” He said that the general principles of flexibility from the private sector can extend to academia, but that academic work is absorptive; academic thought extends into the private life much of the time, and putting limits on that can be difficult in the tenure track. He spoke of a bias against caregiving, which can give the appearance that one isn’t committed due to their care of their children. This can lead to bias avoidance behavior, among them women staying single or holding off on having children. “Women are more likely to stay single, about 15 percent of women to 10 percent of men, in order to achieve career success.” He also noted a phenomena he called the “China policy” in which a family will have one child, but will wait until the woman achieves tenure or a promotion before having more children. According to data from a 2000 census, academic women were less likely to have young children than females in medical or legal fields until they reached age 40, when those levels began to equalize.
In a press release by the Institute, Jackson said, “The under-representation in science and engineering of young women and ethnic minority youth—a new majority in the United States accounting for nearly two-thirds of the population—has become a growing national issue. Recent reports by major academic and scientific organizations indicate that these trends extend past students to include female and minority educators in science and engineering whose presence is lacking in academia’s tenured, chaired, and full professor positions.”
She went on to say, “Understanding and unraveling the myriad 21st century challenges requires tapping the entire talent pool, including the ‘new majority;’ engaging students early in science to excite the next generation of scientists, engineers, leaders, and decision makers; and re-evaluating and reforming university advancement processes to ensure that all academics are extended an unbiased, equal opportunity to excel.”
