On October 17, the House Science and Technology Research and Science Education Subcommittee held a hearing on the federal government’s role in increasing the numbers of women in academic science and engineering fields.
While acknowledging that women are receiving PhDs in “steadily increasing numbers” and that they have “achieved parity with men at the graduate level,” Chair Brian Baird (D-WA) said, “Unfortunately, however, they still hold only 28 percent of all full-time science and engineering faculty positions, and only 18 percent of full professor positions.” He continued, “Today, we want to explore what happens to the available pool of women who have stuck it out all the way through a PhD. These accomplished women leave academia in greater numbers than men, and those who do stay in academia continue to be promoted, recognized for academic achievement, and paid at lower rates than their male colleagues.”
Ranking Member Vern Ehlers (R-MI) said, “Understanding the difficulties that female faculty face is challenging. The climate is changing, but it still is an uphill battle to get faculty of either gender to have frank conversations about this volatile topic…I have been fortunate to have female colleagues from the time I was an undergraduate student at Calvin College straight through to my time as a physics professor, but, of course, these women were always far outnumbered by their male colleagues. Even though significant progress has occurred since I left academia, many institutions still are in need of dissolving antiquated perceptions and the actions that come with them about the appropriateness of women in science and engineering.”
Donna Shalala, president of the University of Miami and former secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, presented the recommendations of the National Academies report, Beyond Bias and Barriers: Fulfilling the Potential of Women in Academic Science and Engineering: federal funding agencies and foundations should “provide workshops on, and expand research support for, gender bias; collect, store, and publish composite information for all funding applications and awards; provide funding opportunities for dependent care support including attendance at work-related conferences and meetings, and interim technical or administrative support during [a] dependent care-related leave of absence…; [and] expand support for research of efficacy of organizational programs designed to reduce gender bias.” In addition, Dr. Shalala said that “federal agencies should lay out clear guidelines, leverage resources, and rigorously enforce existing antidiscrimination laws in all institutions of higher education” and that “Congress, because of the insidious ways in which bias can permeate even an environment that aspires to transparency, like the academy, must direct its full attention to enforcing antidiscrimination laws, including regular oversight hearings to investigate the enforcement activities of the Department of Education, the EEOC [Equal Employment Opportunity Commission], the Department of Labor, and the science granting agencies.”
Kathie Olsen, deputy director of the National Science Foundation (NSF), explained one cause of the low number of women in the academic sciences: “Traditional networking routes used for faculty recruiting can hinder increasing the representation of women professors in STEM [science, technology, engineering, and mathematics] fields. Many faculty and academic leaders chairing search committees come from male-dominated educational and professional experiences; when they turn to their informal networks to recruit faculty talent, they tend to create disproportionately male applicant pools. Further, when the perception exists that qualified women are very rare, it is often assumed that a woman candidate will not accept an offer and so an offer is not made.” Dr. Olsen added, “Potential solutions to these and other challenges have been developed by awardees of NSF’s ADVANCE-Institutional Transformation program, which began in 2001. Institutional transformation occurs through a top down, bottom up approach: when a committed senior leadership establishes policies that enhance the recruitment and retention of women and an institutional commitment to diversity, in cooperation with the individual members of the institution who initiate and incorporate change in their daily practice…ADVANCE awardees have become national leaders in the development of training experiences for department chairs, deans, recruitment committees, and tenure and promotion committees.”
Myron Campbell, chair of the physics department at the University of Michigan, offered four observations from a site visit to the University of Michigan by the Committee on the Status of Women in Physics: “[1] It is not the responsibility of the women in the department to effect change. Improvements will have to be driven by the combined efforts of the senior faculty. [2] Problems exist at all levels and areas, and there is not a single solution or ‘magic bullet.’ Improvements will come from a large number of modest accomplishments. [3] It’s not just about the numbers. A major problem is the climate and how women are treated. Bringing in additional female faculty must be accompanied by improving the climate. [4] All of the department’s accomplishments first-rate research programs, excellent undergraduate and graduate education, and successful community outreach are placed at risk by climate issues.” In order to improve the ranks of women in academic sciences, Dr. Campbell recommended that the NSF continue the ADVANCE program; that universities address the “pipeline issue” the decrease at various ranks of women at each stage of science education at every career stage; and that institutions eliminate barriers to women, especially those with young children, by permitting child care to be an allowable expense during meetings and conferences.
Gretchen Ritter, director of the Center for Women and Gender Studies at the University of Texas at Austin, identified four challenges that act as barriers to women in academia: climate, professional assessment and rewards, work-family balance, and the absence of senior women. With regard to the work-family balance, Dr. Ritter said, “Within academia, our expectations about tenure, career trajectories and productivity, and the conduct of research and professional service to one’s department and discipline still presume that the full-time faculty are unencumbered by family responsibilities or caregiving expectations for children, partners, or elderly parents. Those presumptions are clearly unrealistic, and they are harmful to women faculty who are more likely to be limited by the professional careers of their spouses, and more likely to have primary caregiver responsibility for family members. Further, to a greater degree than ever before, younger academic men are likely to have substantial caregiving responsibilities for their children, and to have spouses who work full-time. So, both in the interest of gender equality, and in the interest of attracting men and women of talent into academic careers, universities must do more to support the family responsibilities of their faculty.” She added that the lack of senior women within the department “has a large impact on the climate of a department and an institution, on the ability of institutions to provide mentoring that is supportive of diversity, on the role of implicit gender bias in faculty assessment and reward structures, on the service demands imposed on more junior faculty…and on the creation of a family-friendly institutional culture within departments and colleges.”
Dr. Freeman Hrabowski, III, president of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, also testified.
