NC STATE UNIVERSITY

Association of Women Faculty

Equity, work-life balance, networking and mentoring, tenure...

... are any of these issues of concern to you?

The Association of Women Faculty is a volunteer organization comprised of women faculty dedicated to enhancing the climate and opportunities for women at NC State by fostering interaction, communication, networking, and professional development.

This year we are working with various offices and partners at the university towards making child care at NCSU not just a helpful website but a real building with children in it.

Goals

Increase campus awareness of issues that concern women faculty.
Promote recruitment, retention, and advancement of women faculty.
Improve administrative structures that support women faculty.
Ensure equitable resource allocation for women faculty.
Provide professional support for women faculty.
Foster cohesiveness among campus organizations that support women faculty.
Facilitate networking among women faculty.

Activities

Annual reception with the Chancellor to welcome and connect with new women faculty. Wednesday Oct 11 2006, 5:30-7 pm, Park Alumni Center, Centennial Campus

AWF distributed a survey to women faculty in 2003, with the aim of clarifying women faculty's concerns and prioritizing action items. The survey had an exceptionally high return rate (44%). The main results (summary):

The most frequent concern was salary equity, a greater concern the higher the rank of the respondent.
Work-life balance and child care were the second most prevalent concerns.
Safety was a major concern in CHASS.

The university has responded to some of these issues.

The most recent salary equity study (2004) indicates that the salary residuals of (2003) female faculty average only -$297/year.
NCSU has studied campus safety concerns and met with faculty (2004).
There are partially subsidized childcare slots for children ("wolfpups") of NCSU faculty and staff at Bright Horizons Raleigh Corporate Center (2006).
There is now an Assistant Vice Provost for Faculty and Staff Diversity (2006).

Members submitted an NSF ADVANCE Institutional Transformation grant proposal, Moving Beyond our Past: New Leadership for a New Century with the following specific aims:

Development of an institutionalized recursive model for continuous improvement.

Transformation of the campus culture to enhance the environment for women faculty.

Increasing the number of women faculty in STEM disciplines and in leadership positions in the university. This includes a focus on recruitment, retention and promotion.

Dissemination of a model for successful transformational to other land grant institutions.

Based on the Drago report commissioned by the office of the Assistant Vice Provost for Gender Affairs, initiated a proposal to focus attention on the issue of work-life balance and incorporate the concept of work-life balance into the university compact plan.

Steering Team

CALS: Brenda Grubb, Jane Lubischer
CHASS: Janet Hudson
CNR: Heidi Grappendorf (Chair)
Design:
Education:
Engineering: Kara Peters, Afsaneh Rabiei
Management:
PAMS: Marcia Gumpertz, Helen Zhang
Textiles: Marian McCord
Vet Med: Dianne Dunning

For further information, or to get more involved, contact any of the members of the Steering Team.

Online Reading Room

The following are articles which may be of interest to women faculty. If you have articles you'd like to post, or broken links to report, contact the Webmaster.

National Center for Education Statistics issues report on university faculty numbers. Buried in the tables you can discover that nationally, women at every rank are paid less than men. April 2007.
AAUP Faculty Gender Equity Indicators 2006
Male Scientist Writes of Life as Female Scientist: Biologist Who Underwent Sex Change Describes Biases Against Women. Washington Post 7/13/06. In the spirit of Black Like Me. (Because we can only hear people who speak with our own voice?)
Stanford does right by grad students. Jan 2006.
Stereotype threat and math performance. Science 10/20/06. Low expectations are a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Discussion of women and the tenure clock. Chronicle 9/26/05.
Research shows pipeline of science is still leaky. Science Aug 2005
"What a working woman needs is a wife" NYT 6/5/05 Famous biologist does good.
Princeton President Shirley Tilghman presents rationale for more women in science and engineering, 3/29/05
NY Times 4/15/05
Editorial from The Scientist 4/11/05
Invited op-ed pieces on the Lawrence Summers controversy by AWF members Allen and Lubkin in the Technician 2/24/05
Positive developments at Stanford Oct. 26, 2004
Keeping Kids Close Chronicle Feb 25, 2005 University day care.
"Are your parental leave policies legal?" Joan Williams, Chronicle 2/7/05
The Lawrence Summers gaffe Website of WISELI has extensive links of relevant material.
"Gray Matter and Sexes: A Gray Area Scientifically" Natalie Angier, NY Times 1/24/05. Is a scarcity of women in academia due to their inferior brains, as the president of Harvard seems to suggest?
Science and Engineering Degrees 1966-2001, including breakdown by gender, from NSF (2004). 60 tables (excel and pdf). http://www.nsf.gov/sbe/srs/nsf04311/sectb.htm
A National Analysis of Diversity in Science and Engineering Faculties at Research Universities (36 pages pdf, 2004) They looked at the top 50 departments in each of 14 disciplines. They're graduating plenty of females and underrepresented minorities, but not hiring or promoting them.
Princeton's report (9/29/03)
9 universities meeting to discuss inequitites (2001)
Reading recommendations from UCSF
The Subtle Side of Discrimination, Joan Williams (Chronicle 4/14/03). Some common academic management practices look gender-blind but their outcomes are not at all gender-neutral.
Balancing Act, regular column in the Chronicle of Higher Education on work-life balance
Women in Science Push Higher on the Y Axis of Success (NY Times 5/6/03)
New NCSU family leave policy 10/10/02
NCSU consultant's report (Drago) on gender equity and work/family issues 3/30/02
Tenure: On Collegiality (NY Times 7/12/02)
Mentors (Chronicle of Higher Education 8/12/02)
Timing Children (Chronicle of Higher Education 6/7/02)
AAUP Statement of Principles on Family Responsibilities and Academic Work (2001)
From Scarcity to Visibility: Gender Differences in the Careers of Doctoral Scientists and Engineers (National Academy Report 2001) summary or whole book
U. Oregon references on chilly climate
"I was unhappy at MIT for more than a decade. I thought it was the price you paid if you wanted to be a scientist at an elite academic institution. After the Committee formed and the Dean responded, my life began to change. My research blossomed, my funding tripled. Now I love every aspect of my job. It is hard to understand how I survived those years - or why." - anon. female MIT professor MIT study 1999
"There are no women among Caltech's higher academic administration....[N]o men were dissatisfied with this..." Caltech report 2001
U. of Illinois Urbana-Champaign report 1999
Johns Hopkins report 1999
Student Ratings of Professors are not Gender Blind, AWM Newsletter (1994). It's more subtle than you think.
Are Student Ratings Unfair to Women? AWM Newsletter (1990). It's more subtle than you think, and it matters what discipline you are in .

Links

NCSU

Childcare Resource Center
Council on the Status of Women
Diversity@NC State
Faculty Handbook
Maternity leave policy
Gender Affairs (Office of Diversity and African-American Affairs)
Salary Equity Study The 2004 results are very encouraging for women faculty.
Women's Center

Associations of/for Women Faculty at other Universities

Cal Poly Pomona
Case Western
Harvard U.
New York U.
Washington State U.
Washington University in St. Louis
U. Arizona
U. Pennsylvania
U. Oregon
U. Southern California Health Sciences
U. Tennessee Knoxville
U. Texas Houston
U. Virginia
U. Wisconsin Madison (provost office)
U. Wisconsin Madison (WISELI)
Yale U.