Beyond Bias and Barriers Fulfilling the Potential of Women in Academic Science and Engineering (2007) / Chapter Skim
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3 Examining Persistence and Attrition
3 Examining Persistence and Attrition
Pages 50-112
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From page 50... ...
Among postdoctoral scholars, women report lower satisfaction with the experience, and women are proportionately underrepresented in the applicant pools for tenure-track faculty positions. It appears that women and men faculty in most fields who are reviewed receive tenure at similar rates.
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The major differences between the patterns of attrition are at the transition points: fewer high school girls intend to major in science and engineering fields, more alter their intentions to major in science and engineering between high school and college, fewer women science and engineering graduates continue on to graduate school, and fewer women science and engineering PhDs are recruited into the applicant pools for tenure-track faculty positions.
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Professional societies should work to recruit high school students to science and engineering careers. Colleges and universities should work to recruit women and minority students to science and engineering majors, to graduate school, and to faculty positions.
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. Data should include the num ber of students majoring in science and engineering disciplines; the number of students graduating with a bachelor's or master's degree in science and engineering fields; postgraduation plans; graduate school enrollment, attrition, and completion; postdoctoral plans; number of postdoctoral scholars; and data on faculty recruitment, hiring, turn over, tenure, promotion, salary, and allocation of institutional re sources.
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Arlington, VA: National Science Foundation. receive to pursue academic careers, and role models provided by men who have successful academic careers.
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The cohort of high school graduates who are now of an age to be assistant professors (assuming a direct educational path and no stop-outs) would have been seniors in the mid-1980s (Box 3-1 for a description of lagged cohort analysis)
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In some fields, that almost completely explains the low numbers of women in senior faculty positions. For instance in physics, in 2005 5% of full pro fessors were women; in 1967-1980 (when the current cohort of full physics profes sors would have attained their PhDs)
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From page 57... ...
Efforts should be made to be cognizant and supportive of those different career paths, and, in considering faculty representation, it is important to consider pathways beyond the pipeline paradigm. Xie and Shauman argue that the under representation of women in science and engineering is "a complex social phenom enon that defies any attempt at simplistic explanation." They note the "complex and multifaceted nature of women scientists' career processes and outcomes" and suggest that increasing "women's representation in science/engineering requires many social, cultural and economic changes that are large-scale and indepen dent." Clearly the pipeline model is important but, by itself, it is not sufficient to address underrepresentation.
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From page 58... ...
Kuck and colleagues report that hiring of chemistry faculty by the top 50 universities is tracking the growth of wom en in postdoctoral appointments. Those who hold appointments at the top five suppliers of faculty are more likely to be preferentially hired by a top-50 depart ment.
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Physics is the only advanced science subject in which boys continue to complete courses at higher rates than girls, although the difference is small. African Americans and Hispanics were less likely than whites to complete advanced mathematics and science courses in high school.
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60 TABLE 3-1 Percentage of High School Graduates Completing Advanced Coursework in Mathematics and Science, by Sex and Year of Graduation 1990 1994 1998 2000 Subject Men Women Men Women Men Women Men Women Mathematics • Trigonometry/Algebra III 20.6 20.9 23.0 24.9 19.4 22.5 17.9 21.1 • Precalculus/Analysis 14.4 13.0 16.3 18.4 23.1 22.9 25.4 27.9 • Statistics and probability 1.2 0.8 2.0 2.1 3.4 4.0 5.8 5.6 • Calculus 8.3 6.2 10.3 10.1 12.0 11.6 13.3 12.0 Science • Advanced biology 25.7 29.2 31.5 37.8 33.8 40.8 31.5 40.5 • Chemistry 43.8 46.1 47.5 53.3 53.3 59.2 58.1 66.8 • Physics 24.9 18.3 26.7 22.5 31.0 26.6 35.6 31.5 SOURCES: US Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, National Assessment of Educational Progress, 1990, 1994, 1998, and 2000 High School Transcript Studies. Based on Table 1-8 in National Science Board (2006)
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. It should be noted that the percentages of Asian, African American, and Hispanic first-year college students who intend to pursue a science or engineering major are higher than that of their white counterparts.
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African American women earn more science bachelor's degrees than African American men. In all racial or ethnic categories, men earn more engineering bachelor's degrees than women.
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. Warming the Climate for Women in Academic Science.
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For example, 15.7 of all bachelor's degrees awarded are in science and engineering fields; for African American women 20% of all bachelor's degrees awarded are in science and engineering fields. Physical sciences include earth, atmospheric, and ocean sciences; life sciences includes agricultural sciences and biological sciences; and social and behavioral sciences includes psychology.
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From page 65... ...
women and 57% of men complete the major.22 Students' expectations of their social roles strongly influence their educational and career goals. Applying Eagly and Karau's role congruity theory to women in science suggests an incongruity between stereotypical female characteristics and the attributes that are thought to be required for success in academic science and engineering.23 Women and men appear to enter science and engineering majors for different reasons.
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. COLLEGE TO GRADUATE SCHOOL A larger percentage of men than women who major in science and engineering enroll in graduate school in science and engineering fields (about 15% of men and 10% of women)
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Boulder, CO: Westview Press. The proportion of women varies by field and personal factors:28 • Women bachelor's degree recipients in the physical sciences are more likely than men to attend graduate school in a non-science and engineering field (19% compared to 5%)
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Graduate School The number of science and engineering doctoral degrees awarded in the United States has remained fairly constant over the last two decades, fluctu 29C Goldin (2002)
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The number and proportion of science and engineering PhDs awarded to white women and to members of underrepresented minorities have increased over the past two decades; from 1983 to 2003, the number of science and engineering PhDs earned by African Americans, Hispanics, and Native Americans had more than doubled to 1,500, or 5% of all PhDs awarded (Table 3-5)
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. The Campus Climate Revisited: Chilly Climate for Women Faculty, Administrators, and Graduate Students.
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In the sciences and mathematics, African Americans were more than three times less likely than whites to publish.36 Science and engineering teaching assistants appear to have fewer opportunities to pub 35Nettles and Millett (2006) , ibid.
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More African Americans and Hispanics receive fellowship support, more whites receive teaching assistantships, and more Asian Americans receive research assistantships. Single women without children appear to be equally likely as all men to complete a science and engineering graduate degree.38 Other research indicates that doctoral students who are married or who have children under the age of 18 years have experiences similar to those of their peers who are not married or do not have children.
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. Survey of Earned Doctorates.
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. The baccalaureate origins of African American female PhD scientists.
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. The baccalaureate origins of African American female PhD scientists.
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and the social sciences (55%) , but only 28% of students in engineering, prepare to become postdoctoral scholars or college or university faculty.
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-- nearly 6,400 women and 10,500 men. In the physical sciences, 42.7% of women and 47.4% of men obtain postdoctoral appointments -- 1,000 women and 5,100 men.49 Professional Development and Productivity In a recent national survey, Davis50 reports that postdoctoral scholars with the highest levels of oversight and professional development are more satisfied, give their advisers higher ratings, report fewer conflicts with their advisers, and are more productive than those reporting the lowest levels of oversight.
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It remains to be seen how this award will affect the proportion of postdoctoral scholars who successfully transition to faculty positions or whether it will increase the proportion of women scientists who continue in academic careers. Similarly, it is unclear whether there is a differential effect on career progression for women who receive a prestigious award such as the NSF Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER)
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. Four times as many men as women with science and engineering doctorates hold full-time faculty positions.56 Data derived from the Association of American Medical Colleges Faculty Roster show that less than 5% of medical school faculty identify themselves as African American, Hispanic, or Native American.57 Even though more African American women than African American men earn 56CPST (2002)
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Journal of Technology Transfer 31:325-333. science and engineering degrees, African American women make up less than half of the total African American full-time faculty in colleges and universities.58 As discussed above, the underrepresentation of women on faculties can contribute to undergraduate and graduate students opting into career paths outside of academe.59 It can also contribute to feelings of isolation among female faculty.
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In physics in 2004, a higher percentage of women were hired as junior faculty than are represented in the recent PhD pool: 18% of new physics hires and 13% of recent physics PhDs.62 In mathematics in 2004, women made up 31% of doctoral recipients and 28.4% of new faculty hires.63 Paradoxically, fields with higher proportions of women in the PhD pool have lower proportions of women in the applicant pool (Figure 1-2a, b, and c) .64 The same appears to be true in academic medicine (Box 3-3)
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Faculty 20% 10% 0% 1965 1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 FIGURE B3-1 Representation of women MDs in academic medicine faculty positions, 1965 2004. ADAPTED FROM: Association of American Medical Colleges (2005)
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Reasons for Differences Brown and colleaguesb note that a number of factors may contribute to women's slower advancement, but a pipeline problem is not among them. They conclude that the supply of women graduating from medical schools is adequate and that "the culture of academic medicine, not the numbers of available wom en, drives the lopsided numbers." Cultural issues include a lack of high-ranking female role models; gender stereotyping that works to limit opportunities; exclu sion from career development opportunities; differences in workplace expecta tions for men and women; social and professional isolation; and gender differ ences in the amount of funding, space, and staff support provided.
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Potential Policy Options Potential policy actions to redress those problems focus on adjusting the in stitutional environment in a way that improves the experiences of both male and female faculty. Improving the quality of professional development programs for all faculty has proven effective in addressing culture and climate issuesd (Chapter 4 and Box 6-3)
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. Diversification of a university faculty: Observations on hiring women faculty in the schools of science and engineering at MIT.
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Perception of career opportunities is another factor affecting the sex distribution of the academic job applicant pool; some research indicates that women mathematics and science graduate students perceive academic careers more negatively than do men.68 Applicant data on biology and the health sciences at the University of California, Berkeley, in 2001-2004 show that women made up 47% of recent biology and health sciences doctorates from the top-quartile of graduate schools, but only 29% of applicants for tenure-track faculty positions (Figure 3-4)
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15 78 6 1 1 123 5 Chair/Dean 5 95 19 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100% White Women White Men Asian Women Asian Men URM Women URM Men Women Men FIGURE 3-4 Biological and health sciences applicant pool and faculty positions at the University of California, Berkeley, 2001-2004. NOTES: Underrepresented minority (URM)
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includes African American, Hispanic American, and Native American. There are no URM women in faculty positions in physical sciences, mathematics, and engineering departments.
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Faculty Roster, which collects and reports data on medical college faculty; the American Chemical Society Directory of Graduate Research; and the American Institute of Physics Academic Workforce Survey (Box 3-4)
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Although it was initially conceived to deal with the development of personnel to staff new medical schools, in more recent years it has been used to track the progress of medical schools in increasing the representation of women and minorities in faculty positions. The roster can be used to examine sources of faculty, provide background on faculty training, track inter-institutional movement by faculty, and study reasons behind faculty departure from medical academe.b NIH uses the Faculty Roster to inform policy decisions, using its data to study such topics as the growth rate of faculty or the typical age of faculty at the time at which they receive their first professorships.
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. The impact of gender and department climate on job satisfaction and intentions to quit for faculty in science and engineering fields.
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There are sex differences in where women and men land after leaving tenure-track positions. A hazard analysis of the 1973-2001 longitudinal SDR sample shows that across science fields, men were significantly more likely to leave the tenure track for nonacademic employment.
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. Our analysis showed a small 4% difference in tenure rates for men and women; a number of other reports have documented similar differential tenure rates for men and women.73 Others document differential tenure rates for minority faculty.74 Some researchers have broken out tenure rates by field;75 in this finer analysis, between 1973 and 2001, women were between 1-3% less likely than men to get tenure in physical sciences, 2-4% more likely than men to get tenure in life sciences and engineering, and 8% less likely than men to get tenure in social sciences.
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See http://www.ucop.edu/ acadadv/acadpers/tenure.html. SOURCE: UC Berkeley Faculty Personnel Records, 1980-2003.
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found that "non-competitive salaries represent the most-cited factor in faculty retention."82 That concern was most prevalent among men; senior women faculty expressed more concern over salaries than junior women faculty. Other studies have found, however, that female faculty were less satisfied with their salaries than male faculty83 and studies 79D Ginther, research commissioned by the committee.
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. The impact of gender and department climate on job satisfaction and intentions to quit for faculty in science and engineering fields.
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The UC-Boulder task force notes that spouse or partner employment opportunities can be an especially prevalent concern among junior faculty.91 Within a given faculty member's professional life department climate and the presence or absence of a supportive work environment have important influence on attrition and retention. A number of factors commonly cited in faculty retention and attrition studies are related to the environment that faculty encounter in their workplaces.92 Work done by Callister suggests that department climate is an important factor for universities to consider when attempting to improve faculty job satisfaction and intentions to quit.93 Callister reports that women faculty tend to be less satisfied than men in their jobs and more likely to quit.
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Furthermore, several studies, including ones at Colorado and Columbia, note that women (and junior faculty members) have fewer opportunities to serve on meaningful department and university committees.95 The 1999 MIT study expressed concern that women faculty were "excluded from any substantial power within the University."96 A final issue related to the workplace environment was uncovered in a recent study at Rutgers University, which suggested that some women faculty's outside offers are less likely than those of men to yield serious responses from university administrators, and it is more likely that those women will move to other universities.97 Surveys of female faculty members illuminate specific climate issues.
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Departments vs. Centers In light of the findings for faculty employed in university departments, it is interesting to note that participation in academic centers may offer different career opportunities for women scientists and engineers.
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However, institutions can gather more detailed information that can help modify existing policies or shape new initiatives focused on faculty retention. One such effort has been spear headed by the Yale University Women Faculty Forum Task Force on Retention and Promotion of Junior Faculty.
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Following this meeting, the Dean of the Grad uate School asked all department chairs to report on their mentoring practices for junior faculty. Since then, Yale has instituted a new position, Deputy Provost for Science and Technology and Faculty Development, to oversee the implementa tion of a core curriculum for the professional development of postdoctoral scholars and junior faculty.
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. The impact of gender and department climate on job satisfaction and intentions to quit for faculty in science and engineering fields.
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254,597 (23) NOTES: Responses were tabulated from the Cornell Institute of Higher Education Research Institute Survey of Start-Up Costs and Laboratory Space Allocation Rules that was mailed to 3-5 chairs of selected biological science, physical science, and engineering departments at each research and doctoral university during the summer of 2002.
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CASE STUDY: CHEMISTRY113 To examine the issue of faculty recruitment in more detail, the committee focused on chemistry, a field with a relatively high proportion of women PhDs. Information on the age, sex, and training of chemistry faculty members was obtained from the American Chemical Society's 2001 DGR.
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New and preten ure faculty are at the highest risk of attrition. Specific efforts should be made to support and retain new and pretenure faculty by providing recognition, mentoring, professional development opportunities, and balanced workloads.
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Persons for whom there was no biographical information on training or rank were excluded from the study.114 The hiring data clearly show that chemistry faculty who have done their graduate work at Research I universities are overwhelmingly preferred; in addition, women faculty are drawn from a smaller pool of institutions than men. Of the 2,476 faculty members at the Research I institutions, 10.5% were female (Table 3-13)
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. It appears that after all the efforts to increase the diversity of faculties, women with doctorates are still lagging behind men in attaining faculty positions at Research I institutions.
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A lower proportion of women doctorates obtained faculty positions at Research I institutions than did men doctorates (Table 3-17)
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Washington, DC: American Chemical Society. science and engineering PhDs increased from 118,000 in 1973 to 258,300 in 2003, full-time faculty positions grew more slowly than postdoctoral and other full- and part-time positions, and growth was slower than in the government and business sectors.115 CONCLUSION Individual efforts can have dramatic effects but sustained change is unlikely unless there is a transformation of the process by which students and faculty are educated, trained, recruited, and retained.
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Washington, DC: American Chemical Society. college, graduate school faculty interactions, application and recruitment to faculty positions, and retention of faculty.
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TABLE 3-18 Women PhD Chemists Working Full-Time at PhD-Granting Institutions, by Rank and Sex, 1990-2005 Percent Women Total Number of Women 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 Full professor 3.1 4.3 5.3 7.9 10.6 1,655 1,623 1,892 1,696 1,274 Associate professor 9.2 12.2 14.5 18.0 23.0 564 517 615 534 414 Assistant professor 12.1 18.4 22.4 25.2 26.0 431 511 557 563 389 Instructor, adjunct 23.4 30.8 40.4 39.9 37.0 141 133 203 271 167 Research appointment 25.3 20.5 22.5 24.0 19.8 225 728 1,153 883 359 Other nonfaculty N/A 27.6 26.9 30.6 30.0 N/A 225 405 310 172 No ranks 0.0 0.0 23.5 10.0 0.0 11 7 17 13 3 Total 8.3 12.8 15.9 18.5 18.7 3,058 3,744 4,842 4,270 2,844 NOTE: N/A indicates data not available. SOURCE: American Chemical Society (2006)
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From page 112... ...
The data show that policy changes are sustainable only if they create a "new normal," a new way of doing things. The community needs to work together, across departments, through professional societies, and with funders and federal agencies, to bring about gender equity so that our nation can perform at its full potential.
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