The Impact of COVID-19 on the Careers of Women in Academic Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (2021) / Chapter Skim
Currently Skimming:
1 Introduction
1 Introduction
Pages 13-26
The Chapter Skim interface presents what we've algorithmically identified as the most significant single chunk of text within every page in the chapter.
Select key terms on the right to highlight them within pages of the chapter.
From page 13... ...
Moreover, if new opportunities for improving the engagement and retention of women that have arisen during the course of 2020 are not explored, the capacity for building, learning, and developing improved systems may diminish. Thus, just as the 2020 National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine consensus study report Promising Practices for Addressing the Underrepresentation of Women in Science, Engineering, and Medicine: Opening Doors (the Promising Practices report)
|
From page 14... ...
Similarly, academic medical centers shifted focus to urgent operations in the face of tremendous clinical demands while sustaining medical education through virtual curricula. Almost immediately, the COVID-19 pandemic began to affect the finances of colleges, universities, and academic medical centers; student access and experiences; and faculty careers.
|
From page 15... ...
. Instead, non-tenure-track or contingent faculty, clinical faculty, lecturers, research associates and scientists, and postdoctoral scholars together account for about 73 percent of the entire academic workforce, including in STEMM fields (AAUP, 2018, 2020a, 2020b; Curtis, 2019; Finkelstein et al., 2016; Kezar et al., 2019)
|
From page 16... ...
. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, scholars established that women faculty do more work involving significant emotional labor, which includes affirming and mentoring students as well as early-career or peer colleagues, and identifying key resources for these individuals (Armstrong and Jovanovic, 2015, 2017; Bellas, 1999; Ruder et al., 2018; Smith, 2019; Turner and González, 2011)
|
From page 17... ...
BEYOND THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC The COVID-19 pandemic was devastating in so many ways, but it was not the only major event affecting the nation in 2020. Although the primary focus of this study is the COVID-19 pandemic's potential impacts on women's STEMM career trajectories, the committee recognized several contextual elements that actively intensified the immediate effect of the COVID-19 pandemic, including the effects of anti-Black racism, the economic recession triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic, and the sudden importance of technology-mediated interactions.
|
From page 18... ...
Articles from June and October 2020 described the increased stress and terror that some Black women experienced as a result of being immersed in a climate with persistent racism, being the target of anti-Black sentiments, and feeling compelled to speak out to validate and support Black Lives Matter activities, all compounded by effects of the COVID-19 pandemic (Flaherty, 2020g; McCoy, 2020)
|
From page 19... ...
. On the other hand, the growth of more flexible work arrangements in remote work environments and with dynamic work schedules could prove to be important testbeds for the technologies and work-related contracts that have long been needed to allow for equitable opportunities for all genders in all workplaces.
|
From page 20... ...
. STUDY PROCESS In August 2020, the National Academies assembled an ad hoc study committee to build on the Promising Practices report and examine early indicators of the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on the careers of women in academic STEMM fields.
|
From page 21... ...
Intersectionality is rooted in Black feminism and Criti cal Race Theory: in reference to historic exclusion of Black women, legal scholar Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw used intersectionality to describe the intersection of gender and race discrimination, arguing that treating them as exclusive, and not intertwined, renders the multiple marginalities faced by Black women invisible to antidiscrimination law (Carbado, 2013; Crenshaw, 1989, 1991, 2014)
|
From page 22... ...
However, because it fell outside of the Statement of Task, the committee did not specifically pursue research on the differential impacts on academic men or on nonacademic women. The Promising Practices report provided nuanced observations about both common traits and unique characteristics of different fields within STEMM, as well as detailed overarching recommendations.
|
From page 23... ...
Each chapter provides key insights about how the COVID-19 pandemic has affected the careers of women in academic STEMM fields. Chapter 2 sets the stage for the ensuing chapters and presents the results of a survey conducted in October 2020, providing a window into the very personal perspectives offered by respondents;9 Chapters 3 through 7 approach the core concept of how the COVID-19 pandemic has affected the careers of women in academic STEMM fields from different disciplinary perspectives.
|
From page 24... ...
Therefore, the committee identified, named, and documented preliminary evidence available to them to provide a framework that might help academia be attentive to the yet-unknown long-term impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, especially on the academic careers of women in STEMM. Beyond the COVID-19 pandemic, confounding and unexpected issues such as racial unrest and attention to natural disasters have already spurred 10 This series of webinars comprised the "Workshop" referenced in the Statement of Task.
|
From page 25... ...
These lessons may include how to investigate acute issues that require immediate response and connect layers or aspects of their institutional infrastructure that may have been barriers to the retention and advancement of women in STEMM academic careers all along. In the same way that the Promising Practices report guided this report's examination of immediate effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on women in academic careers, identifying key questions about the longer-term effects of the COVID-19 pandemic can create a research agenda that will better prepare higher education institutions to respond to disruptions and explore opportunities in the future in ways that support the full participation of women.
|
Key Terms
This material may be derived from roughly machine-read images, and so is provided only to facilitate research.
More
information on Chapter Skim is available.