Smashing the Glass Ceiling in Chemistry Remains ... - ACS Publications

nation's most prestigious research institutions. After attending a meeting that addressed the gender bias experienced by female faculty members at the...
0 downloads 8 Views 221KB Size
Chapter 3

Smashing the Glass Ceiling in Chemistry Remains a Long-Range Goal Downloaded by UNIV OF FLORIDA on December 29, 2017 | http://pubs.acs.org Publication Date (Web): October 26, 2017 | doi: 10.1021/bk-2017-1255.ch003

Valerie J. Kuck* Bell Labs, Lucent Technologies (retired), 13622 Orchard Gate Road, Poway, California 92064, United States *E-mail: [email protected]

Historically men have held a clear majority of the tenured and tenure-track faculty positions in chemistry departments at the nation’s most prestigious research institutions. After attending a meeting that addressed the gender bias experienced by female faculty members at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the School of Science, administrators from nine highly regarded universities agreed to work together to improve the situation for women at their respective schools. This study focuses on the progress made by the nine institutions to increase the number and rank of female faculty members. A comparison of the chemistry faculties in 2001 and 2016 at the nine institutions showed that some schools made substantial strides in hiring and promoting women; whereas, most institutions made minimal progress. In both of those years, there was a paucity of women at the associate and assistant professor rank and the hiring of women was below their distribution in the doctorate pool. In comparison to the other top 50-ranked federally funded chemistry departments, the nine institutions hired and promoted women at roughly the same rate.

Introduction The release of the report on “A Study on the Status of Women Faculty in Science at MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)” rocked the academic community in 1999 (1). The study was based on the findings of the Committee on © 2017 American Chemical Society Nelson and Cheng; Diversity in the Scientific Community Volume 1: Quantifying Diversity and Formulating Success ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2017.

Downloaded by UNIV OF FLORIDA on December 29, 2017 | http://pubs.acs.org Publication Date (Web): October 26, 2017 | doi: 10.1021/bk-2017-1255.ch003

Women Faculty that had gathered data on the fifteen female faculty members in the six departments in the School of Science. The Committee was composed of five tenured female faculty members, one from each of the departments (mathematics had no female faculty members and was not represented), and three men who had been or were Department Heads. After gathering and analyzing their information, the Committee submitted a report in 1996 on their findings and then later amended it in 1997 and 1998. Subsequently, the report was released to the public in 1999. The Committee found that, in contrast to the junior female faculty members, senior tenured female faculty members felt that gender bias had negatively impacted their careers. It uncovered that women, in comparison to their male colleagues, had fared poorer in salary, research laboratory allocation and resources, appointment to influential positions, and receipt of awards and other forms of recognition. It was hypothesized that discriminatory attitudes at MIT had also influenced the hiring of women. It noted that in the preceding 20 years there had been slow or no growth in the percentage of female faculty members in the sciences.

The Aftermath There was wide coverage of the MIT report in the print media (2). In general, the response was positive; however, some individuals disagreed with the existence of gender bias in academe (3). Subsequently, MIT President Charles M. Vest hosted a meeting to discuss the findings of the Committee. On January 29, 2001, university presidents, chancellors, and provosts from nine highly ranked research institutions met at MIT (4). In addition, twenty-five female faculty members from the nine institutions were in attendance. All the university representatives were males. The nine institutions attending the meeting were from the University of California-Berkeley (UC, Berkeley), California Institute of Technology (Cal Tech), Harvard, Michigan, MIT, Pennsylvania (Penn), Princeton, Stanford, and Yale. After the meeting, the university administrators agreed that women faced barriers, that additional data was needed, and that the universities would collectively work to address the problems. Again, there was wide coverage in the media of the meeting and the pledge to improve the situation for female faculty members (5). Many women agreed with the report findings and stated that they were looking forward to seeing the progress resulting from the meeting. This paper addresses the hiring and promotion of women during the years 2001-2016 by the chemistry departments at the nine institutions represented at the Vest meeting. In addition, the progress made by the nine institutions to increase the number of tenured and tenure-track female faculty members will be compared with the efforts made by the other top-50-ranked departments. The National Science Foundation (NSF) had ranked the institutions based on research funding.

88 Nelson and Cheng; Diversity in the Scientific Community Volume 1: Quantifying Diversity and Formulating Success ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2017.

Downloaded by UNIV OF FLORIDA on December 29, 2017 | http://pubs.acs.org Publication Date (Web): October 26, 2017 | doi: 10.1021/bk-2017-1255.ch003

Data Sources Published data on the gender composition of the chemistry departments at the top 50-ranked institutions for the 2001-2 and 2012-13 academic years was used for part of this study (6, 7). Since the Yale chemistry department no longer was included in the list of the top 10 departments in 2016, 42 schools were included in the data generated for the other top 50-ranked schools. The faculty members in this study were not only from Chemistry Departments but also from Chemistry and Biology and Chemistry and Biochemistry Departments. To obtain the 2016 data, each of the nine departments was contacted in July, 2016 to determine the number and rank of female and male tenured and tenuretrack faculty members at that time. This study was limited to those individuals who were listed by the departments as Professors of Chemistry.

Findings During the span of fifteen years, the nine chemistry departments substantially increased the number of female faculty members. In 2001, there were on average only 3 female tenured and tenure-track faculty members per chemistry department (Table 1). By 2016, the number of female faculty members had grown on average to 6.4. It should be noted that when dealing with small numbers, as is the case for females in academe, the average can be easily skewed, if there is a substantial under or over performance by a few.

Table 1. Total Number of Female Faculty Members Year

2001

2016

Δ

UC, Berkeley

5

10

5

Cal Tech

3

5

2

Harvard

2

7

5

Michigan

4

11

7

MIT

4

6

2

Penn

3

6

3

Princeton

3

4

1

Stanford

1

4

3

Yale

2

5

3

3.0

6.4

3.4

Average

89 Nelson and Cheng; Diversity in the Scientific Community Volume 1: Quantifying Diversity and Formulating Success ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2017.

Downloaded by UNIV OF FLORIDA on December 29, 2017 | http://pubs.acs.org Publication Date (Web): October 26, 2017 | doi: 10.1021/bk-2017-1255.ch003

Some departments did significantly better than others in hiring women. At the University of Michigan, the number of female faculty members climbed from 4 to 11, Harvard from 2 to 7, and at UC, Berkeley from 5 to 10. During the same time-period, there was little change at Princeton and Cal Tech, with the former increasing the number of female faculty by one and the latter by two. Since the size of the chemistry faculties at the nine schools varied substantially, from the mid-teens to the low fifties, the percentage of faculty positions held by women was determined. In 2001, females held 9.8% of the faculty positions at the nine schools, with Stanford having the lowest percentage, 4 % (Table 2).

Table 2. Percentage of Female Faculty Members Year

2001

2016

Δ

UC, Berkeley

10

20

10

Cal Tech

11

18

7

Harvard

10

24

14

Michigan

10

22

12

MIT

13

19

6

Penn

10

18

8

Princeton

11

16

5

Stanford

4

17

13

Yale

9

14

5

9.8

18.0

8.9

Average

By 2016, the percentage of female faculty members at the nine chemistry departments had increased significantly to 18.0 %. The percentage of female faculty members at Harvard had jumped to 24%; at Michigan, 22%; at UC, Berkeley, 20%; and at MIT, 19%. The change in the percentage of female faculty members at those four schools was on average 12.3%; whereas, at the remaining five institutions the differential was only 6.2%. In 2001, there were on average 1.7 female full professors at the nine institutions (Table 3). By 2016, the number had risen to 3.7. Making this achievement noteworthy is that during the fifteen-year window some female faculty members were no longer professors of chemistry and the number of women at the associate professor level had been only 0.6 per school in 2001 (Table 4). 90 Nelson and Cheng; Diversity in the Scientific Community Volume 1: Quantifying Diversity and Formulating Success ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2017.

Table 3. Number of Female Full Professors

Downloaded by UNIV OF FLORIDA on December 29, 2017 | http://pubs.acs.org Publication Date (Web): October 26, 2017 | doi: 10.1021/bk-2017-1255.ch003

Year

2001

2016

Δ

UC, Berkeley

3

5

2

Cal Tech

2

5

3

Harvard

1

4

3

Michigan

2

6

4

MIT

3

4

1

Penn

2

3

1

Princeton

0

1

1

Stanford

1

1

0

Yale

1

4

3

1.7

3.7

2.0

Average

Table 4. Total Number of Female Associate Professors Year

2001

2016

Δ

UC, Berkeley

1

3

2

Cal Tech

0

0

0

Harvard

0

1

1

Michigan

1

0

-1

MIT

0

1

1

Penn

0

1

1

Princeton

3

2

-1

Stanford

0

1

1

Yale

0

0

0

0.6

1.0

0.2

Average

To increase the numbers of female full professors while simultaneously losing some women, the universities had two options. One was to hire senior women from outside the department. Another way was to accelerate the hiring of female assistant professors and then promote them quickly through the ranks. Unfortunately, there is no obvious way to track the faculty members at the various schools during the fifteen years, as the American Chemical Society’s Directory of Graduate Research does not contain the names of the faculty members at the nine institutions for all of those years. Absent this information, the promotion of specific female faculty members cannot be tracked. Most likely, the universities used both options to increase the number of faculty women.

91 Nelson and Cheng; Diversity in the Scientific Community Volume 1: Quantifying Diversity and Formulating Success ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2017.

Downloaded by UNIV OF FLORIDA on December 29, 2017 | http://pubs.acs.org Publication Date (Web): October 26, 2017 | doi: 10.1021/bk-2017-1255.ch003

During those fifteen years, the chemistry department at Michigan managed to increase the number of women at the full professor rank by 4, while the faculties at Cal Tech, Harvard, and Yale grew by three women (Table 3). In contrast, there was no change in the number of full professors at Stanford. In 2001, six of the nine departments had no women at the rank of associate professor (Table 4). However, things did improve with time. In 2016, only Cal Tech, Michigan, and Yale had no female associate professors. On average the chemistry departments at the Vest institutions had only 1 female associate professor. In comparing the data from 2001 to 2016, there were slight changes in the number of female associate professors, with UC, Berkeley showing the greatest growth, 2. Two departments, Michigan and Princeton, had fewer female associate professors in 2016 than in 2001. Not only were there very few women at the rank of associate professor, the same was true at the assistant professor level (Table 5). In 2001 two departments, Stanford and Princeton, had no female assistant professors and the remaining departments had only 1. By 2016, only Cal Tech had no female assistant professors. In fact, it had fewer female assistant professors in 2016 than in 2001. In 2001 there was on average 0.8 female assistant professors per chemistry department and in 2016 it had grown to 1.8.

Table 5. Total Number of Female Assistant Professors Year

2001

2016

Δ

UC, Berkeley

1

2

1

Cal Tech

1

0

-1

Harvard

1

2

1

Michigan

1

5

4

MIT

1

1

0

Penn

1

2

1

Princeton

0

2

2

Stanford

0

2

2

Yale

1

1

0

0.8

1.8

1.0

Average

In general, there were more women at the assistant professor rank than at the associate level. One university stood out from the others in increasing the number of assistant professors over the fifteen years. The University of Michigan had 4 more female assistant professors in 2016 than in 2001.

92 Nelson and Cheng; Diversity in the Scientific Community Volume 1: Quantifying Diversity and Formulating Success ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2017.

Downloaded by UNIV OF FLORIDA on December 29, 2017 | http://pubs.acs.org Publication Date (Web): October 26, 2017 | doi: 10.1021/bk-2017-1255.ch003

It is fair to ask how had the number of faculty members changed over the fifteen years. In 2001 there were 248 male and 27 female professors at the nine universities. Over the intervening years, there was little growth and in 2016 there were 254 male and 58 female faculty members at the nine universities. By far, the number of faculty members had increased more for the women than that for the men. A clear majority of the faculty members were at the rank of full professor. In 2016 the gender breakdown for the full professors was 195 males and 33 females. On average, women were 13.8% of the full professors (Table 6). Because of the low number of women, especially at the associate level, the percentage of women at both the associate and assistant ranks was calculated. At the Vest institutions women held on average 29.7% of the associate and assistant professor positions (Table 6), which is significantly higher than their percentage at the full professor rank, 13.8%. Strikingly, both Cal Tech and MIT had a higher percentage of women at the full professor rank than at the combined associate and assistant professor levels (Table 6).

Table 6. Percentage of female faculty members, 2016 data School

% Female full professors

% Female assoc & assistant professors

UC, Berkeley

13.5

38.5

Cal Tech

18.5

0.0

Harvard

16.0

75.0

Michigan

18.2

27.8

MIT

20.0

16.7

Penn

12.5

25.0

Princeton

5.9

37.5

Stanford

7.1

30.0

Yale

12.9

16.7

13.8

29.7

Average

A picture of the recent hiring can be obtained by examining the numbers of male and female associate and assistant professors in 2016 (Table 7). For both the men (Table 7) and the women (Tables 4 and 5), there were twice as many individuals at the assistant professor rank than at the associate level. There were on average 6.6 males and 2.8 females at the combined associate and assistant professor ranks at the Vest institutions (Table 8).

93 Nelson and Cheng; Diversity in the Scientific Community Volume 1: Quantifying Diversity and Formulating Success ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2017.

Downloaded by UNIV OF FLORIDA on December 29, 2017 | http://pubs.acs.org Publication Date (Web): October 26, 2017 | doi: 10.1021/bk-2017-1255.ch003

Table 7. Total number of male professors, 2016 data Full

Associate

Assistant

UC, Berkeley

32

1

7

Cal Tech

22

0

1

Harvard

21

0

1

Michigan

27

5

8

MIT

16

4

6

Penn

21

5

4

Princeton

16

0

5

Stanford

13

3

3

Yale

27

1

4

21.7

2.1

4.4

Average

Table 8. Total number of associate and assistant professors, 2016 data Men

Women

% Women

UC, Berkeley

8

5

38

Cal Tech

1

0

0

Harvard

1

3

75

Michigan

13

5

28

MIT

10

2

17

Penn

9

3

25

Princeton

5

3

38

Stanford

7

3

30

Yale

5

1

17

6.6

2.8

29.7

School

Average

In 2016 women held 29.7% of the positions at the combined associate and assistant professor levels. During the years 2000-2011, the time period when most the female assistant and associate professors would have completed their graduate studies, women earned 35.6% of the doctorates in chemistry (8). In general, women were not being hired in proportion to their fraction of the available pool of chemistry doctorates. It should be noted that at four universities, Michigan, Harvard, Princeton, and UC, Berkeley, the percentage of women at the combined associate and assistant professor ranks was greater than their distribution in the doctorate pool. 94 Nelson and Cheng; Diversity in the Scientific Community Volume 1: Quantifying Diversity and Formulating Success ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2017.

The efforts made by the Vest institutions to increase the number of female faculty members was compared with those at the other top 50-ranked chemistry departments to see the effectiveness of the pledge made by the top administrators who attended the Vest meeting. In 2001, at both groups of schools, there were roughly the same number of female faculty members at the three ranks (Table 9).

Table 9. Average number of women/institution Full Professor

Associate Professor

Assistant Professor

% Female faculty

The Other Top 50 Funded Inst.

1.4

1.0

1.3

11.3

Vest Nine Schools

1.7

0.6

0.8

9.8

The Other Top 50-Funded Inst.

2.9

1.4

1.6

18.1

Vest Nine Schools

2.9

0.4

1.8

16.6

School

Downloaded by UNIV OF FLORIDA on December 29, 2017 | http://pubs.acs.org Publication Date (Web): October 26, 2017 | doi: 10.1021/bk-2017-1255.ch003

2001

2012-13

To compensate for the significant differences in the size of the faculties, the percentage of female faculty members at the three ranks was carried out (Table 10). In 2001 women held 9.8% of the faculty positions at the Vest institutions and 11.3% of the positions at the other top 50-ranked institutions. At the full and associate professor ranks, there were small differences in the percentages of women faculty at both groups of schools. However, at the assistant professor rank there was a difference between the two groups of schools. Women were 21% of the assistant professors at the other top 50-ranked institutions and 15.9% at the Vest institutions. Overall, the percentages of female faculty members at the two groups of schools were roughly the same. Examination of the data for the gender breakdown of the faculties in 2012 showed some differences. The percentage of female faculty members was still slightly higher at the top 50-ranked schools than at the Vest institutions, 18.1% vs. 16.6%. There was little difference in the percentage of women at the full professor level: 12.9% at the nine institutions vs. 13.6% at the other top 50-ranked schools. There were greater differences at the other two ranks. At the associate professor rank, the percentage of women had grown to 24.7% at the top 50-ranked schools, while it slightly dipped to 17.4% at the Vest institutions. At the rank of assistant professor, the percentage of positions held by women significantly jumped at the Vest institutions. This occurred because the chemistry departments at Michigan and UC, Berkeley had 4 assistant female professors; whereas, the remaining seven institutions had on average 1.7 assistant female professors. This resulted in raising the percentage of female assistant professors to 34.8% at the Vest schools, which is substantially higher than the 28.7% calculated for the other top 50-ranked schools. 95 Nelson and Cheng; Diversity in the Scientific Community Volume 1: Quantifying Diversity and Formulating Success ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2017.

Combining the data for the associate and assistant professor ranks showed that women held 28.9% of the positions at the Vest institutions and 26.7% at the other top 50-ranked schools. In general, the gains made by both groups of schools were comparable. It is not obvious that the pledge made by the administrators at the Vest meeting had made a difference, as both groups of schools had made comparable gains.

Table 10. Percent of Females Full Professor

Associate Professor

Assistant Professor

All

The Other Top 50 Funded Inst.

6.5

20.0

21.0

11.3

Vest Nine Schools

7.4

18.5

15.9

9.8

The Other Top 50-Funded Inst.

13.6

24.7

28.7

18.1

Vest Nine Schools

12.9

17.4

34.8

16.6

Downloaded by UNIV OF FLORIDA on December 29, 2017 | http://pubs.acs.org Publication Date (Web): October 26, 2017 | doi: 10.1021/bk-2017-1255.ch003

School 2001

2012-13

Discussion In analyzing the initial data, it became apparent that there were significant differences in the hiring of women at the nine Vest schools. All nine universities made progress in varying degrees to increase the numbers of female faculty members. However, three of the nine schools were significantly more successful than others in hiring women. A comparison of the number of female faculty members at the nine schools in 2001 and then in 2016 showed that Michigan had added 7 women and the chemistry departments at both UC, Berkeley and Harvard had increased by 5 females (Table 1). In contrast, the remaining six Vest schools had grown on average by only 2.3 female faculty members. Previously, others have looked at the differences in the training of male and female graduate students to get a better understanding of the reasons for the dearth of tenured and tenure-track women on university faculties. One study found, that prior to entering graduate schools in chemistry, a higher percentage of men were interested in pursuing a faculty position at a research institution than the women. However, during their graduate school training, the percentage of women desiring a career at a research institution decreased more than with the men (9). Other studies reported that a survey of graduate students found that male graduate students, in contrast to the female students, were more positive about their interactions with their dissertation professor and with the quality of mentoring that they had received (10, 11). Furthermore, researchers identified factors that may have influenced the career choices of the female graduate students (11). It was posited that the scarcity of female faculty members left the female graduate 96 Nelson and Cheng; Diversity in the Scientific Community Volume 1: Quantifying Diversity and Formulating Success ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2017.

Downloaded by UNIV OF FLORIDA on December 29, 2017 | http://pubs.acs.org Publication Date (Web): October 26, 2017 | doi: 10.1021/bk-2017-1255.ch003

students with few female role models to inspire them to seek a career in academic research. The dearth of female faculty members could have resulted in the female doctoral candidates questioning the feasibility of balancing a career in research and the demands of family life. In addition, the conflict between the female graduate students’ biological clocks and the tenure clock could have influenced their career choices. It is not surprising that other researchers found women were under-represented in the pool of job applicants for tenure-track positions (12) and those holding post-doctoral appointments (13). In other research, identification of the doctoral university of faculty members at the top fifty ranked National Research Council (NRC) research universities found that 50% of the faculty members had completed their doctoral training at a small group of ten institutions (14). Furthermore, in comparison to the female doctorates from those ten institutions, a higher percentage of the male graduates were hired by a top-fifty ranked NRC institution (14). Incredibly, the female graduates from the elite group of schools had run into barriers in attaining faculty positions at highly ranked institutions. Those ten elite schools were: Cal Tech; Columbia; Cornell; Harvard; MIT; Stanford; UC, Berkeley; U. of Chicago; Wisconsin; and Yale. Given the crucial role that those ten institutions play in training so many future faculty members at the nation’s top research schools, it is important to monitor the gender composition of the faculties at those ten institutions. In addition to training so many future faculty members, those elite schools are sending a subtle message to the community on the perceived value of the research efforts carried out by women and the merit of their scientific findings. It should be noted that six of the ten elite schools are Vest institutions. In 2016 there 25 female associate and assistant faculty members at the Vest schools (Table 8). During the years 2000-2014 most of the associate and assistant professors would have completed their doctoral training. The ten elite institutions granted a total of 2,880 doctorates during that time frame with women receiving 33.1% (1,470) of the doctorates (15). Three schools, Michigan; UC, Berkeley and Harvard had a total 13 women at the associate and assistant ranks. In sharp contrast, there was a total of 12 women at the other six Vest universities. It should be noted that at Harvard, Princeton, and UC, Berkeley, the percentage of women at the combined associate and assistant professor ranks was above the distribution of women in the doctorate pool. However, in general the Vest schools were hiring women below their distribution in the doctorate pools. This had occurred despite the pledge made by the top administrators at the Vest meeting and all publicity in the press to increase the representation of female faculty members. The uneven hiring of women by the Vest schools could have resulted from some search committees actively seeking out talented women, while others made no special efforts to identify outstanding females. Another explanation is that female seekers preferentially decided to apply for positions only at certain schools. Unfortunately, the exact number of women who applied for positions at each of the Vest schools is not available. All that is known is that women, in general, are under-represented in the applicant pool for tenure-track positions in the STEM fields (12). Further research needs to ascertain the applicant pools at the Vest institutions and correlate those findings with the number of women hired. In 97 Nelson and Cheng; Diversity in the Scientific Community Volume 1: Quantifying Diversity and Formulating Success ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2017.

Downloaded by UNIV OF FLORIDA on December 29, 2017 | http://pubs.acs.org Publication Date (Web): October 26, 2017 | doi: 10.1021/bk-2017-1255.ch003

addition, those findings need to be expanded to identify the reasons that some of the top 50-ranked institutions are consistently increasing their number of female faculty members, while others are making little progress. Focusing on the female faculty members at the nine Vest universities, the greatest growth in numbers occurred at the rank of full professor. In 2001 there was a total of 15 female full professors. In 2016 the number had grown to 33 (13.9% of the positions) (Tables 3 and 6). During the years 1966-1999, the time-frame when most the female full professors had received their doctorates, women earned 18.3% of doctorates in chemistry (8). Even with the growth in the number of female professors, the percentage of female full professors in 2016 at the Vest institutions is below the gender distribution in the 1966-1999 doctorate pool. Participating in the Vest conference in 2001 and the subsequent pledge to improve the situation for women probably had some effect. However, a comparison of the growth in the percentage of female faculty members found that the Vest institutions had not out-performed the other top 50 ranked schools (Table 9). In addition, both groups of schools were still hiring women below their distribution in the doctoral pool. Since the meeting in 2001, other researchers have made specific recommendations on ways to improve the situation for women in academe (16, 17). One research study found that some departments thought their growth in female faculty numbers was on a par with that of other schools, although further analysis showed clearly that they were lagging (11). It might be that the six under-performing Vest schools were not aware of the strides being made at Michigan, UC, Berkeley and Harvard to increase the gender diversity of their faculties. It appears that the pledge had little impact on those six chemistry departments.

Conclusions Reaching out to administrators at the nine institutions had mixed results. During the years 2001 to 2016, three of the Vest institutions made significant advances in hiring and promoting women, while most the Vest schools made marginal progress. Furthermore, a comparison of the 2001 and the 2012 data, showed that the increase in the percentage of female faculty members was roughly the same at both the Vest institutions and at the other top 50-ranked institutions. The Vest schools as a group had not outperformed the other 50-ranked schools. At both groups of schools, women held on average 33% of the doctorates granted by the elite group of ten universities during the years 2000-2014. The fact that three of the Vest universities did so much better than the others in hiring women, suggests that other factors are in play. Further research is needed to uncover the reasons for this hiring differential. This current study shows that getting administrators to pledge to make improvements at their schools had yielded mixed results. New measures need to 98 Nelson and Cheng; Diversity in the Scientific Community Volume 1: Quantifying Diversity and Formulating Success ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2017.

be taken so that in the foreseeable future all chemistry department faculties will reflect better the gender distribution of the doctorate pool.

References 1. 2.

Downloaded by UNIV OF FLORIDA on December 29, 2017 | http://pubs.acs.org Publication Date (Web): October 26, 2017 | doi: 10.1021/bk-2017-1255.ch003

3.

4. 5. 6. 7. 8.

9.

10. 11. 12.

13. 14. 15.

16.

17.

A Study on the Status of Women Faculty in Science at MIT. http:// web.mit.edu/fnl/women/women.html (accessed July 7, 2016). MIT Gender Equity Project. http://web.mit.edu/gep/about.html (accessed July 7, 2016). Women in Science at U.S. Universities: Criticism and Defense of the MIT Report. http://www.aas.org/cswa/status/2001/JUNE2001/MITReport.html (accessed Feb. 15, 2016). Long, J. Chem. Eng. News 2001, 79 (6), 8. Lawler, A. Science 2001, 291 (5505), 806. Byrum, A. Chem. Eng. News 2001, 79 (40), 98–99. Rovner, S. Chem. Eng. News 2014, 92 (14), 41–44. Women in Science and Engineering Statistics; Earned Doctorates by Citizenship, Field, and Sex 2001-11 http://national academies.org/PGA/ cwsem/PGA_049131 (accessed July 13, 2016). Chapman, S.; Dixon, F. F.; Foster, N.; Kuck, V. J.; McCarthy, D. A.; Tooney, N. M.; Buckner, J. P.; Nolan, S. A.; Marzabadi, C. H. J. Chem. Educ. 2011, 88 (6), 716–720. Nolan, S. A.; Buckner, J. P.; Marzabadi, C. H.; Kuck, V. J. Sex Roles 2008, 58, 235–250. Laursen, S. L.; Weston, T. J. J. Chem. Educ. 2014, 91 (11), 1762–1776. National Research Council. Gender Differences at Critical Transitions in the Careers of Science, Engineering and Mathematics Faculty; National Academies Press: Washington, DC, 2010; pp 46−47. Marzabadi, C. H.; Kuck, V. J.; Nolan, S. A.; Buckner, J. P. Are Women Achieving Equity in Science? ACS Symp. Ser. 2006, 929, 104–124. Kuck, V. J.; Marzabadi, C. H.; Nolan, S. A.; Buckner, J. P. J. Chem. Educ. 2004, 81, 356–363. Private communication with Mark Fiegener, Project Officer with the Survey of Earned Doctorates (SED) at the National Science Foundation, on July 25, 2016. National Research Council. Gender Differences at Critical Transitions in the Careers of Science, Engineering and Mathematics Faculty; National Academies Press: Washington, DC, 2010; pp 164−166. National Academy of Sciences. Beyond Bias and Barriers; Fulfilling the Potential of Women in Academic Science and Engineering; National Academy of Sciences: Washington, DC, 2006; pp 7−9.

99 Nelson and Cheng; Diversity in the Scientific Community Volume 1: Quantifying Diversity and Formulating Success ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2017.