SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY
WOMEN FACULTY POSITIONS EDGE UP Last year’s increase in the percentage of female
CHEMISTRY FACULTY occurred at the assistant professor level SOPHIE L. ROVNER, C&EN WASHINGTON
JUST TWO MONTHS AGO, the absence
of any women on the preliminary list of speakers for next year’s International Congress of Quantum Chemistry prompted a threatened boycott of the event. Theoretical chemists Emily A. Carter of Princeton
University; Laura Gagliardi of the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities; and Anna Krylov of the University of Southern California led the effort (C&EN, March 3, page 3). The incident throws into stark relief
UPTICK Over the past decade, women’s share of chemistry professorships
Percent women chemistry professors 30
at top universities climbed from 12% to 18%.
25
PERCENTAGE OF WOMEN CHEMISTRY PROFESSORS, 2012–13
Assistant:
the fact that remarkably few women are employed as chemistry professors, particularly at the universities that spend the most on chemical research. Still, according to data recently collected in partnership with C&EN, women’s share of faculty positions continued to inch higher last year, although that rise was limited to assistant professor jobs. At the top 50 schools in terms of chemical R&D spending, women held just 18% of the tenured and tenure-track positions in the 2012–13 academic year. That number was up only slightly from the prior academic year’s 17% level, but it represented considerable progress over the 12% share of a decade earlier. Breaking the numbers down by seniority
Associate:
Full:
20
All:
30% 24% 13% 18%
15 10
Up 4 points from prior year
No change from prior year
No change from prior year
◼ Assistant ◼ Associate ◼ Full ◼ All ranks
5
Up 1 pt from prior year
0 2001 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13
TOP DEPARTMENTS Among big spenders on chemistry R&D, these schools’ chemistry departments had the most women or highest percentage of women. Top departments for female faculty, 2012–13 Percentage of women
Number of women Ohio State U (Columbus)
13
Puerto Rico, U of, Río Piedras
Purdue U, West Lafayette
13
Wayne State U
11
California, U of, Davis
32 30
Texas, U of, M. D. Anderson Cancer Center
11
California, U of, Los Angeles
32
28
California, U of, Davis
Arizona, U of
9
Purdue U, West Lafayette
California, U of, Berkeley
9
Ohio State U (Columbus)
Michigan, U of, Ann Arbor
9
California, U of, Los Angeles
Wayne State U
9
28 25 24
Top departments for female faculty, 2011–12 Number of women
Percentage of women 15
Purdue U, West Lafayette California, U of, Davis
11
Purdue U, West Lafayette
California, U of, Los Angeles
11
Texas, U of, M. D. Anderson Cancer Center
Ohio State U (Columbus)
11
Wayne State U
Arizona, U of
32
Puerto Rico, U of, Río Piedras
10
California, U of, Davis
NOTE: Tenured and tenure-track women chemistry faculty at the 75 schools identified by the National Science Foundation as having spent the most on chemistry research in fiscal-year 2010. SOURCES: C&EN and OXIDE surveys
CEN.ACS.ORG
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APRIL 7, 2014
31 30 29 28
SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY
WOMEN IN ACADEMIA, 2012–13 Women held the greatest share of chemistry professorships at University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center, Purdue University, and University of California, Davis INTERACTIVE ONLINE
INSTITUTION
Akron, U of Arizona State U Arizona, U of Buffalo, U at California Inst. of Tech. California, U of, Berkeley California, U of, Davis California, U of, Irvine California, U of, Los Angeles California, U of, San Diego California, U of, San Francisco California, U of, Santa Barbara Chicago, U of Colorado, U of, Boulder Columbia U Cornell U (Ithaca) Emory U Florida, U of Georgia Inst. of Tech. (Atlanta) Harvard U Illinois, U of, Urbana-Champaign Indiana U, Bloomington Johns Hopkins Ua Kansas, U of Massachusetts Inst. of Tech. Massachusetts, U of, Amherst Michigan, U of, Ann Arbor Minnesota, U of, Twin Cities Montana State U, Bozeman North Carolina, U of, Chapel Hill Northwestern U Ohio State U (Columbus) Pennsylvania State U (Univ. Park) Pennsylvania, U of Pittsburgh, U of, Pittsburgh Princeton U Purdue U, West Lafayette Rutgers U, New Brunswick South Carolina, U of, Columbia Southern Mississippi, U of Stanford U Stony Brook U Texas A&M U, College Station Texas, U of, Austin Texas, U of, M. D. Anderson Cancer Center Utah, U of Vanderbilt U Virginia Tech (Blacksburg) Washington, U of, Seattle Wisconsin, U of, Madison TOTAL
ASSISTANT PROFESSOR TOTAL WOMEN %
Find more data and compare the 2012–13 stats with those for 2011–12 at http://cenm.ag/wfclty. ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR TOTAL WOMEN %
FULL PROFESSOR TOTAL WOMEN %
TOTAL
ALL FACULTY WOMEN
4 5 8 5 6 8 5 3 4 13 4 2 5 7 3 5 4 6 7 1 6 9 3 5 5 5 11 6 1 10 5 7 10 5 10 3 8 3 6 4 7 4 5 10 1
2 2 3 2 1 4 2 1 2 1 1 1 0 1 0 2 2 1 3 1 2 4 1 0 1 1 4 2 0 2 2 3 1 1 3 2 4 0 2 0 3 2 0 3 0
50% 40 38 40 17 50 40 33 50 8 25 50 0 14 0 40 50 17 43 100 33 44 33 0 20 20 36 33 0 20 40 43 10 20 30 67 50 0 33 0 43 50 0 30 0
2 13 11 5 0 3 2 9 7 6 2 3 3 8 6 3 5 13 6 3 3 8 3 7 2 5 3 7 3 3 2 11 7 5 10 2 7 6 5 4 3 6 3 7 3
0 4 3 0 0 1 0 4 2 1 1 0 0 1 1 0 0 5 1 0 0 1 1 3 1 3 1 3 0 1 0 3 2 1 2 1 3 1 2 1 0 2 1 1 1
0% 31 27 0 0 33 0 44 29 17 50 0 0 13 17 0 0 38 17 0 0 13 33 43 50 60 33 43 0 33 0 27 29 20 20 50 43 17 40 25 0 33 33 14 33
9 27 21 20 34 37 33 26 34 26 10 30 16 31 18 21 12 18 26 22 21 19 18 17 22 15 26 23 14 38 27 33 17 19 13 18 31 27 19 3 15 21 33 31 6
1 2 3 3 6 4 9 2 7 4 1 6 2 5 2 2 0 1 1 4 5 2 0 3 3 0 4 2 3 5 2 7 1 3 1 1 6 7 1 1 1 3 5 1 2
11% 7 14 15 18 11 27 8 21 15 10 20 13 16 11 10 0 6 4 18 24 11 0 18 14 0 15 9 21 13 7 21 6 16 8 6 19 26 5 33 7 14 15 3 33
15 45 40 30 40 48 40 38 45 45 16 35 24 46 27 29 21 37 39 26 30 36 24 29 29 25 40 36 18 51 34 51 34 29 33 23 46 36 30 11 25 31 41 48 10
3 8 9 5 7 9 11 7 11 6 3 7 2 7 3 4 2 7 5 5 7 7 2 6 5 4 9 7 3 8 4 13 4 5 6 4 13 8 5 2 4 7 6 5 3
6 2 4 10 7
2 1 2 2 2
33 50 50 20 29
6 6 7 3 5
3 1 0 0 0
50 17 0 0 0
21 14 18 20 30
2 1 3 3 5
10 7 17 15 17
33 22 29 33 42
7 3 5 5 7
283
84
262
63
1,100
148
1,645
295
30%
24%
13%
%
20% 18 23 17 18 19 28 18 24 13 19 20 8 15 11 14 10 19 13 19 23 19 8 21 17 16 23 19 17 16 12 25 12 17 18 17 28 22 17 18 16 23 15 10 30 21 14 17 15 17 18%
NOTE: Tenured and tenure-track faculty at the 50 schools identified by the National Science Foundation as having spent the most on chemistry research in fiscal 2010. For schools whose NSF ranking is based on multiple campuses, faculty numbers are for campus listed in parentheses. a Top 50 rank based on including the Applied Physics Laboratory. SOURCE: OXIDE survey
CEN.ACS.ORG
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“We can take heart in the fact that we’re continuing to make progress, but the pace remains too slow.”
to pursue a new job than men academics.” Often that’s because a man’s career is regarded as the primary career in a family, she explains. So women may be more likely than their partners to opt to avoid this hurdle by working in industry. “This suggests the need for more extensive arrangements reveals some dramatic disparities. Women’s career advancement and can make faculty for dual-career academic couples, even at share of assistant professor slots jumped reluctant to use these arrangements— the postdoc level,” Cech says. from 26% in 2011–12 to 30% in “can be detrimental for women C&EN has been counting women on Increase in in particular,” Cech notes. She 2012–13. Over that same period, faculties every year since 2000, focusing female women’s share of associate and and Mary Blair-Loy, a sociologist on those positions for which a chemistry chemistry full professor positions remained at the University of California, department paid at least half the salary. For unchanged at 24% and 13%, respec- faculty San Diego, explored these iseach of those years, C&EN published data tively. The statistics were gathered over past sues further in a recent article on the 50 or 75 schools that spent the most by the Open Chemistry Collabora- decade: (Work and Occupations 2014, DOI: on chemical R&D, as listed in the most retive in Diversity Equity (OXIDE), 10.1177/0730888413515497). cent NSF ranking available in a given year. which works with research-intenAnother hurdle that particularly Arguably, these selection criteria have sive chemistry departments to some flaws. For example, NSF’s ranking percentage affects the advancement of women broaden faculty diversity. into academic careers makes no distinction between points Percentage “We can take heart in the fact is the need for graduate schools that have chemistry-only of women that we’re continuing to make progress, students to move to another city, departments and those with dedepartment partments that combine chembut the pace remains too slow,” says Rigoor even across the country, for chairs, berto Hernandez, OXIDE director and a a postdoc position and then to istry with another subject, such 2012–13: chemistry professor at Georgia Institute move again for a faculty position, as biochemistry. Also, selecting of Technology. Hernandez has served on Cech says. “Women academics are a certain number of schools to a number of policy-making boards with less likely to move their families profile excludes plenty of schools Georgia Tech, the National Academies, and the American Chemical Society (which publishes C&EN) to try to help universities ® achieve diversity equity. Women have earned more than 25% of chemistry Ph.D.s since the mid-1980s, with that figure reaching 37% for 2012, according to the National Science Foundation’s Survey of Earned Doctorates. Since the mid-1980s, four to five tenure cycles have passed, notes Shannon Watt, OXIDE’s PN 11487 research and program manager. “All things being equitable, that should translate to MW – 15,592.45 women being approximately 25% of full professors,” she says. “The data clearly demonstrate that this is not the case.” The findings serve as “a call to action for chemistry departments to take a more active role in changing the climate and thereby the demographics,” Hernandez says.
6
17%
Single Mass dPEG modifier Behaves like 120,000 D by SEC!
THE DEFICIT of women professors won’t
fix itself, agrees Rice University sociologist Erin A. Cech, who studies inequality within the science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) professions. She suggests that chemistry departments address the issue by openly discussing it. One topic they might discuss is the “flexibility stigma” associated with people who make use of flexible work arrangements, such as taking a semester off to have a child. The stigma—which can harm
Phone Orders: 614 792-2958 I Fax Orders: 614 760-9781 Online Orders: www.quantabiodesign.com CEN.ACS.ORG
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APRIL 7, 2014
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“This suggests the need for more extensive arrangements for dual-career academic couples, even at the postdoc level.” where women hold a greater share of professorships. That said, the data collected from these universities do give a sense of long-term trends. Beginning with C&EN’s report on the 2010–11 academic year (Oct. 31, 2011, page 42), much of the data was collected by OXIDE. This year, OXIDE collected all of the data in a project conducted by Watt. The organization surveyed schools that topped NSF’s list for 2010, the most recent year available when the latest survey began. Data on the top 75 schools appear in the tables in this story; data on additional schools are available on the OXIDE website (http://b.gatech.edu/1pEysfm). The survey showed that the University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras, and Wayne State University had the highest percentage of female chemistry professors in the 2012–13 academic year, at 32%. Ohio State University, Columbus, and Purdue University, West Lafayette, Ind., had the greatest number of women faculty, 13. Perhaps surprisingly, OXIDE found in a separate study that women are at least as well represented in the ranks of chemistry department chairs (17%) as they are among full professors, indicating that women are attaining at least the first rung of academic leadership positions, Watt says. OXIDE IS ALSO gathering data on other
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aspects of diversity, including race and ethnicity. Its objective is to establish diversity equity—no matter how it’s categorized—within the leading researchactive chemistry departments, Hernandez explains. OXIDE is working with department chairs and their representatives to achieve these goals. “The chairs have been heavily engaged in OXIDE’s National Diversity Equity Workshops, and we have some evidence that this is leading to significant steps,” Hernandez says. For example, several departments have created diversity committees, and some have widened their faculty searches to reach broader pools of applicants. One way to do so is to “actively seek out faculty applications from women,” Watt suggests. “For example, when you see a CEN.ACS.ORG
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female postdoc give a great talk at an ACS meeting, let her know your department is conducting a search, and encourage her to apply.” In the meantime, “while very few departments now have only one woman on their faculties, there still remain several that have only one female assistant professor in a pool of more than four or five,” Hernandez says. That’s a problem because such conditions present additional barriers to success, he says. For example, because of their small numbers, women are overburdened by service roles for which they receive little credit, such as service on committees that must be staffed with diverse voices, Hernandez notes. This “service tax” can make it harder for women to advance their primary research and teaching duties, he says. “There are also data showing that the barriers encountered by female faculty have an impact on the career aspirations of female graduate students and postdoctoral researchers, who look to the faculty as role models and indicators of what the graduate students’ and postdocs’ lives could be like if they were to pursue tenure-track positions,” Watt cautions. Departments can make use of several resources to support women faculty. They include ACS’s Women Chemists Committee; the society’s Women Chemists of Color initiative, which builds community, provides resources, and advocates for minority women chemists; and the independent Committee on the Advancement of Women Chemists, known as COACh. Organizations that aren’t specifically focused on chemists include the Women in Science & Engineering Leadership Institute at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, which aims to promote participation and advancement of women in science and engineering and offers a guidebook for search committees, among several other resources; NSF’s Increasing the Participation & Advancement of Women in Academic Science & Engineering Careers program, known as ADVANCE; and the Center for Research on Gender in the Professions at UC San Diego. ◾
