The Gender Equity Report

www.upenn.edu/almanac ALMANAC SUPPLEMENT DECEMBER 4, 2001 www.upenn.edu/almanac I The Gender Equity Committee was established in June, 2000, by Provost Robert Barchi and Faculty Senate Chair Larry Gross at the recommendation of the University Council Steering Committee. The charge was to undertake a systematic review of the status of women faculty at the University of Pennsylvania. Four subcommittees were formed to complete the review: one on faculty census using fall 1999 data, one on professional status of women faculty, one on faculty salaries, and one on a survey of faculty regarding their quality of life. The census data show that women averaged 23.8% of the faculty in 1999. While comparison with the prior ten years indicates an upward trend in the hiring of women, there are indications that this increase has slowed or ceased in some areas. The data show considerable variability in the proportion of women among the various schools, much of it reflecting differences in the availability of women in the doctoral pool. There were also marked unexplained differences within groups of departments that should be drawing from pools of similar size. Examination of Ph.D. pool data suggests that in many schools and departments the number of women at the rank of Assistant Professor or Associate Professor is fairly consistent with the numbers in the doctoral pool. The School of Medicine, which has more than half of all of Penn’s women faculty, reached expected numbers in clinical departments but had lower than expected numbers of women Assistant and Associate Professors in basic science departments. In the Natural Sciences in SAS, the Wharton School and the Basic Science Departments in the Dental School, the number of women was less than 60% of that expected based upon the pool. The census data also show that the proportion of men in the faculty increases with rank while the proportion of women does not; thus, women are 35% of all Assistant Professors, 23% of all Associate Professors, and only 15% of Full Professors. This pattern appears to be the result of both loss of some senior faculty women to other universities and the hiring of relatively large number of men at senior faculty rank. A Harvard survey comparing the numbers of women at Penn with numbers at other universities shows Penn at or better than median rank among Medical School Full Professors and untenured Associate Professors as well as non-Medical Assistant Professors. However, Penn was below median rank in the remaining five categories, and ranked lowest for tenured Associate Professors in both the medical and non-medical areas. Recommendation We recommend that the University work with the deans to develop policies about hiring practices to ensure change, particularly in those departments whose hiring of women is not consistent with their numbers in the pool. These policies should also aim at countering the male bias in the hiring of senior faculty and at keeping more tenured women at Penn. Half of all women faculty at Penn are in the School of Medicine and almost half of these are Assistant Professors-Clinician Educator. This large group of junior faculty women is experiencing particular difficulty reconciling their professional responsibilities with the demands of family and home life, resulting in an unusually high resignation rate. Recommendation We recommend that policies affecting the retention and promotion of Assistant Professors-Clinician Educator be evaluated for their disproportionate impact on faculty women. With respect to the professional status of women faculty, the committee determined that at the more junior ranks women had more research space per grant dollar than men, but women Full Professors averaged somewhat less space per grant dollar than their male colleagues; in both SAS science departments and the School of Medicine, senior women faculty had about 85% of the space assigned to males. Women have been funded by the University Research Foundation in proportion to the number of grants they have submitted and, in some years, in a greater proportion than the number submitted. Women faculty hold administrative positions at the school level (dean and sub-dean) in proportion to their numbers, but they are under-represented among department chairs. They also tend to be under-represented as holders of endowed and term chairs. When measured against their proportion of the total faculty, the proportion of women winning the Lindback teaching award was roughly comparable to their proportion in the faculty. Recommendation The University and the deans should work together to develop policies that assure that women achieve leadership positions and scholarly rewards in schools and departments consistent with their interests and capabilities. A statistical analysis of salary by gender among faculty of the same rank and cognate disciplines was carried out, controlling for time since degree, for whether the faculty member was first hired as a full professor (for comparisons of professor rank only) and, in some instances, for specific department. This analysis indicated that women had slightly lower salaries than men in most of the groupings; however, only a few of these differences were statistically significant. Recommendation The equity of faculty salaries in all schools should be reviewed with special attention to salaries of women faculty. The survey of non-medical faculty (men and women) yielded a number of important similarities in terms of the work they do and their satisfaction with space. However, the women reported being less satisfied with their jobs and the majority reported feeling that men faculty were more advantaged at Penn. The survey of medical faculty also showed males and females being similar in the work they do; but, here too, most women faculty (and 25% of the men faculty) felt that male faculty were advantaged. Comparison of non-medical and medical school data suggested that faculty in the School of Medicine were more concerned about the impact of gender than faculty in the other schools. Finally, a comparison of the non-medical data with the 1999 National Survey of Post-Secondary Faculty showed that Penn faculty are more satisfied with their salaries and benefits and the quality of students. It also showed that Penn faculty, especially women faculty, put in much longer workweeks than do faculty at most other institutions. In other respects, Penn faculty opinion closely mirrors that of faculty nationally. Recommendation The University and the deans should work together to find ways to alter the environment in which many women and some men perceive men to be advantaged. It is also important for the University of Pennsylvania to make a major, visible commitment to efforts intended to create an environment friendly to women. Executive Summary Gender Equity Committee