March 24, 2005
Roscoe:
This is a WISE update for you. You may distribute it as you see fit.
The report included with this update, was sent to the Deans and Assoc. Deans of CAS, SAR, and ENG, and the Chairs of the Eng Departments and the following CAS Departments: Math, Biology, Chemistry, CNS, Physics, Astronomy, Earth Science, Geography, Psychology, and Computer Science at the beginning of March. On March 15th, the WISE core committee met with the Chairs and Deans to present the data that had been accumulated thus far regarding hiring and retention of women faculty in science and engineering, and to share the most importantissues that were raised during the focus group discussions of January 14th. We then presented some of the programs that are outlined in the report below which seek to address the hiring and retention issues as well as improve the overall work climate.
The climate at the Chairs/Deansmeeting was collegial and the WISE core was allowed to share the most striking work climate issues unveiled by the focus groupswithout "backlash." All of the information that was presented generated discussion. The program that fostered the most support was the faculty mentoring program. Most at the meeting felt very strongly that we should work quickly to implement a formal faculty mentoring program. The other programs were not discussed at such length, the admnistrative model was not completely hammered out, and the method for funding the implementation of the programs was not finalized. Overall though, it was positive that the WISE message could be delivered to such a large number of the administrators ofscience and engineering programs on campus.
The WISE core intends to work out a final proposal for the Provost thatwill describe a plan for implementation of the programs described in the report with an associated time-line and possibilities for funding the personnel needed to oversee the implementation.The implementation plan will consist of methods for collecting and assessing the program models available at other institutions and the steps for integrating the selected program model into the BU system. We envision that a buy-out for a senior faculty member will be needed in order to allow that faculty member to be fully engaged with the implementation of the programs. We also hope that at least a part-time staff person can be funded to support the faculty director and the WISE core committee in general.
Thanks for your support of this endeavor (and your early encouragement to pursue the meeting with Carol Neidle).
Sheryl Grace
Current chair - BU WISE Initiative
February 7, 2005
Report on the current status of the BU WISE Initiative:
The WISE (Women in Science and Engineering) Initiative at BU has been underway for 3 months now. The Initiative was first mentioned during an informal gathering of the women faculty in the College of Engineering that was attended by Carol Neidle who is the chair of the Equity and Inclusion Subcommittee of the Faculty Council. It was clear from the discussion with Carol, and the working relationships that the engineering faculty had with the Provost ad interim, that it was the right time to begin discussing more publicly issues relevant to hiring and retention of women in science and engineering.
The first meeting of the women faculty in Science and Engineering took place on November 4, 2004. The Provost sanctioned the meeting and the minutes are attached as an appendix. This meeting was mainly a strategic planning meeting during which we formed a core group, set the bounds for which departments/campus/ranks etc. should be solicited for input during the early planning stage, and developed a list of outside experts that we wanted to invite to campus to help us complete our needs assessment and to provide us with information concerning best practices and best programs used at other institutions.
Most at the November 4th meeting agreed that a WISE Initiative should be started as a means of addressing three issues: the need to increase diversity in sciences and engineering and to make this a priority of all faculty searches; the indifference to retaining women faculty as evidenced by the recent departures of a number of such faculty, and the lack of measures taken by the administration to retain them; and, the absence of women in high-level administrative roles within the science and engineering departments.
As an example of the retention problem here at BU: in Engineering, no women hired as assistant or associate professors in the past 15 years, has remained at the institution long enough to go through the process of promotion to full professor. Three female assistant professors left and three female associate professors left as of 2002. As a result, at the beginning of 2002, there existed only three assistant and associate female faculty members in the college. This is a 66% departure rate where the departure rate of male assistant and associate faculty for this same time period was under 40%. Since 2002, one associate and four assistant female professors have been hired. WISE believes that it is now critical to work on retention. We are obtaining the similar statistic for CAS Departments where again it is very rare to find an example of a female faculty member who was promoted through the system to full professor.
On January 14th, we were to be joined by outside consultants (Susanne Brainard from the Univ. of Washington's Center for Workforce Development and Susan Metz from Stevens Institute's Lore El Center for Women in Science and Engineering) to run several focus groups intended to help us complete our needs assessment and then create a list of programs that might easily be molded to work at BU. Weather prohibited the visitors from being with us, so we tape recorded the focus groups. The main consultant is currently reviewing the tapes and preparing her report.
On January 18th, Maria Klawe, Dean of Engineering at Princeton University, joined us for a lunchtime discussion of current programs that Princeton has in place, as well as the climate and needs here at BU and what programs may best address these needs.
This report summarizes our findings from these meetings and provides a preliminary list of programs that BU should consider instituting in support of women in science and engineering.
It is the intent of the meeting with the chairs and deans to obtain feedback on the potential programs described in this report (is the list sufficient?, what priority would chairs place on the different programs?, etc.) and most importantly to obtain input as to the formulation of the administrative model through which the programs would be implemented.
This summary consists of the following sections
- Preliminary data assessment and planned data collection
- List of potential programs focused on hiring and retention of women in science and engineering
- List of potential programs for retention of female graduate students
- List of potential programs for support and retention of female undergraduate students
Because we have not finalized the administrative format that makes the most sense for the implementation of such programs, throughout this report we will just refer to a generic WISE Center. This center may be personified in order to help describe the role of the administration related to the programs. The necessary personnel associated with a WISE Center must initially be supported by university funds or be linked to positions that already exist at the university. The recommendations from our outside consultant will include a comment that BU should apply for an Institutional Transformation Grant through the NSF ADVANCE program -- ADVANCE: Increasing the Participation and Advancement of Women in Academic Science and Engineering Careers -- (if the funds are again appropriated for this program). In the past the awards were made at a level of 3 million over 5 years. During the 5 years, the institution must implement, document, and assess programs such as the ones outlined in this report. In addition, the programs that initially focus on science and engineering should, by the end of the 5 years, have also grown to include and/or help other parts of the university community. The PI for such grants is the Provost and the deans and chairs then serve as Co-PIs. At most institutions, the director of the WISE Center helps to gather all of the necessary data for the proposal and becomes a critical instrument in the writing of the proposal.
I. The initial data.
We collected the current statistics for faculty in the science and engineering departments on BU's Charles River Campus. The data is shown on the next page. We have listed the total number of faculty by gender and type: tenure track/tenure, research, and teaching faculty. The good news is that the percent of women in tenure or tenure track positions (the 4th column) compares favorably (where data is available) with percentages listed in the Nelson study of 2002 (shown below - 2nd column). A sample page from the Nelson report is attached as an appendix. The Nelson study covered the following fields pertinent to BU: computer science, astronomy, biology, psychology, physics, math/stat, electrical engineering, and mechanical engineering and it is a compilation number of the "50 top schools in the given field." It is not clear that these are the institutions that we consider our peer group. In most fields, our percentage of women faculty is slightly higher except in computer science and electrical engineering.
However, if we compare the percentage of women in tenure or tenure track positions to institutions such as Princeton and University of Washington, who have made a commitment to diversity through institutionalized support programs , we do not look as good. The percentages are given below for a large state institution: the University of Washington, and a small private institution: Princeton. The last column shows at a glance how BU's percentages compare with the percentages at the other two universities. Each arrow indicates roughly a 5% difference with the direction indicating whether BU's percentage is higher or lower. The straight line indicates that the percentages are on par at BU and the other university.
Department / BU % / Nelson study / U of Wash / Princeton / Comparison w/ UW/PrinceElectrical Eng / 3 / 6.4 / 12 / 13 / /
Mech. Eng / 11 / 6.7 / 7 / 15 / /
Biomed. Eng / 17 / 25 /
Astronomy / 14 / 12.2 / 18 / 15 / /
Comp. Sci / 6 / 10.6 / 9 / 17 / /
Biology / 22 / 20.2 / 27 / 26 / /
Chemistry / 5 / 10 / 10 / /
Physics / 9 / 6.6 / 9 / 8 / /
Math/Stat / 11 / 8.3 / 12 / 10 / /
Psychology / 42 / 33.5 / 38 / 40 / /
Earth Sci / 25 / 7 / 17 / /
Cog/Neur Sci / 22 / 58 / 14 / /
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BU Faculty Data 2004-2005Dept / Total (women/total) / Tenured (women/total) / Untenured (women/total) / % tenure-type / Teaching (women/total) / Research (women/total) / Non-tenure track (women/total)
Aero/Mech Eng / 2/24 8% / 1/15 / 1/4 / 11% / 0/4 / 0/1
Biomed Eng / 5/34 15% / 4/24 / 1/6 / 17% / 0/0 / 1/4
Elec/Comp Eng / 3/39 8% / 0/19 / 1/11 / 3% / 2/6 / 1/3
Manuf Eng / 3/25 12% / 0/13 / 2/3 / 13% / 1/4 / 0/5
Astronomy / 3/15 20% / 1/13 / 1/1 / 14% / 1/1
Ctr for Space Phys / 0/3
Biology / 13/47 28% / 4/29 / 5/12 / 22% / 4/6
BUMP / 0/6 0% / 0/4 / 0/2 / 0%
Chemistry / 2/30 7% / 1/21 / 0/2 / 5% / 0/7
Physics / 4/36 11% / 3/30 / 0/3 / 9% / 1/3
Cog and Nuer Sci / 2/9 22% / 2/8 / 0/1 / 22%
Comp. Sci / 2/19 10% / 1/11 / 0/6 / 6% / 1/2
Earth Sci / 4/10 40% / 2/6 / 0/2 / 25% / 2/2
Math/Stat / 3/36 8% / 3/26 / 0/2 / 11% / 1/8
Psychology / 21/40 53% / 9/22 / 2/4 / 42% / 10/14
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We also collected the masters and PhD graduation statistics for these same departments over the past two years. This is a statistic that the NSF keeps as a method for tracking the pipeline of possible faculty. We are in the process of obtaining the correlated matriculation data for our graduate programs in order to assess retention rates by gender. Anecdotally, the faculty note that the retention of women in our graduate programs (especially the PhD programs) is small compared to the retention rate of male graduate students, but now we plan to quantitatively assess the situation.
Currently in conjunction with the Equity and Inclusion Subcommittee of the faculty council, we are obtaining the following data:
- salary, including percent increase information
- tenure success rates plus average number of years to tenure
- average number of years for promotion from assoc. to full by gender
- rate of departure of tenure and tenure track faculty
Two studies performed in the early 90s showed that the difference in salary based on gender here at BU is much higher than the difference at other universities (especially for associate and full faculty). The BU Faculty Council Equity and Inclusion Committee, together with the Compensation Committee, is working with this WISE Initiative to assess the current salary conditions.
Maria Klawe, current Dean of Engineering at Princeton reported that the study she carried out upon arriving at Princeton showed that the women faculty were often leaving because of "a non-supportive" and often "hostile" work environment. She listed factors that created the uncomfortable work environment: gender biased assessment of contributions to one’s field and one’s department, additional workloads such as unofficial advising and committee assignments, lack of input on important funding or space decisions, lack of advancement options, lack of colleagues with which to work (i.e. as women were advancing, no new hires in their areas of research were made, while as the men were advancing, the departments were building teams of faculty with whom they found it easy to collaborate), etc.
To help assess the current climate for women faculty and graduate students here at BU we ran an entire day of focus groups. Three faculty groups involving 17 WISE faculty and two graduate student groups involving 18 students were convened. Suzanne Brainard, our outside consultant and director of the Center for Workforce Development at the University of Washington, as well as co-founder of Women in Engineering Programs Advocacy Network, supplied the questions posed to the focus groups. . The questions for the faculty and graduate students are attached as an appendix. Suzanne is currently reviewing the responses and will submit a report shortly with her recommendations for the types of programs that BU should consider to address the needs that surfaced during the group discussions. This report has a description of some of the programs that she will recommend.
The envisioned WISE Center would continue to monitor statistics like those that have been described here. In addition, it would compile the statistics concerning the breakdown of space, teaching loads, committee loads etc. by gender. The WISE Center would also help to assess the true reasons behind departures of faculty and graduate students by assisting with exit interviews.
II. Programs that address recruitment and retention of female faculty
A. Long Term Documented Strategy: Our studies of other institutions that show continued success in hiring and retaining women faculty in the science and engineering fields identified one key to their success. Each institution has a long-term strategy that is documented. Many institutions have documents called "Faculty recruitment toolkits" and "Faculty retention toolkits." The recruitment toolkits include strategies such as
- Continued mentoring of best undergraduate and graduate students who pursue graduate or post-doctoral positions elsewhere (eye on the pipeline)
- Methods for helping department faculty identify outstanding colleagues when at national conferences etc., and then methods for departments to carry on discussions with such potential candidates over a number of years
- Methods for dealing with dual-career hires
- Suggestions for marketing from departments and colleges
- Lists of programs that support diverse candidates (seen as a plus by such candidates)
- Tips on job announcement wording
The WISE Center would work with the chairs and deans to put together these guidelines and would help to disseminate the information to existing faculty and search committees via workshops.
B. Target of opportunity hiring money. Several institutions have, at the provost and dean's level, target of opportunity money aimed at increasing diversity. The wording concerning the designation of the money must show enough flexibility, but be constraining enough such that it is truly used to increase diversity. Such funds at other institutions are used to help in hiring outstanding candidates that add diversity to a faculty during a time when there is no specified faculty slot. The funds are also used to help in dual hiring cases. As an institution, BU would have to raise these funds somehow, devise the wording for the designation of the funds, and administer the allocation of the funds. The WISE Center would help in all of these aspects. For instance, grant funding can be used to start the program while the development office focuses on raising funds for the continuation the funding. Such target of opportunity funds help motivate departments to have a continual process of evaluating and recruiting candidates that can increase the diversity of a department.
C. Formal mentoring systems. It has been shown repeatedly in the literature that an important element of successful retention of minority faculty is a strong, formal mentoring system. (The data has been collected over the years as part of the NSF ADVANCE program.) One university has adopted a scheme by which the mentors are financially rewarded. Many universities have included mentoring as a metric that is used during the faculty merit evaluations. The merit reviewers (chairs/deans) solicit information and comments from both the mentors and mentees to be used in the merit evaluation process. Formal mentoring systems that we would suggest be considered at BU would include the following features