Report on the Status of Women in the Natural Sciences and Engineering at Boston University, Summer 2012
Web version
Some conclusions
Where things stand
Overall, the university appears to be making significant progress in a number of areas. The percentage of female Assistant Professors hired between 2006-07 and 2010-11 was higher in Engineering, and considerably higher in the CAS Natural Sciences, than the percentage of females currently employed here in those disciplines. This has resulted in a sharp increase in the percentage of females at the rank of Assistant Professor in the Natural Sciences: from 17% to 32%. In Engineering, however, attrition took a bite out of the female representation on the tenure-track faculty. The number of female hires (3) equaled the number of female promotions to tenured ranks (3), but the overall number of female tenure-track faculty members declined from 6 to 5 in that period as a result of attrition (given the changes in the numbers of males, this, in fact, resulted in an increase from 23% to 24% female).
Women were less well represented among senior hires and on the tenured faculty, however. In Engineering, there were no females hired at the rank of Associate Professor or Professor, although there was 1 female Professor who transferred to ENG from CAS. The number of female Associate Professors was unchanged in this period (6), but the increase in the number of males resulting from 2 male hires caused a small decline in the percentage of female Associate Professors (from 17.1% to 16.7%). In the CAS Natural Sciences, there was no increase in the number of female Professors and the number of female Associate Professors dropped from 9 to 8 between 2006-07 and 2010-11. Thus females went from constituting 18.8% to 18.2% of all Associate Professors in the Natural Sciences. In the CAS Natural Sciences, there were also striking differences in the percentage of full-time females vs. males who held tenured/tenure-track vs. non tenure-track positions in the Natural Sciences.
Women (especially senior women) were also under-utilized in departmental administrative positions. Although there is room for improvement with respect to inclusion of women scientists and engineers in certain leadership positions, such as that of Department Chair, within CAS, women (and especially senior women) seem to be more marginalized, at least in some respects, in the Humanities and Social Sciences than in the Natural Sciences.
With respect to both overall salary levels and Female:Male average salary ratios, there has been substantial improvement for the University. Although there is further progress to be made in salary gender equity in the Humanities and Social Sciences (especially at the rank of Professor), females in the Natural Sciences generally do not appear to be at a disadvantage overall with respect to salaries.
It remains the case, however, that females were generally retained at a lower rate than males in the sciences, and females were especially over-represented among the tenure-track (not yet tenured) ranks of CAS Natural Sciences with respect to voluntary attrition. (This was not the case in other divisions of CAS.) Females in the Natural Sciences and Engineering also had lower rates of ultimate success in the tenure process.
A few specific recommendations
The biggest changes resulting in increased gender equity at BU have been made, during the period between 2006-07 and 2010-11, in female representation at the level of Assistant Professors. This is extremely important as this sets the stage for the future. What has been accomplished, especially through new hiring, is quite impressive. However, in the future, attention should also be paid to senior faculty, in regard not only to recruitment and hiring, but also to the female faculty members who have been on the faculty at BU for a long time. It has been well documented that small and varied disadvantages resulting from gender bias are cumulative, so that disparities between men and women tend to get larger over time.
As Nancy Hopkins said in her presentation at BU: “Both men AND women under value identical work when it is done by a woman… [M]en’s and women’s undervaluation of women, and women’s undervaluation of themselves is perhaps the last barrier to overcome.”* Recalibration of the valuation of senior women, in relation to salaries (in the Humanities and Social Sciences, and possibly Engineering) and other forms of compensation, promotion timetables and processes, and the potential for contributions in positions of leadership, may be called for.
Future attention should also be devoted to investigation of the reasons for the low retention rates of female scientists, and for ways to improve retention, as this will be key to achieving long-term increases in the representation of female scientists and engineers on the faculty.
Exit interviews of faculty members who retire or choose to leave the university for other reasons would be extremely informative; this would be helpful in understanding (among other things) how we might increase the retention rates. We have been urging implementation of regular exit interviews for quite some time
In any case, the findings contained here (and in more detail, in the NSF final report) provide a set of benchmarks against which to measure progress. Experiences at other universities have demonstrated the importance of continuing to monitor the data closely for maintaining the gains that have been achieved and fostering further advancements. It would be excellent to see the University establish a comprehensive set of benchmark data that would be shared with the University community on an annual basis.
* Nancy Hopkins, “Mirages of Equality: The Changing Status of Women in Science & Engineering”. November 8, 2011. Boston University, Boston, MA.
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<1> Female Representation among Tenured and Tenure-track Faculty: 1997 and 2007-2011
<2> Female Representation by Tenure Status
<3> Hiring Patterns
<4> Attrition
<5> Success in Tenure and Promotion
<6> Time at Rank
<7> Salaries
<8> Leadership Positions, 2010-11
<Conclusions>
