The Latest Slap for Larry Summers

At Open University, Dan Drezner points to a new study by the National Academy of Sciences panel, "Beyond Bias and Barriers: Fulfilling the Potential of Women in Academic Science and Engineering." In the New York Times, Cornelia Dean writes that women are falling behind men in the science because of "bias and outmoded institutional structures".

Let's just say that someone was going to put together a survey for the chairs of political science departments that asked them various questions about their policies and practices, which might have an impact on the ratio of women on their faculty. Information could be gathered about how many departments offer time off the tenure clock, breast feeding rooms, mentorships, and on-site daycare. Some nice regional and university size comparisons. Any suggestions for questions?

Comments

[John Biles]

It may be that universities I don't know about offer some of those things you've listed, but my casual guess would be that the answer is close to zero of any kind of department in universities offer 'time off the tenure clock, breast feeding rooms, mentorships, and on-site daycare'.

Hmm, actually, on second thought, I know a fair number of schools have some kind of day care for older students (so maybe for professors too), but not those other things.

Asking about maternal leave policies would be another question that comes to mind for said survey.

[RCinProv]

It would help to distinguish items that might vary by department and those that are actually university policy. Stopping the tenure clock is a university policy here. Then again, a useful survey might ask those eligible for stopping the clock whether they actually did so or not. I've been asked by junior colleagues whether that will held against one at tenure time. There's clearly a sense among some people that it might. Department chairs won't tell you that, though!

[Jacob T. Levy]

Yeah, the de jure ability to stop the the tenure clock is indispensible but still doesn't quite tell you what you need to know. By now I assume the de jure right is almost ubiquitous... and yet...

Question: why "mentorship?" One of these thubgs seems not like the others.

[Jacob T. Levy]

ahem... "things."

[Laura]

Department chairs could be asked how often they have stopped the tenure clock in the past five years.

I just threw out mentorship, because it is often something that women in any high powered position say it is lacking. I'm not sure if there are formal programs for that or not in academia.

A friend of mine just e-mailed an incredible list of things that she thought were important:

1. How are the breast feeding spaces distributed on campus? Are they near teaching as well as office spaces?
2. Do adjuncts have access to breast feeding spaces?
3. Do faculty have choices about the time of day they teach? Some faculty are forced to teach nights and weekends. Are the classes scheduled so that you have time to pump if you're breast feeding?
4. What are the requirements for attending evening and weekend functions?
5. If you brought a baby to a faculty meeting, would people freak?
6. How many years extension on the tenure clock can you get for having children? (either parent?) 1 ? 2? [university deleted[ allows 1 - other places allow 2. Fine if you have one kid - tough if you have 2. BTW - if you're the one who is pregnant it seems to me you should get 2 for each child. You're mentally toast while you're pregnant plus you're exhausted and then you have the sleepless months once you have the baby. And of course there's all of this pressure to breast feed and that sucks the life out of you. etc...
7. You might ask about informal vs formal policies. Some universities have one policy but departments can opt to be more thoughtful, helpful etc... That's great but ultimately creates an uneven playing field even at the same university.

[Chris]

What is the process for dealing with harassment? Is it formal or informal? Does the administration take steps so that accusers are insulated from adverse career effects after (well founded) charges are made? What are those steps?

With science continuing to be such an old boy network, I would want to make sure some protections are in place before I'd go work there.

[Henry]

If a university didn't offer tenure, it wouldn't have a tenure clock. My question is "Why do you have tenure and who is it benefitting?"

I'd be curious to know where woman have better representation: is it in the professorial ranks or in the research and professional support positions?

[Layna]

Some universities -- perhaps not that many -- have instituted policies of *requiring* the tenure clock to be stopped for a year with birth of a child. This gets around the issue of a policy being available but having to ask one's chair or dean for the policy, which many junior faculty are hesitant to do.

My sense is that, at places with more recently implemented policies, chairs and faculty aren't always clear on how they work, which gets at the need for questions about rules on the books vs. implementation. For instance, my university has had a parental leave policy for a little over 2 years; but it wasn't until we asked our chair to ask whether it applied to both parents or just one that the dean weighed in on this (and the ruling, which *is* clear in the policy, but hadn't been applied consistently) was that the primary caregiver was entitled to a semester's leave, but the other parent was not.

[Laura]

Thanks, Layna and everybody. I'm really itchy to put a survey like together. I actually love making surveys. But it probably isn't a good idea to administer the survey until I have tenure somewhere. I might put one together just to amuse myself and to get input from you all.

[dave s]

Interesting Arnold Kling article in which Summers comes up as an example of someone who fell outside the envelope of 'trust clues' - I think he's on to something here.

http://www.tcsdaily.com/article.aspx?id=062706C