If college graduates are 58% female why are so many tenured professors male?
I’ve often wondered why this is not a flashpoint on campuses. This study by the Modern Language Association examines why so many women remain trapped as associate professors. The answer is not necessarily what you might expect. This article from Inside Higher Ed lays it out.
Here’s a column from the Chronicle of Higher Education with a different perspective on the issue.
(I wonder if the day will ever come when feminist groups, normally quick to champion women in academia, employ the numbers argument to press for more female tenured professors. They should, but to date they prefer to pretend the campus gender imbalances don’t exist.)
Tags: women in academia
April 27th, 2009 at 7:27 pm
This is one of the more interesting topic for me because this blog is dedicated to the problems of boys in education and their overall ability to succeed (hence the name why boys fail).
But despite all the information and data that this blog posts and show about young men and the current problem — adult men still dominate the leadership positions of our country.
Is this a form of hegemony and oppression towards women? Does anyone have thoughts about this?
April 27th, 2009 at 8:20 pm
I don’t understand what all the fuss is about. In my research 1 university science department, you don’t apply for promotion from associate to full professor. Your tenure/mentoring committee and the executive committee recommend it. All full professors vote and if the vote is favorable, the issue goes to the college. The Regardless of what we say about teaching, the bottom line is that, with very few exceptions, research is what really counts. You get promoted even faster if you have an offer from another research 1 department of comparable stature, but you get promoted anyway with a reasonable record. The department has plenty to lose if somebody is a demoralized associate professor for a long period of time. It doesn’t lose anything by promotion. The salary increment isn’t all that big, and the overall salary budget is the college administration’s worry, not the department’s.