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Publications
Equity in Tenure and Promotion Abstracts
L. Blum, Breaking the Silence [An unpublished manuscript on the Jenny Harrison Berkeley Tenure Case]
A comprehensive discussion of the promotion and tenure case of Jenny Harrison at Berkeley.
L. Blum and L. Goldber, Fighting for Tenure: Another View
A discussion of the Jenny Harrison tenure and promotion case at Berkeley. Contains detailed list of references.
A. Bunce, Educators urge parents to bolster girls’ interest in math and science
The difficulties encountered by young women with a budding interest in science and math are noted. Many such women are discouraged in their pursuits at an early age. Suggestions for parents who wish to encourage their daughters to pursue science and math are provided
A. Jackson, Fighting for Tenure: The Jenny Harrison Case Opens Pandora’s Box of Issues about Tenure, Discrimination, and the Law
This article is intended to inform the mathematical sciences community about a tenure case in mathematics that has received international publicity and has been discussed widely in the community. Ordinarily, the Notices and the AMS would avoid discussion of individual tenure cases. In particular, the Society takes no stand on this case. However, the large amount of publicity and discussion about this case made it important that the Notices attempt to provide information about it to the community. In addition, the case raises broader issues about tenure reviews, grievance procedures, and dispute resolution that are of interest to the academic community.
A. Kolodny, Why feminists need tenure
Women have made considerable progress in the academe with the percentage of doctorates received by women growing from 14% to 37% from 1971 to 1991, and 20% more women receiving PhDs from 1989 to 1993. However, these changes have forced Right-wing groups to try and curb the rise of women as well as minorities in the academe by influencing decisions involving tenure, academic programs and hiring.
S. Landau, What Happens to the Women
A study of what happens to women getting Ph.D. degrees in mathematics from MIT.
D. K. Magner, Debate over woman’s tenure continues at Berkeley
A discussion of the aftermath of Jenny Harrison’s tenure decision at Berkeley.
D. K. Magner, A 3-year struggle against sex bias at U. of Wisconsin
Discussion of Ceil M. Pillsbury’s three year campaign against sex discrimination at U. of Wisconsin. Pillsbury is a professor
of accounting.
L. W. Perna, Sex Differences in Faculty Tenure and Promotion: The Contribution of Family Ties
From the article: This study uses data from the 1999 National Study of Postsecondary Faculty to examine the ways in which parental status, marital status, and employment status of the spouse are related to two outcomes, tenure and promotion, among college and university faculty. The analyses are guided by a conceptual model that draws upon the economic theory of human capital and sociological notions of structural capital, social capital, and social networks. Descriptive and multinomial logit analyses are used to address the research questions. The analyses reveal that the contribution of family ties to tenure status and academic rank is different for women than for men.
M. Rochlin, Mathematics of Discrimination
A discussion of the Jenny Harrison tenure case at Berkeley.
M. B. Ruskai, Time for Advancement
Discussion of under-representation of women in mathematics. Includes tables on percentage of women among those receiving degrees from AMS Type I, II,III, IV, and V institutions; % of women receiving degrees from Type I,II,III,IV, and V institutions; new doctoral hires by type of department; and percentage of women among tenured doctoral faculty
E. Seymour, The loss of women from science, mathematics and engineering undergraduate majors: an explanatory account
Women who manage to complete their studies in science, mathematics and engineering generally have a strong career motivation and develop ways to neutralize the hostility of their male peers. To overcome problems women must be independently able to deflect attacks on their feelings of self-worth. The science, mathematics and engineering undergraduate programs have to encourage and accept female students.
Steinpreis, RE, Anders, KA, and Witzke, D, The impact of gender on the review of curricula vitae of job applicants and tenure candidates: A national empirical study
From the article: he purpose of this study was to determine some of the factors that influence outside reviewers and search committee members when they are reviewing curricula vitae, particularly with respect to the gender of the name on the vitae. The participants in this study were 238 male and female academic psychologists who listed a university address in the 1997 Directory of the American PsychologicalAssociation. They were each sent one of four versions of a curriculum vitae (i.e., female job applicant, male job applicant, female tenure candidate, and male tenure candidate), along with a questionnaire and a self-addressed stamped envelope. All the curricula vitae actually came from a real-life scientist at two different stages in her career, but the names were changed to traditional male and female names. Although an exclusively between-groups design was used to avoid sparking gender conscious responding, the results indicate that the participants were clearly able to distinguish between the qualifications of the job applicants versus the tenure candidates, as evidenced by suggesting higher starting salaries, increased likelihood of offering the tenure candidates a job, granting them tenure, and greater respect for their teaching, research, and service records. Both men and women were more likely to vote to hire a male job applicant than a female job applicant with an identical record. Similarly, both sexes reported that the male job applicant had done adequate teaching, research, and service experience compared to the female job applicant with an identical record. In contrast, when men and women examined the highly competitive curriculum vitae of the real-life scientist who had gotten early tenure, they were equally likely to tenure the male and female tenure candidates and there was no difference in their ratings of their teaching, research, and service experience. There was no significant main effect for the quality of the institution or professional rank on selectivity in hiring and tenuring decisions. The results of this study indicate a gender bias for both men and women in preference for male job applicants.
J. Travis, Making room for women in the culture of science
A discussion of some programs for attracting and retaining women in science.
L. Washburn-Moses, We make tenure decisions unfairly. Here’s a better way.
Reflections by Leah Washburn-Moses, a professor in the College of Education, Health and Society at Miami University, on her
experiences with tenure and promotion.
J. A. Winkler, Faculty reappointment, tenure, and promotion: Barriers for women
From the article: Women faculty continue to experience academe differently than male faculty. A review of recent literature indicates that women's representation on university faculties has advanced slowly; women are less likely to be tenured or promoted compared to male faculty; and women faculty earn less than their male colleagues. A recurring theme is that the intellectual and social isolation of women faculty affects their research productivity. Gender stereotypes held by colleagues, departmental and college administrators, and students also contribute to the difficulties women face in the reappointment, tenure, and promotion process. A personal perspective on the reappointment process is provided in order to illustrate how isolation and naïvete regarding the social structure of academe can affect a woman's career advancement. The benefits of greater representation of women on university faculties are reviewed, and departmental and college administrators are reminded of the important role they play in ensuring future gender‐balanced faculties.
K. Weisshaar, Publish and Perish: An Assessment of Gender Gaps in Promotion to Tenure in Academia
From the article: In academia, there remains a gender gap in promotion to tenure, such that men are more likely to receive tenure than women. This paper tests three explanations of this gender gap in promotion: (1) contextual and organizational differences across departments; (2) performance/productivity differences by gender; and (3) gendered inequality in evaluation. To test these explanations, this project uses a novel dataset drawing from a sample of assistant professors in Sociology, Computer Science, and English, across research universities. This dataset combines data from sources including curriculum vitae, Google Scholar, and web archive employment data, resulting in a dataset of assistant professors’ publication records, department affiliations, and job positions. Analyses examine the gender gap in the likelihood of promotion to tenure and in early career trajectories, while accounting for publication productivity and department/university context. The results demonstrate that productivity measures account for a portion of the gender gap in tenure, but in each discipline a substantial share of the gender gap remains unexplained by these factors. Department characteristics do not explain the tenure gender gap. Further, when women do receive tenure, they do so in lower-prestige departments than men, on average. These findings suggest that gendered inequality in the tenure evaluation process contributes to the gender gap in tenure rates.