Faculty Diversity

[Eigen]

2 hours ago, piglet33 said:

I had a review board meeting today, where current grad students met with university "high-ups" and external examiners to address the postgraduate experience including teaching, research and life. One of the main issues that got brought up was faculty diversity, and it was hotly debated. The final, immediate conclusion was that all  students should have access to a female mentor, and mentors of other "minority" groups, in their broad area who can help them navigate the academic waters in their graduate studies as well as provide a type of pastoral support. The powers that be have acknowledged they will address policies for hiring and recruitment in their next meeting.

I am really encouraged that the university big-wigs are actively encouraging grad student participation in key topics that will directly effect them, and even more encouraged by the productive and constructive approaches taken. 

This is great to hear, but it echoes back to some of the worries I've heard relating to issues with Tenure in minority faculty (from our Diversity program). The gist is that the University usually heaps a ton of extra work on minority faculty to mentor extra students, but they get no consistent "credit" for that extra work when the come up for Tenure. Accordingly, there's a nationwide issue with disparate tenure rates. 

I hope your school (and others) can do something to support those mentors, especially if there are many more mentees than mentors in some of those groups. 

[hippyscientist]

The point you raise is a very valid one, @Eigen. My school is in the UK so we don't have tenure, but you're absolutely right that mentoring adds work to already busy plates, and should be supported accordingly.

[Eigen]

It also hugely depends on how big of a gap there is in diversity at your school. 

We've had issues, for instance, with transexual and intersex students. There's only one faculty/staff member on campus that's openly out, and a lot of students for a single person to mentor. 

[juilletmercredi]

This is great to hear, but it echoes back to some of the worries I've heard relating to issues with Tenure in minority faculty (from our Diversity program). The gist is that the University usually heaps a ton of extra work on minority faculty to mentor extra students, but they get no consistent "credit" for that extra work when the come up for Tenure. Accordingly, there's a nationwide issue with disparate tenure rates.

This, plus - it's difficult to articulate, but female and minority students also shouldn't be "ghettoized" either, if that makes sense.

Every female student having a woman to look up to is a good baby step, but I think the ultimate goal is that every professor should be examining their unconscious biases and become the kind of professor who can give good mentorship to women and students of color. I've had some truly excellent mentors who were white men or women but who still had a good understanding of even some nuanced race/ethnicity and gender issues, and weren't afraid to learn from me, learn from others, and adjust their thinking or mentoring style to help me the best they can.

Because I could die waiting for them to hire another black woman for me to 'look up to,' lol. Moreover, sometimes the best mentor for your research or where you want to go professionally isn't the black woman; it's the white straight guy.

[Eigen]

We've had a lot of problems with some programs on my campus that push the idea that only women can be effective mentors for female students. I've been told I can't assist at several programs designed to help encourage middle school girls to go into science because I'm male. 

I understand the place for female mentors for female students, but I also think it can be really helpful for female students to be exposed to male mentors that support and encourage them. 

I know I would prefer more training on how I can be a better mentor to my female and minority students, rather than told that I shouldn't even try because I won't get it right.

[hippyscientist]

@juilletmercredi and @Eigen you both raise excellent points, and my favourite mentor (albeit in an adjacent field) is a white, middle-aged man. The difference is he is sympathetic, encouraging, open, non-confrontational and you feel like he truly has the time and cares about you. Regardless of gender or skin colour or anything, there isn't one faculty member in my current department who acts that way. I think it's sometimes easier to assume (gosh I hate assuming) that females will be more sympathetic and understanding, when sometimes supporting the current department members may be as effective. 

It's a really difficult topic to find a solution for. In the ideal world, everyone would be equal, and lovely and supportive and encouraging AND excellent teachers and researchers. It's a nice dream!

[MathCat]

This issue hits close to home for me at the moment. I'm in my first year in a department with an unusually low number of women (even among mathematics departments). My particular subfield also has fewer women than others - at conferences, there's usually at most one female speaker, and usually only a handful of women in the audience. If I bring this up, I usually get the typical response that the best mathematicians simply tend to be men, and there's no bias in picking speakers (or at any other stage in academia).

All of my mentors in undergrad were men, and I don't see this changing in grad school. They were very supportive and great people, but sometimes they didn't really "get it", and they definitely did not always treat me the same as the male students. As an example, one of my mentors refused to have closed door meetings with female students, but he regularly did with his male students. (He was concerned about people making allegations of inappropriate conduct.) Luckily, they never seemed to consider me as less capable on account of being a woman, but certainly this bias, whether conscious or not, does exist in academia and especially in STEM. And although they never applied these statements to me, I did hear many BS reasons for why the number of women in math is low even from them.

I'm kind of rambling, but my point is this: being treated differently is isolating. Even worse, when I try to gently raise my concerns in vague, general terms, I get shut down with the same old nonsense justifications. I'm not assertive enough to be a one-woman champion about this issue in my department. I like my classmates and have made friends easily, and I have several supportive (all male) faculty members to talk to [although I am not yet comfortable talking about this issue - my gentle testing of the waters so far has left me wary], but at times I feel like an outsider. It does make me question if I will be able to "make it" in academia, and specifically in this area.

[MarineBluePsy]

On 1/22/2016 at 8:29 PM, juilletmercredi said:

This, plus - it's difficult to articulate, but female and minority students also shouldn't be "ghettoized" either, if that makes sense.

Every female student having a woman to look up to is a good baby step, but I think the ultimate goal is that every professor should be examining their unconscious biases and become the kind of professor who can give good mentorship to women and students of color. I've had some truly excellent mentors who were white men or women but who still had a good understanding of even some nuanced race/ethnicity and gender issues, and weren't afraid to learn from me, learn from others, and adjust their thinking or mentoring style to help me the best they can.

 

This is very well said.  I also think that the extra pressure or work put on female or minority professors to mentor female or minority students is unfair.  Sure mentoring is a part of academia, but that doesn't mean they want to be singled out in this way or be expected to relate to every student that appears to be like them when the view is only from the surface.

[maelia8]

My department created a "gender task force" two years ago after disgruntled female graduate students expressed disgust with their treatment by male colleagues, both graduate students and professors (women make up 35-40% of the graduate student body in my department). They created an official report stating grievances that was widely circulated, and, although I don't know how much it did to actually change mindsets, it really did a lot to change the way people talked to each other in public and interacted in seminars. Sometimes official codification of problems does a lot towards getting people to acknowledge that the problem actually exists and start trying to fix it.

[Cat_Robutt]

After reading these stories, I wanted to ask a similar kind of question regarding the other side of the podium––have any of you dealt with sexism/racism from students? I currently teach in a really patriarchal geographical location, and have had male students question my ability, authority, and leave sexist comments on evals, e.g. "lipstick was distracting" or "lady tried to force us to be feminists." As an adjunct in a mostly male department, I feel like my frustrations won't get heard. Interestingly, the department head is a woman, but told me we can't remove students from a classroom for being sexist/racist, and that it is "just part of life, so learn to deal with it like I have." 

This has been incredibly disheartening over the past year, and I'm glad to be leaving, but I wish I had a way to express these during my exit interview because the dept. is about to start a full-time hiring process, and I feel like a female faculty member would not want to work with the kind of male students/faculty I've had to teach. God, I'm so glad I will be escaping. I didn't realize how much I truly hated this environment until I left for a bit and was surrounded by faculty who cared.

Also....do any of your departments have strict policies on faculty/student or senior faculty/junior faculty relationships? These exist in most workplaces but our college has non! I have no uni policies to point to when a student hits on me for a better grade or a senior, full-time faculty member says something sexist. I know who benefits from the exclusion of policies like this, and it's maddening to think about.

[hippyscientist]

2 minutes ago, Cat_Robutt said:

After reading these stories, I wanted to ask a similar kind of question regarding the other side of the podium––have any of you dealt with sexism/racism from students? I currently teach in a really patriarchal geographical location, and have had male students question my ability, authority, and leave sexist comments on evals, e.g. "lipstick was distracting" or "lady tried to force us to be feminists." As an adjunct in a mostly male department, I feel like my frustrations won't get heard. Interestingly, the department head is a woman, but told me we can't remove students from a classroom for being sexist/racist, and that it is "just part of life, so learn to deal with it like I have." 

This has been incredibly disheartening over the past year, and I'm glad to be leaving, but I wish I had a way to express these during my exit interview because the dept. is about to start a full-time hiring process, and I feel like a female faculty member would not want to work with the kind of male students/faculty I've had to teach. God, I'm so glad I will be escaping. I didn't realize how much I truly hated this environment until I left for a bit and was surrounded by faculty who cared.

Also....do any of your departments have strict policies on faculty/student or senior faculty/junior faculty relationships? These exist in most workplaces but our college has non! I have no uni policies to point to when a student hits on me for a better grade or a senior, full-time faculty member says something sexist. I know who benefits from the exclusion of policies like this, and it's maddening to think about.

I'm sorry you've had to deal with this. Although not a faculty member I've had major comments from two members of my cohort. It's definitely affected the ethos in our department (compounded by faculty issues).  I always heard comments that academia was sexist, a tough place to be a woman etc etc and always tried to look on the bright side. The further up the tree I go, the more I realise the truth in that statement and the more I want to change my little corner of the world. 

[Cat_Robutt]

@hippyscientist The strangest thing is...I was able to get this college's first ever Gender & Communications course pushed through the Board of Directors. It's a small step forward that I hope has huge repercussions. The new faculty member? They will have to be qualified to teach this course.