Write to Your School and Urge It to Ensure Women Have Opportunities to Teach in the Sciences

If your university was not included in the Nelson study, send this letter to your school to find out how many women are teaching in the sciences and to urge them to expand opportunities for women.  Just sign your name at the bottom.  You can put personal comments in the space provided. 

Dear University President:

I am writing to ask you about the number of women on the science, math and engineering department faculties at our school.  As you know, nationally there is a severe underrepresentation of women in this area.  If our school also suffers from this problem, we must do all that we can to address it.  The absence of women on the faculty hurts students, professors and the university as a whole.  We must work to ensure equal opportunity in all aspects of education – including the employment of our faculty. 

Earlier this year, a landmark report by Dr. Donna Nelson showed that women are rare, and women of color are all but invisible, in tenure and tenure-track positions in the sciences 1. For example, at the top 50 computer science departments, there are no African-American, Hispanic or Native American tenure-track women professors.  The report also exposed a glass ceiling in academia, with women vastly underrepresented at the full professor level. In addition, the report showed that the number of women receiving PhD’s in the sciences is much higher than the number of women going into academia.  Thus, the low number of women teaching in the sciences is not a problem of supply. 

Where there are so few women on science faculties students are deprived of role models and mentors and are sent a message that female professors are not wanted in the sciences.   Qualified women face barriers to getting, and advancing in, teaching jobs. The university loses out on talented people at a time when progress in the sciences is particularly critical.  Where these patterns of underrepresentation result from discriminatory practices, the university could be found in violation of federal anti-discrimination laws and therefore deprived of federal funds or subjected to individual claims or lawsuits. 

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We can – and must -- act to address these problems.  Investigating the existence of obstacles to women’s advancement is a critical first step.  Adopting proactive practices that will open doors to women in the sciences is also crucial.  For example, the Government Accountability Office recently recommended that universities consider allowing junior faculty to adjust the tenure clock when they have children, reducing the teaching load for urgent family issues, providing on-site child care, creating an inclusive hiring process, studying the status of women faculty, addressing the “climate” at the university, funding additional education and allowing flexible work schedules 2. 

I urge you to implement these or other programs that will break down barriers to women’s opportunities, enhance the diversity of our science departments, and enrich the university community as a whole.  I look forward to your response and to working with you to identify ways that all members of the university community can help to ensure equality of opportunity for women in the sciences. 

Thank you for your attention to this issue.

Sincerely:

Name:

Affiliation:

Class of

Address:

Email Address:

1 Dr. Donna Nelson, A National Analysis of Diversity in Science and Engineering Faculties at Research Universities

2 Women’s Participation in the Sciences Has Increased, but Agencies Need to Do More to Ensure Compliance with Title IX by the United States Government Accountability Office