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Women hold between 3 percent and 15 percent of full professorships in science and engineering at the schools surveyed, according to the report written by Donna J. Nelson, a University of Oklahoma chemistry professor who has written several studies on women and minorities in science.

As a result, women can earn their degrees without having a woman professor or even having access to a female faculty member, according to the survey.

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In some instances, the percentage of female students far outweighs the proportion of professors of the same gender, the survey showed. For example, 48.2 percent of students earning bachelor's degrees in math were female, but only 8.3 percent of math professors were women.

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I can think of a couple reasons why this situation might exist. The article doesn't mention how many women and minorities actually apply for professorships at universites. However, this is just me playing devil's advocate. There's no evidence that a lot of women haven't applied, either.

[ January 16, 2004, 12:54 PM: Message edited by: Storm Saxon ]
 

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Posted by celia60 (Member # 2039) on :
 
uh, or how many women pursue ph.d.'s in those areas.

i'll give you a hint, it's not a large percentage.
 

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Posted by Annie (Member # 295) on :
 
Well, and undergrad is quite different from graduate students. What percentage of Masters and PhD students pursuing their degrees in math and science are female? If there are a small percentage of women in the graduate fields. there aren't going to be any female applicants to hire.

A lot of times we like to assign inequities like this to some sort of bias in the establishment when it very well may have to do with the natural inclinations of minority groups. Frankly, there just aren't a lot of girls who want to be engineers. This doesn't impugn that small number who do, it just says that in general, female interests lie elsewhere.
 

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Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
 
Absolutely true. However, there are also a significant number of female graduate students who are discouraged -- sometimes actively, more often passively -- by (male) professors from achieving their degree.
 

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Posted by celia60 (Member # 2039) on :
 
i actually got that more as an undergrad than a grad student.

also, "professor" isn't the only job available at that level of education. in fact, i have no desire to be one if i finish. i would kind of see that as failing to make it in the real world.

maybe women are just more successful.
 

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Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
 
celia

Don't tell my mom . . .
 

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Posted by advice for robots (Member # 2544) on :
 

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"Women are less likely to go into and remain in science and engineering when they lack mentors and role models," the survey said. "When female professors are not hired, treated fairly and retained, female students perceive that they will be treated similarly."

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I didn't see anything saying that female professors weren't being treated fairly and retained. I wonder if the survey even gathered that kind of information. If it did, CNN should have included it.

As it is, this is another "Shame on you for being a white man" article. Obviously it's wrong, even without any evidence of discrimination from the survey, that white men are the most prevalent in these posts. Is there really some sort of "Tile Ceiling" keeping women out of these positions if they want them?

I don't understand why this necessarily points to an old-boy network, although I certainly don't deny that they exist.
 

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Posted by Storm Saxon (Member # 3101) on :
 
afr,
like I said, I can think of several reasons why women might not be prevalent in professorial positions. However, going with the article, one reason for a lack of women in teaching roles in university might be that white men were given preference over women and minorities. Kind of an old white dude network....

O.K. That's not really an old boy network. Never mind.
 

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Posted by BannaOj (Member # 3206) on :
 
Steve and I have talked about this a lot. There were very few female professors in engineering on the U. of Oklahoma campus. Of the ones who were profs, the competency rating as far as knowing their stuff and teaching was generally higher than that of their equivalent male counterparts. The interesting observation was that the ones who were the least competent were the ones hired the most recently. One in particular was hired mainly to get a female in a particular department and she was the worst.

But I think the more underlying cause of the problem is the same as that of black coaches in professional sports. When there are a bunch of professors or coaches around that are established or tenured and have an awesome track record, there aren't many openings for new people. So the "trickle up" effect is massively slowed compared to much of the rest of society (where it still could be progressing faster) because of the increased longevity of the USA as a whole. If we could just get the old white men to die off faster, even though many of them would be replaced by younger old white men, the women and minorities would have a greater statistical chance of getting in.

AJ
 

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Posted by celia60 (Member # 2039) on :
 

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One in particular was hired mainly to get a female in a particular department and she was the worst.

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