Where the Ladies At? [Part 3 - faculty rank + hire]
may jensen | October 20th, 2010
The School of Architecture needs more women faculty. Compared to the rest of the Accredited Colleges of Architecture and to US Universities in general the SOA has the lowest female faculty figures.
In my last post we learned that College of Architecture’s percentage of women faculty (18%) is less than that of the institutes (21%). In this post I’d like to look at the situation from both a detailed and big-picture perspective. I want to see how the School of Architecture compares to the College of Architecture and how the School and the Institute compare to the other Universities in the US (both with and without architecture programs).`
The School of Architecture’s numbers as a whole fit in with the College of Architecture- each has about 18% women faculty. The numbers become more interesting when you start looking at the distribution of women through professor rank:
It becomes clear that even within the faculty’s hierarchy there are disparities. The college trends like most other universities keeping their minorities towards the lower end of the hierarchy. Leveling out gender equality becomes an almost impossible challenge when the positions that have the majority of the women faculty have little to no say in the operation of the school (i.e. admissions, hiring etc). Gender diversification must exist across all levels of faculty employment, or at least at the top if we expect any change.
If we were only to compare the School of Architecture to the rest of the College of Architecture or the Institute, you might be able to say that the School isn’t really doing that bad. But, if we compare it to the rest of the Accredited Colleges of Architecture or to the broad statistics for US Universities, in general, the School does worse and worse. According the NABB’s 2008 Full Report women made up on average 26% of US Architecture School’s full-time faculty compared to our 22%. Additionally, unlike our College, rank in US Architecture Schools was more evenly distributed. Percentages for male/female professors in US Architecture School’s by rank were nearly statically the same except, again, for Full professors (81% male / 19% female) and Assistant Professor (71% male/29% female).
Our School‘s figures lose again when you compare them to the rest of the Universities in the US. According to Diversity Web, women made up 34% of full-time faculty in US Universities – 16% higher than our 18%.
If we list all the figures by decreasing percentage of women in the faculty the resulting liest shows that the performance of women goes down as the focus narrows:
[Congratulations Ellen Dunham-Jones!]
Clearly we need more women faculty. To get back to the already low gender ratio for faculty in Architecture Schools in 2008 we need to hire 5 women. To get to the National average for Universities in general we need to hire 12- assumping we don’t hire any men at the same time.
Which brings up an interesting question (or compounding questions):
Was the need for women faculty considered during last year’s faculty search? Of the 4 positions filled 1 one was a woman. [Congratulations Minjung Maing] 1 is better than none- but worse than 2 [2 women made it to the short list of 6]. If the cut rate of women from all applicants to the short list of applicants followed the decreased ratio of the short list (33%) to the final selection (25%), then we may have had as many as 46% women applicants! In all honesty, the short list for faculty positions tells a sad tail. Generally there are 3-4 short-listed candidates for each position, 1 of which would be expected to be a woman. That means that the search for 4 positions should have produced a short list of 12, 4 of whom should have been a women. Our short list, with only 2 women, represents a 50% reduction in the number of women expected for a typical sort list. It is hard to imagine how you can successfully diversify the faculty when you reduce the number of potential female hires by 50% during the short list cut.
What formal procedures were implemented in the decision making for the new hires? Was the need for female faculty brought up, or even addressed? Who made the call? How was it worded? Who applied? Were there even any qualified women applicants? Who was on the selection committee? If my sources are correct, all of the members of the faculty search committee, including the individual with final decision power, were men.
It seems like we are in a bit of dilemma when the pool of selectees is already stacked against the selected.
Between now and my next post I will work to find clear details around last years hires in addition to presenting some more general information about the known workings of unconscious bias/discrimination (big surprise here – people like people that are like themselves), and the percentages of awards granted to men and women students over the past 5 years. It is my guess that whatever is operating within the formalities of hiring is also at play within student awards distribution. Stay tuned and/or ASK QUESTIONS.
Note- All % are rounded to the nearest whole number. For more detailed information feel free to see accompanying spreadsheet for higher degrees of precision.
find more Where the Ladies At posts:
[ architecture, COA, faculty, gender, soa, v_02 | i_06 ]
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