Forum on Public Policy 1 Women In Academia: What Can Be Done To Help Women Achieve Tenure?

Women are not tenured at the same rate they are receiving PhDs, and less likely to be tenured when compared to their male counterparts. Reasons women have difficulty achieving tenure include not discussing important information about an academic appointment with colleagues, working part time or as adjunct faculty, being involved in “pastoral or administrative ” work, not having a realistic understanding of how important research is when untenured, and experiencing non academic issues. Interventions to alleviate this situation include departmental/campus policies before/during/after the woman is hired. Before being hired it is important to provide female faculty mentors to bright/capable women doctoral students and help them prepare for the academy by prioritizing scholarship over teaching and encouraging publications. During the hiring process it is useful to target women through advertising/recruiting at conferences, consider hiring current female doctoral students after completion of a post doctoral experience at another institution, and appointing women faculty as chair/members of search committees. After women are hired it is important to improve transparency/equitability/inclusivity of tenure guidelines, assist women create a plan of action related to tenure criteria and their own skills/abilities, provide formal/informal mentoring opportunities, improve the departmental/campus climate regarding female faculty and interaction with male colleagues, and adopt family friendly policies to better integrate family/work obligations by providing flexibility in when/where/how work is done, or offering job sharing or part time employment options