Arts & Sciences
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From
the Dean
"Where Are the Women?"
is the title of a recent article in The Chronicle
of Higher Education describing the disturbing fact that despite program
and policy changes going back to the 1960s, and significant increases in the
numbers of women receiving advanced degrees, women still are grossly
underrepresented in the highest levels of academia.
UNO's College of Arts
and Sciences is no exception. For example, while women now are
well-represented in most of our academic ranks, they constitute only 13
percent of the full professors in the college.
There are many possible
reasons as to why such a disparity exists when the majority of students in
college are women and when women are rapidly becoming the majority in
advanced study in most disciplines. I have a daughter whose mathematical
skills and interests vastly exceed those of her brothers, or mine;
thus—unlike the president of Harvard University—I don't have to waste time
musing over the possibility of gender differences in interests or ability.
More importantly, there
are mundane and addressable issues that likely more significantly contribute
to the present situation. Some of these issues are discussed in the following
pages. We also highlight some of our successes in attracting and retaining
women faculty of exceptional talent.
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• Finding Safety
in Numbers
• The Leaders
• Awarded for
Excellence
• Family and Career
• Braving the
Sciences
• UNO's First Female
Physicist
• Funding the
Future
• Foreign
Languages Female-Friendly
• Martha C. Page Travel
Fund Established
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Shelton
Hendricks, Dean
College of Arts and Sciences
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The
experiences of women on a faculty is an issue Dr. Mary Ann Lamanna (pictured)
knows professionally and personally.
A professor emeritus of sociology
at UNO (Ph.D., Notre Dame) she specializes in family, gender, law, and policy.
She is the author of several books, including "Emile Durkheim on the Family,"
winner of the Choice 2002 Outstanding Academic Title. She also is coauthor with
Agnes Reidmann on "Marriages and Families: Making Choices in a Diverse
Society."
Lamanna
joined UNO in 1977 and was the only woman in the department for about two
years. The situation is much different today. "In the sociology and
anthropology department, we have for a long time had a strong presence of women
faculty. Throughout the history of women at UNO, the troubling situations have
tended to be where there is only one woman in the department," Lamanna says.
"In our department, if there are common problems, we women faculty talk about
them and have a lot of solidarity. I think my easier experience for the times
was also partly that sociologists (and anthropologists) were probably ahead of
their time in being sensitive to avoiding crude remarks, officially
discouraging attitudes toward women, etc."
Associate
Professor of Mathematics Janice Rech likely would agree with Lamanna's
observation about the challenge of being in a distinct minority within an
academic department. When Rech earned tenure in the math department, she was
the first female to do so in 25 years. "I was the outsider," Rech says, adding
that now that she is tenured, her working relationships are much more
comfortable. "It's like a family. We know our roles now and we get along."
In
the early 1990s when Professor Susan Maher was hired as one of only a few
female faculty members in the English department, she had a similar sense of
being alone but found support elsewhere. Maher comments, "The women's studies
program proved crucial for me to avoid a sense of isolation in a predominately
male department, to receive mentorship from senior women at UNO."
Lamanna
suggests that seeking mentors outside one's own department is a good strategy
for all faculty, but especially women.
Doing so "gives a faculty member colleagues and a reputational base
outside her department. There are just
a lot of ways in which newer faculty women could be helped through mentoring to
see down the road a bit. For example, I think there will be more and more
requirement of outside letters for tenure and promotion. So women need to think
about how they are going to acquire the respected professional colleagues
elsewhere who will write those letters and perhaps offer other professional
opportunities—to do a book chapter, joint research, or whatever. Conference
presentation, obviously, is important and just being professionally active in
organizations.
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Not
only is it important to have women as colleagues, but also to have them among
the leadership of a college.
This
provides a sense of acceptance as well as the promise of being secure and of
being in an environment in which women can excel.
An
article published in the Winter 2003 issue of Liberal Education ("The Women's Leadership Program: A Case Study"
by Berryman-Fink, LeMaster, and Nelson) posits: "Additional gender disparity
exists in the area of university governance. Women spend more time in service
to their universities than men, but they still form a minority voice on
important decision-making committees and are less likely than their male
counterparts to chair decision-making or policy-formulating committees (Morley
1999; Twale and Shannon 1996).
"As
a consequence of women's under representation in senior academic and
administrative positions, the Carnegie Foundation has highlighted the lack of
opportunities for women to change educational policy (Morley 1999). Since only
senior-level administrators make and change policy, the absence of women at
these levels makes equity in policy making a rare consideration."
Currently,
two of the four interdisciplinary programs which offer majors in the College of
Arts and Sciences are directed by women. Beginning next fall, four of 14
departmental chairs will be held by women.
All
six of these leaders are listed below. Their brief profiles depict female
faculty who lead their colleagues in all areas of academe, including
scholarship, teaching, and community service.
Karen
Falconer Al-Hindi
Associate
professor of geography; Director of women's studies program; Ph.D., University
of Kentucky; Recipient, 1998 UNO Alumni Association Alumni Outstanding Teaching
Award.
Loree
Bykerk
Chair
and professor, political science; Ph.D., Columbia University; Faculty advisor
for Pi Gamma Mu, the international social science honorary society; Recipient,
1997 UNO Alumni Outstanding Teaching Award.
Lourdes
Gouveia
Professor
of sociology; Director of Latino/Latin American studies; Ph.D., University of
Kansas; 2003 City of Omaha Education
Award; 2004 Chicano Awareness Center Education Award; Principal investigator of
$1 million congressional earmark to expand work of Latino/Latin Amer. studies.
Carolyn
Gascoigne
Assoc.
professor and chair, foreign languages; Ph.D., Florida State University;
Recipient, 2005 UNO Alumni Outstanding Teaching Award; 1999 Nebraska Department
of Education Star Award; 1998 Edouard Morot-Sir Pedagogical Prize.
Susan
Maher
Professor
and chair-elect of English department; Ph.D., University of Wisconsin;
Recipient, 1997 UNO Alumni Outstanding Teaching Award.
Shireen
Rajaram
Professor
and chair-elect, sociology and anthropology department; Ph.D., University of
Kentucky; Appointment courtesy Dept. of Preventive and Societal Medicine at
University of Nebraska Medical Center; Member, Governor's Omaha Advisory
Council for Lead Safe Neighborhoods.
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Lisa Kelly Vance (top) and Tatyana
Novikov (bottom) are outstanding role models for all faculty and students. The
two distinguished female faculty members recently were recognized with awards
for excellence in teaching and research.
Kelly-Vance
(Ph.D., Indiana University), associate professor of psychology and director of
the school psychology program, is a 2004 recipient of the University of
Nebraska's Outstanding Teaching and Instructional Creativity Award. The honor
recognizes meritorious and sustained records of excellence in teaching by
individual faculty members and is accompanied by a $3,500 grant. A graduate
faculty fellow, Kelly-Vance also received a 2002 Alumni Outstanding Teaching
Award from the UNO Alumni Association.
Novikov, professor of foreign
languages (Ph.D., Florida State University), was named to the Ralph Wardle
Professorship. Sponsored by the Alumni Association, the three-year
professorship includes a stipend and is awarded in recognition of outstanding
achievements in teaching and research. Novikov, a graduate faculty fellow, also
received a 2004 Alumni Outstanding Teaching Award and the 2002 Nebraska
Department of Education Star Award.
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The
conflicting demands of family and work challenge women in all professions, but
most keenly in academe where, on average, faculty must put in 60 hours a week
to earn tenure.
Mary
Ann Mason and Marc Goulden revealed recently in an article in Academe, "Only one in three women who
takes a fast-track [tenure-track] university job before having a child ever
becomes a mother." By contrast, 87 percent of women in the general population
become parents during their working lives, according to the American
Association of University Professors' (AAUP) "Statement of Principles on Family
Responsibilities and Academic Work."
UNO
does allow faculty to stop their tenure clocks for one year in cases of
maternity, disability or family/medical leave. Faculty also may petition for a
second year's interruption.
Portia
Cole and John Curtis in AAUP's "Academic Work and Family Responsibility: A
Balancing Act," caution, "Unfortunately, many faculty members are not aware of
such policies, even when they do exist. Furthermore, research shows that
work/family policies are underutilized, as faculty members perceive that they
may somehow be seen as 'not fully dedicated to their profession.'"
The
study by Mason and Goulden also shows that female faculty are far less likely
than their male counterparts to become parents during the early years of their
employment. They suggest that one
possible explanation is that while 49 percent of male faculty have a spouse who
works in the home, only 10 percent of female faculty are in that situation.
Associate Professor of
Anthropology Timi Barone (pictured) is mother to a 2-year-old and a newborn.
"Many of my friends in graduate school chose not to go into an academic setting
because they felt they would have to choose between getting tenure and having a
family," Barone says.
When
asked how she will balance family and career, she responds, "I don't really
have any sense of how I am going to manage the balance with two children.
Previously I felt like I was working hard just to keep my head above water. And
honestly, I do think my productivity has taken a hit. I just can't work 60
hours a week anymore. What I am doing is getting more efficient with my time,
and I am trying to work smarter, rather than berating myself for not being able
to work the same number of hours.
"Last,
and most importantly, having a supportive spouse makes a world of difference."
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However
one might define the challenges women in academe face, those challenges loom
larger in the physical sciences.
For
example, estimates put the average workweek for tenure track faculty in the
physical sciences at 80 hours.
Biology
Professor Suzanne Moshier says that, "In discussing the controversial remarks
about women in science made by Harvard president Lawrence Summers, Professor
Virginia Valian of Hunter College (New York) noted that we should be
questioning the assumption that it is legitimate to expect 80-hour weeks of
anyone, male or female, to succeed in a university science position.
"This
observation suggests that issues that are sometimes identified as women's
issues are not necessarily limited in application to women. Institutions may
need to reinvent their concept of reasonable performance to earn tenure and promotion,
not just for women in science, but for everyone."
UNO's
faculty numbers testify to the size of the challenge: biology—17 men, four
women; chemistry—12 men, no women; math—15 men, five women; physics—eight men,
one woman.
Nationally,
women make up 20 percent of science faculty at four-year institutions.
Associate
Professor of Geography Karen Falconer Al-Hindi explains the numbers from a
geographer's point of view:
"Each
academic discipline has a unique historical geography and culture into which
workers with certain backgrounds and characteristics are welcomed and others
are not. In my view, the future belongs to those units that address these
issues directly to embrace and support the contributions of diverse scholars
and teachers."
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When
Dr. Iulia Podariu (pictured, left) was hired in 2004, she became UNO's first
female physicist. Podariu earned her Ph.D. in physics from Kansas State
University and her BS in physics from Bucharest University.
Her
research is on numerical simulations on macromolecules, but, as a mother of
three, she reports she also is interested in "Rugrats" and "Lord of the Rings."
The
Spanish language honorary society, Omicron Lambda, has changed the name of its
annual scholarship to The Angela Valle Sigma Delta Pi Scholarship in order to
honor longtime Spanish professor Dr. Angela Valle.
Sigma Delta Pi is the name of
UNO's Omicron Lambda chapter of the National Hispanic Honor Society. The
scholarship, established through the University of Nebraska Foundation, is to
be awarded to one or more students who are majoring in Spanish, are of high
academic standing, and who participate in the activities of the Spanish
language honorary society.
Among Professor Valle's other honors are an
Excellence in Teaching Award (Nebraska Association of Teachers of Spanish and
Portuguese); Certificate of Merit awarded by the UNO International Student
Services; and a Certificate of Appreciation for contributions to International
Trade awarded by the Nebraska Department of Economic Development.
Valle
came to UNO in 1969. She founded Sigma Delta Pi in 1983 and served as its
faculty advisor for 21 years.
In
addition to teaching Spanish and Latin American literature, culture, and
language, she is a graduate faculty fellow and a faculty member of
international, women's and Latino/Latin American studies.
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Researchers
disagree over the "feminization" of the humanities, but women generally are
represented in greater proportion in these lower-paying disciplines.
In
the College of Arts & Science's department of foreign languages and
literature, women fill 10 of the 13 regular faculty lines. The English department with eight women
(half of its posts) has the second-most women on its faculty among the
humanities departments.
The psychology department takes top
honors among the social sciences, women filling half of the 18 tenured and
tenure track faculty positions.
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Alumna funds Martha C. Page
Study Abroad Travel Fund
The
department of foreign languages recently established the Martha C. Page Study
Abroad Travel Fund. The Fund, established through the University of Nebraska
Foundation, will endow an annual scholarship for a student traveling to France
and participating in an accredited study program.
Page, a 2003 UNO graduate, wanted
to make travel abroad available to UNO students because, "I believe in the
power of language. I also believe that travel is the ultimate instructor."
Speaking
for the dean's office, Professor Bill Blizek says, "Given that universities
must now prepare students for participation in a global economy and a global
community, more and more of our students will want to travel abroad as part of
their language education. The Martha Page Travel Fund will enable us to provide
greater global opportunities for our students."
The
first recipient of an award from the Page Fund is Rebecca Morello, a sophomore
working on dual majors in French and creative writing. She will use the
scholarship to travel to Paris this summer.
Page,
born in Cuba, immigrated to the United States at the age of 12 as one of the
14,000 Cuban children of Operation Peter Pan, an effort organized by the
Catholic Welfare Bureau to save Cuban children from Marxist-Leninist
indoctrination in the early 1960s.
"I
come from a family who lived a lot, lost a lot, and continued on with dreams of
prosperity and freedom," says Page. "I believe in gratitude, and I believe that
the United States is a very generous country. And in that spirit, I would like
to open the door to someone else.
"I
am honored to be a part of your enthusiasm to grow and promote the Study Abroad
Program, and to help 'Break the barriers on a personal level….'"
Photo courtesy Martha Page
From
left, Martha Page, and two of her daughters, Sandra Bikus and Elizabeth A.
Wallace.
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