The Chronicle of Higher Education
The Faculty
Why does one university seem so behind the times?
By ROBIN WILSON
Fargo, N.D.
Linda K. Langley has been a faculty member at North Dakota State University for just five years. It is her first academic job.
But while she is still several months away from making her final bid for tenure, she finds herself in the unlikely position of being the most senior woman in the psychology department. "I suddenly feel like I'm going to be the role model without having had one myself," she says, rattling off a list of the female professors in her department who have come and gone in the past several years.
The psychology department provides an example of the revolving door for female faculty members at North Dakota State, a phenomenon that has left the campus thin on women, particularly at the top. Only 10 of the university's 156 full professors are female, and the campus is still fresh from marking a lot of firsts: The chemistry department just tenured its first female faculty member, the College of Engineering just promoted its first woman to the rank of full professor, and the university is just now considering opening a women's center — something that many institutions created 30 years ago.
Last year North Dakota State was reminded of just how far behind it is when the American Association of University Professors issued a report ranking 1,445 institutions on the basis of what proportion of their tenured faculty members are female. North Dakota State came in close to last (The Chronicle, November 3, 2006). Like other universities that ranked low in the AAUP report, North Dakota State enrolls a large number of students in engineering, architecture, science, and mathematics — fields that are relatively sparse in female faculty members.
"It sounds like they are living in a time warp," says Martha S. West, a law professor at the University of California at Davis who helped write the report, called "AAUP Faculty Gender Equity Indicators 2006."
At a time when recruiting women has become a top priority on many campuses, faculty members at North Dakota State cite a confluence of factors that explain why their university has been struggling just to hang on to those it already has. The harsh winters can scare off potential recruits and wear down those who decide to come here, especially if they didn't grow up in the region. And Fargo's reputation as a family-oriented community can make it a lonely place for single women, especially those with doctorates, who often look for partners with at least as much education as they have.
But clearly there are a lot of campuses in cold places with limited social scenes. What female professors here describe as the root of the problem is a male-dominated atmosphere that can be "toxic." Female professors complain of being ignored, passed over for leadership positions, warned not to speak out or complain, and sometimes bullied by their male colleagues.
Rather than stick around, many leave if they get the chance. "A lot of us are out there very quietly on the job market," says one female associate professor, who, like some others, asked not to be named, because she fears she might be punished by administrators.
Campus officials here acknowledge that North Dakota State has not always been a place where women feel comfortable, and they want to change that. "For me, it's about our continuing to work with department leaders to help them understand women's experiences and be sensitive to them," says Sandra Holbrook, who retired as director of equity and diversity last July. She says male leaders and faculty members have not intended to create an unfriendly climate for women.
"I think that in most cases, if you told males about these comments and issues, they'd be shocked," she says. "They would say, We never meant to leave her out."
The university has been trying hard to hold on to female faculty members and to attract more. This year 19 of the university's 51 new faculty members were women. But R. Craig Schnell, the provost, acknowledges that it is an uphill battle: "It seems as soon as somebody gets hired and they get tenured, they leave."
Negative Publicity
When people at North Dakota State learned that it had scraped the bottom of the AAUP's gender-equity ratings, they were surprised and embarrassed. The numbers showed that while nationwide an average of 31 percent of tenured faculty members are female, at North Dakota State the proportion was only 9.8 percent. That put it behind all but one other traditional institution, the University of Missouri at Rolla, of the 222 doctoral institutions ranked.
The university also was lower in gender equity than almost all of the master's and baccalaureate institutions in the report. The proportion of women at North Dakota State has crept up to 13 percent this year, but over all, less than a quarter — just 111 out of 477 — of its tenured and tenure-track professors are female.
The negative publicity prompted administrators to do something quickly. They decided to expand the campus's day-care center from a nine-month operation to a year-round one. Female faculty members had been asking for such a change for years. But once the AAUP report came out, the expansion was given top priority. While professors applaud the move, some say it was more about polishing the university's image than about listening to women on the campus.
North Dakota State has been slow to adopt other benefits that research institutions have put in place over the past decade as a way to attract and hold on to female faculty members. For example, while the university offers six weeks of maternity leave, none of it is paid. Some women who spoke with The Chronicle complained about the lack of paid
leave, saying they have felt forced to return to teaching within days or a few weeks of giving birth. At many colleges and universities, women can now take up to a semester off from teaching while receiving their full salaries.
When asked about the issue, Joseph A. Chapman, the university's president, expressed surprise. "No one has come to me and told me that's a problem," he said.
Mr. Schnell, the provost, later told The Chronicle that the university is working on offering paid maternity leave, and said some department chairmen already try to find ways to cover for new mothers so they can take paid time off.
The university's stance on maternity benefits, some say, is an symbol of how out of touch administrators are with what is important to female professors. Administrators say they want to make North Dakota State a good place for women to work, but some women here believe campus leaders are not willing to do what it takes. "They are well intentioned but have never really thought about these issues," says Charlene E. Wolf-Hall, an associate professor of food microbiology.
One of the chief problems is that there are virtually no women in the top administrative ranks. North Dakota State has one female vice president — who was just appointed — and one female dean. "We need more champions," says Kathleen Slobin, who retired as a full professor of sociology in June.
It was Ms. Slobin who began trying to put women's issues on the agenda of the university in 1998, when she started a group called Women in Science, Math, Engineering, and Technology. Officially it was founded as a place for women to talk about their research, and it is open to all female faculty members, regardless of discipline. But female professors frequently use its monthly meetings to discuss their concerns and talk about how the administration is — or isn't — responding.
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