Climate for Women

The college experience remains very “gendered” for college students. Empirical evidence suggests that a “chilly climate” is present within many coeducational settings and that many women fail to reach their full potential within coeducational settings. In their 1999 book, Taking Women Seriously: Lessons and Legacies for Educating the Majority (p. 141) , Tidball et al identify eight essential institutional characteristics related to taking women seriously:

• Visionary leadership committed to the education of women

• Critical mass of women in all constituencies

• Belief in women’s capacities and high expectations

• Places and spaces for women’s voices to be heard

• Opportunities for women’s leadership in all aspects of institutional life

• Celebration of traditions and institutional history

• A high degree of trust and responsibility

• Active and empowering alumnae association

A Chronology of Efforts to Address the Status of and Climate for Women at Miami University (1977-2003)

The Engel Report :

Published in 1977, the Engel Report, named for Alan Engel (the project’s director,) contained the results of studies conducted by two committees commissioned by President Phil Shriver. Focusing on faculty and students due to difficulties in collecting data from staff, the two committees looked at the climate for women and people of color as well as equity issues related to student facilities, faculty hiring, tenure , promotion, salary and university service involvement. The two committees also asked for reactions to several proposed remedies . Major findings of the committee on women, chaired by Mary Sohngen, included:

• Sharp disagreement by gender on the prevalence and significance of climate problems for women

• Significant differences by gender in perceptions of fairness of treatment (University hiring, rank and salary data showed that concerns about equity were legitimate)

• Some major differences of opinion by gender on proposed remedies . For example, more than 50% of male faculty surveyed opposed the establishment of a women’s center.

Concluding that by virtually any measure taken…women lagged behind men in patterns serious, consistent and hard to explain, the committee recommended that the University:

• acknowledge the problems and model strong leadership in addressing them

• rectify inequities in treatment (e.g., offer better career counseling for female students, enhance athletic facilities and support for female students, address gender bias in the faculty reward system)

• establish a women’s center and a child-care center

• continually and formally monitor and report on progress in improving the status of women

President’s Commission on Improvement of the Status of Women Faculty, Staff and Students:

In 1988, 11 years after the Engel Report was released, President Paul Pearson appointed a commission to look at ways of improving the status of women faculty, staff and students. Dr. Karen Maitland Schilling chaired the commission. Over the course of a year, this group of five faculty , five students and five staff met extensively with constituents and consultants and reviewed reams of material from previous reports as well as from other institutions and professional associations. In 1989 the group issued a report containing 57 recommendations to improve the status of women at Miami . The recommendations focused on 14 areas:

• Improving the representation and retention of women (for example, improving faculty and staff recruitment, hiring and advancement patterns; reviewing student enrollment patterns and the representation of women on important committees and in campus leadership positions)

• Improving the climate for women (for example, by issuing strong University statements, coupled with workshops on sexism in the learning and working environment, and holding administrators, faculty and staff accountable for providing a positive climate for women)

• Enhancing women’s professional development (for example, through mentoring, career counseling and increased access to training opportunities and flex-time)

• Examining benefits policies, including policies on leaves and on tenure, availability of quality child-care for employees and benefits for part-time employees

• Implementing new sexual harassment policies and procedures

• Expanding support programs for women (for example, establishing a women’s center, enhancing support for the Women’s Studies Program and establishing a partner employment assistance program)

• Attending to the special concerns of women of color

• Addressing salary equity issues

• Commissioning a study of ways to improve campus safety

• Broadening the conception of university traditions and marketing to include the contributions of women

• Transforming the curriculum to incorporate the perspectives and contributions of women

• More effectively including women in development and alumni/ae efforts

• Assessing and enhancing gynecological services for women students

• Establishing a continuing commission to monitor and report on progress

Ten-year Retrospective Report:

Ten years after the 1989 Commission report was released, a group of faculty and staff women convened by Dr. Sally Lloyd conducted an informal assessment of progress made by faculty women and faculty of color. Looking at five areas – representation, retention, salary equity, climate and support programs for women – the group found that:

• The University had made progress in hiring and promoting to the associate level but women were still underrepresented among full professors and those with tenure; of particular concern was the lack of faculty women of color on campus

• While the proportion of women who were tenured rose dramatically from 1988 to 1999, a significant gender gap still existed in 1995

• The salary equity studies conducted annually from 1990 to 1997 consistently found that gender was a non-significant factor but concerns about salary compression and methodologies for studying salary equity remained

• Several support programs had been established and/or enhanced (Women’s Center, approval for Child Care Center , enhancement of support for Women’s Studies)

• Four major reports on the climate for diversity, conducted from 1996 through 1999, revealed that women and minority faculty continued to report more instances of discrimination, harassment, threats and disparaging remarks due to gender or ethnicity and that female faculty continued to feel excluded from decision-making processes.

Recommendations included:

• Setting goals for the number of women faculty and faculty of color in each division and holding administrators accountable for meeting these goals

• Setting aggressive goals, creating support programs to significantly increase representation of faculty of color, particularly senior faculty women of color, and ensuring that existing support programs are sensitive to the needs and context of these faculty

• Enhancing and working more effectively with the Affirmative Action Office

• Creating annual focus groups of untenured faculty to ascertain problems before faculty decide to leave and making available results of exit surveys conducted on faculty who have left

• Studying salary compression at Miami and reinstituting a revised salary equity study

• Holding administrators accountable and tying administrative pay and renewal, in part, to evaluation of administrators on issues of diversity

• Creating an ombudsperson to address faculty concerns

• Further enhancing funding for support programs

• Developing a partner-placement program

• Establishing ongoing and formal monitoring and reporting of progress

2002 University Climate Report:

The most recent climate report, published in 2002 as a follow-up to the 1996 climate report, suggests that, while the University has made progress since the Engel Report, disturbing echoes from the 1970s can still be heard, suggesting that Miami has much work to do to achieve a positive learning and working environment for women. A few gender-related findings from the 2002 report:

• Over one-third of female faculty (37%) reported being discriminated against because of their gender, compared to less than 10 percent (7%) of male faculty.

• Female faculty are twice as likely as male faculty to report being treated rudely by students.

• Male faculty are twice as likely as female faculty to believe that female faculty are treated fairly at Miami (84% vs. 42%).

• Likewise, almost 90 percent (88%) of male staff but less than 60 percent (59%) of female staff believed female staff are treated fairly at Miami ; in fact, staff members were less likely in 2002 than in 1996 to believe that female staff are treated fairly here.

• Compared to 1996, fewer staff in 2002 agreed that women are adequately represented on important campus governance committees, more staff felt that female staff are given fewer opportunities for advancement than male staff and that students respect female staff less than male staff, and more staff felt that Miami is not doing enough to provide special funds and activities to recruit and retain women.

• Female students and staff of color are less likely than their male counterparts to feel that Miami is their institution.

Women’s Advocacy Group Report:

The Women’s Advocacy Group, a joint initiative of the Division of Student Affairs and Women’s Center, was formed in Spring 2003 to take a proactive, comprehensive and integrated approach to addressing sexual assault, disordered eating and other gendered issues facing our female students. The goal of the group is to shape the student culture in a way that, over time, reduces the incidence of sexual assault and disordered eating at Miami and warms the climate for Miami ’s female students. This group commissioned the Applied Research Center of Miami-Middletown to conduct focus groups of female undergraduates on the Oxford campus regarding the climate for women students. A total of 59 participants participated in seven diverse focus groups during Fall 2003. Major findings:

• Pressure to conform to rigid physical images and material possessions

• Inability to achieve desired images, leading to depression, eating disorders, low self-esteem and risky health behaviors

• Gender discrimination, voicelessness in the classroom and reluctance to assume leadership

• Safety concerns

• Concern about lack of diversity at Miami

• Concern about the climate for GLBTQ students

Site visits in Summer 2004 to several women-centered institutions yielded the following themes:

• Institutional expectations that focus on women’s individual achievement, talent and use of that talent for others through leadership

• Empowerment and leadership

• Institutional rituals, traditions, class pride and collective (gender) identity

• Connection to peers, alums, and faculty/staff as support and role models

• Awareness and celebration of cultures

• Honor and responsibility

• Relevant curriculum and classroom voice

What common themes can we see across the decades?

• Concerns about equity in student enrollment, involvement patterns and program support (Engel, Commission) and in faculty and staff hiring, retention, salary, advancement and involvement in decision-making processes

• Sharp disagreements between women and men on the prevalence and significance of climate problems for women

• Desire for strong leadership and accountability in addressing the climate for women

• Special concerns about the climate for women of color

• Calls for establishment and enhancement of support programs for women

• Calls for ongoing and formal monitoring and reporting of progress in improving the status of and climate for women