Over the past 30 years, legislators, government agencies, professional societies, university administrators, and faculty have increasingly endeavored to raise the number of women pursuing higher education and careers in science and engineering (S&E). To a degree, these efforts have succeeded. Women have made substantial strides both in participating in postsecondary S&E education and in attaining careers in the academic workforce.¹ This chapter provides an overview of the representation of women in academic science and engineering at approximately the time of the faculty and departmental surveys (2004 and 2005). In some cases, results from more recent studies have also been included. These data and analyses provide a context for understanding and assessing the results of the surveys, as well as ideas for further research. The findings and recommendations in this report, however, are based solely on the survey data.

The information in this chapter has been compiled from multiple sources. The data are drawn primarily from the Survey of Doctoral Recipients (SDR), conducted every 2 years by the National Science Foundation (NSF), and the National Survey of Postsecondary Faculty (NSOPF), which has been conducted every 5 years since 1988 by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) of the Department of Education.² The SDR samples all doctoral scientists and engineers, and the present study focuses on the subset who are faculty. The

NSOPF samples only faculty, and this report concentrates on the subset that is in the natural sciences and engineering. Both NSF and NCES release special reports, which were also consulted.³

Data from professional societies were also examined, including the American Association of University Professors (AAUP), which focuses on faculty, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), which surveys its members.⁴ In addition, several discipline-oriented societies provided data from member surveys, for example, the Computing Research Association (CRA), the American Mathematical Society (AMS), the American Institute of Physics (AIP), the American Chemical Society (ACS), and the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE).⁵

Finally, the committee consulted studies conducted by individual universities (e.g., on gender equity, salary, or climate) and publications by individual researchers. An analysis of historical trends in the representation of women in academic science and engineering based on the SDR and NSOPF and a more extensive review of the research literature can be found in Appendix 3-1.

Evidence of women’s representation in science and engineering is often measured first in the attainment of undergraduate and graduate degrees.⁶ In 2004, 50.4 percent of all S&E bachelor’s degrees went to women.⁷ Women received the majority of bachelor’s degrees in the agricultural sciences, biological sciences, oceanography, and chemistry, and they were awarded more than 40 percent of the bachelor’s degrees in the earth sciences, mathematics and statistics, and atmospheric and other physical sciences, excluding physics.⁸

Of all S&E master’s degrees awarded in 2004, 43.6 percent went to women. They received the majority of master’s degrees in the agricultural and biological sciences and other physical sciences, excluding physics and astronomy. They were awarded over 40 percent of the master’s degrees in the earth sciences and oceanography, mathematics and statistics, and chemistry.⁹

In 2005, 37.7 percent of all S&E doctorate degrees went to women. Women were awarded almost 50 percent of Ph.D.s granted in the biological sciences (National Science Foundation, 2006).

Despite these encouraging numbers, the number and percentage of women faculty had yet to match these gains. While noticeably increasing throughout S&E disciplines, women continued to be underrepresented among academic faculty relative to the number of women receiving S&E degrees (Nelson and Rogers, 2005). As Table 2-1 shows, in 2003, women comprised between 6 and 29 percent of senior faculty (full and associate professors) in S&E. The largest percentage of full and associate professors was found in the life sciences, while the lowest was in engineering.

Women were more likely to be assistant professors, and as shown in Table 2-2, comprised between 18 and 45 percent of assistant professors in S&E.¹⁰ Again, the largest percentage of female faculty was in the life sciences, and the lowest was in engineering.

These aggregate proportions masked two noteworthy phenomena. First, some departments had greater success in recruiting, retaining, and advancing female faculty than others. Examinations of specific department rosters continued to turn up examples of departments with no female faculty (e.g., Ivie et al., 2003; Nelson and Rogers, 2005).¹¹ Second, some types of higher education institutions had done better at recruiting, retaining, and advancing female faculty than others. Female science faculty were more likely to be employed by community colleges or institutions that did not offer a doctoral degree, rather than at the large research universities (Nettles et al., 2000; Schneider, 2000). For example, in mathematics in 2005, the percentage of female, full-time, tenured or tenure-track faculty at doctorate-granting institutions was 11 percent; at master’s-granting institutions it was 24 percent; and at bachelor’s-granting institutions it was 25 percent (Kirkman et al., 2006).

According to Cataldi et al. (2005:3), “full-time faculty and instructional staff at public doctoral and private not-for-profit doctoral institutions were less likely to be female (32–33 percent) than those at public master’s, private not-for-profit baccalaureate, and other institutions (41 percent each), private not-for-profit master’s institutions (43 percent), and public associate’s institutions.” This was a long-standing trend, as noted in NRC’s (2001a:155) analysis of NSF data for 1979, 1989, and 1995, which found that women were “least represented among the faculty at Research I and Research II institutions.” Summarizing the landscape in an article titled “Where the Elite Teach, It’s Still a Man’s World,” Robin Wilson (2004)

wrote, “At the country’s big research universities, the vast majority of professors are men.”

Related to this is the fact that female faculty tended to be clustered in positions that were part-time, untenured, or at lower ranks. The number of positions off the tenure track—both part- and full-time—had grown dramatically over the past few decades (Anderson, 2002; Bradley, 2004). Comparing full-time to part-time positions, women were less likely to be found in full-time positions. In mathematics, for example, during the fall term of 2005, 37 percent of the part-time faculty at doctorate-granting institutions were women, while only 11 percent of the full-time, tenured and tenure-track faculty were women, and only 24 percent of the full-time, non-tenure-track faculty were women (Kirkman et al., 2006).¹²

Women comprised a particularly small percentage of tenured scientists and engineers in universities and 4-year colleges in 2001 (NSF, 2006). In engineering, for example, the percentage of tenured faculty who were women was 6.2 percent (out of a total of 15,480 faculty). In mathematics and statistics, the percentage was 11.9 percent (of 10,610 faculty), and in the physical sciences, it was 11.1 percent (of 18,930 faculty). In computer and information sciences, the percentage was 17.7 percent (of 2,670 faculty). The biological and agricultural sciences had the highest percentage of tenured faculty who were women, with 21.7 percent (of 30,940 faculty).¹³

Finally, NSF noted in its biennial publication, Women, Minorities, and Persons with Disabilities in Science and Engineering: 2000 (2000:59), that “within 4-year colleges and universities, female scientists and engineers hold fewer high-ranked positions than do their male counterparts. Women were less likely than men to be full professors and more likely than men to be assistant professors.” These findings were confirmed in the 2007 follow-up to that report (NSF, 2007). In a survey of the top 50 departments in several fields, Nelson (2005) found the percentages of women dropped off through the professorial ranks from assistant to associate to full professor in all fields except one.¹⁴ For example, in chemistry, women comprised 21.5 percent of assistant professors, 20.5 percent of associate professors, and 7.6 percent of full professors. In physics, 11.2 percent of assistant professors, 9.8 percent of associate professors, and 4.6 percent of full professors were women. In civil engineering, 22.3 percent of assistant professors, 11.5 percent of associate professors, and 3.5 percent of full professors were women (Nelson and Rogers, 2005).¹⁵

Data for faculty at a wider range of institutions were consistent with Nelson’s findings (NAS, NAE, and IOM, 2007). For tenured or tenure-track engineering faculty in general in 2005, women comprised 6.3 percent of full professors, 13.2 percent of associate professors, and 19.5 percent of assistant professors (Gibbons, 2007).¹⁶ In physics, women comprised 6 percent of full professors, 14 percent of associate professors, and 17 percent of assistant professors (Dresselhaus, 2007).

The explanation that female faculty on average tended to be younger and so were more likely to be at lower ranks did not completely explain their lower ranks according to the National Research Council (2001a:172), which found “that at any given career age men are more likely to be in a higher rank [emphasis in original].” For example, in 1995, in the 10th year since receiving a Ph.D., 8 percent of women and 12 percent of men were full professors; in the 15th year, 33 percent of women and 45 percent of men were full professors; and in the 20th year, 64 percent of women and 73 percent of men were full professors (pp. 172-173). Something other than career age appeared to be causing part of the observed gender differences in rank attainment.

In addition to the underrepresentation of female faculty, concerns persisted regarding gender differences in the treatment of faculty. Several studies suggested women were evaluated more harshly and were less likely to be hired into academic positions (Lewin and Duchan, 1971; Steinpreis et al., 1999; Trix and Psenka, 2003; Wenneras and Wold, 1997). The literature also suggested that once hired, women were treated differently than men. Women were less likely to receive tenure or a promotion—the major career milestones for academics—or they spent more time in a lower rank before tenure or a promotion, with negative consequences for their salaries (Long et al., 1993; NRC, 2001; NSF, 2004a). Ginther (2001) found women scientists, in general, were 12 percent less likely than men to be promoted. Long et al. (1993) reached a similar conclusion for women in biochemistry.¹⁷

Some writers suggested that female faculty received fewer resources than male faculty, with academic salaries being an obvious, much studied, example. Data from the Department of Education revealed that during the 2003 to 2004 academic year, male “faculty with 9/10-month contracts earned an average salary

of $68,000, and female faculty with contracts of the same length earned an average salary of $55,000” (Knapp et al., 2005). According to an AAUP survey, women’s salaries for the academic year 2003 to 2004 continued to remain lower than men’s salaries in every category (Curtis, 2005).¹⁸ Curtis explained that women were “still disproportionately found in lower-ranked faculty positions, including non-tenure-track lecturer or unranked positions, which tend to pay lower salaries,” and women were “more likely than men to be employed at associate degree and baccalaureate colleges, where salaries are lower” (p. 29). However, studies of salaries of science and engineering faculty, which controlled for such factors as career age, discipline, institution type, rank, and productivity still found disparities in salary (Ginther, 2001, 2004; NRC, 2001b). There was some evidence that the gender gap in academic salaries was shrinking over time (see, for instance, Holden, 2004).

Other resources may not have been equitably held. The 1999 Massachusetts Institute of Technology study (MIT, 1999), for instance, noted women faculty had less laboratory space than men. University departments doled out a variety of resources, including access to research assistants, travel money, lab space and equipment, summer research money, etc.

A third area where inequities were seen to exist was in academic workloads (Fogg, 2003a; Jacobs, 2004; Nettles et al., 2000; Park, 1996). As Park (1996) explained, “Though all university faculty are expected to teach and to serve, as well as to carry out research, male and female faculty exhibit significantly different patterns of research, teaching, and service. Men, as a group, devote a higher portion of their time to research activities, whereas women, as a group, devote a much higher percentage of their time to teaching and service activities than do men” (p. 54). An examination of fall 2003 full-time S&E faculty at Research I institutions in the Department of Education’s 2004 NSOPF found that men and women spent, on average, 35.8 percent and 30.3 percent of their time on research activities, respectively. Conversely, women and men spent 46.9 and 41.3 percent of their time on instruction, respectively.¹⁹ Men and women spent almost the same percentage of time on administrative and other activities.²⁰ Disparities in research

time may have had critical consequences, as productivity is the most important component in deciding tenure and promotion cases²¹ and in determining salary.

A final area where disparities may have occurred between female and male faculty was in job satisfaction and retention. In general, women were less satisfied in the academic workplace than males (Trower and Chait, 2002), which may have led to unhappiness with one’s profession and consequently lower productivity and decreased retention rates. Lawler (1999) noted an additional concern: “unhappiness gets transmitted to younger women starting out and may help scare a new generation away from academia,” thus potentially reducing the pool of future academics.

Several studies found women had higher attrition rates than men both prior to and after tenure was granted (August, 2006; August and Waltman, 2004; Carter et al., 2003; Trower and Chait, 2002).²² Yamagata (2002), for example, found that the attrition rate for female faculty at medical schools was higher than the rate for male faculty from 1980 to 1999 (although the attrition rate for women was decreasing faster than the attrition rate for men and more women were becoming full-time faculty members, resulting in a shrinking gender gap). Johnsrud and Rosser (2002) catalogued a variety of reasons that may explain a faculty member’s decision to leave a particular position. These included a variety of individual characteristics, such as personal motivation and satisfaction, as well as institutional support.²³

Against this backdrop of increasing women’s participation in science and engineering but persistent gender gaps, the committee fielded its surveys of faculty and academic departments in 2004 and 2005. Many of the issues and concerns raised by previous data collection and research formed the basis for the survey questions. Again, an analysis of historical trends from 1995 to 2003 and a more extensive review of the literature can be found in Appendix 2-2.