| Washington D.C., May 8, 2008 – The Research and Science Education Subcommittee today held a legislative hearing to examine institutional and cultural barriers to recruitment and retention of women faculty in science and engineering (S&E) fields. Witnesses at the hearing explored the role that Federal research agencies can play in disseminating and promoting best practices to systematically eliminate these barriers.
“All of us want to ensure that equitable educational opportunities for women pursuing faculty positions are the norm and not the anomaly at U.S. colleges and universities,” said Subcommittee Ranking Member Vernon Ehlers (R-MI). “Important to this effort is making certain that we have a good understanding of the current situation so that we can be sure that federal efforts achieve the intended impact.”
While women currently earn half of the bachelor’s degrees in S&E, they continue to be significantly underrepresented at the faculty level in almost all S&E fields. In 2006, women constituted about 30 percent of full-time doctoral S&E faculty at U.S. colleges and universities and only 19 percent of full professors.
Today’s hearing was a follow-up to another hearing the Committee held in October, 2007 on women in academic science and engineering. Today’s hearing focused on draft legislation introduced by Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-TX), which promotes federally funded workshops to increase awareness of implicit gender bias at colleges and universities.
Recognizing the problem of gender bias, Ranking Member Ehlers noted that “Effective institutional change must be systemic since bias may hide behind even the simplest language used in recommendation letters.”
Gender bias can be difficult to quantify and analyze, but witnesses at today’s hearing stressed that gender bias may only be part of the reason for the gender discrepancy in academia.
One of today’s witnesses, Dr. Donna Ginther, Associate Economics Professor and Director of the Center for Economic and Business Analysis at the University of Kansas, noted that child-bearing may indeed be a bigger reason for women to leave academia. “My research shows that women who have children are less likely to enter academic science careers,” Ginther said.
She added that “The single most important step Congress can take to fulfill the potential of women in academic science is to allow universities the opportunity to count child care facilities toward indirect costs in order to expand availability of childcare for academic caregivers.”
Acknowledging the contributions of both mothers and female scientists, committee member, Rep. David Reichert (R-WA) recently introduced H. Res 1180, “recognizing the efforts and contributions of outstanding women scientists, technologists, engineers, and mathematicians in the United States and around the world.”
Reichert is sponsoring the resolution to encourage people to use this Mother’s Day to give appropriate recognition not only to our mothers, but also to women scientists who have made important contributions to our everyday lives.
Also testifying at today’s hearing were: Dr. Lynda T. Carlson, Director of the Division of Science Resource Statistics, Directorate for Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences, National Science Foundation; and Dr. Linda G. Blevins, Senior Technical Advisor in the Office of the Deputy Director for Science Programs, Office of Science, Department of Energy.
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