Nicely does it...

Since I've known (although hardly anyone else does) that I'll be taking over the management of academic staff here next year, I've found myself smiling more and saying hi to people on the stairs and in corridors that previously I might have just nodded at. This isn't just the people I'll be managing directly, it pervades to everyone from technicians, students, secretarial support and postdocs. Maybe it's because we had a previous head of department several years ago who never said hi to anyone (in fact there were various competitions running to see what we had to do to get him to acknowledge us on the stairs), but that didn't occur to me until I thought about it just now. I guess I also feel like people will officially be looking to me as a leader so I should foster the attitudes I would like others to have...

Of course I could be coming across as a suspicious grinning maniac.

I don't count!

I am staggered by something I have just read over lunch. In the UKRC Women mean Business brochure published in 2010, there is a reported statistic that in 2008 around 9% of full time professors in SET subjects were women.

Now, I have seen this statistic before, but never really noticed the "full-time" in it. So, since I work 0.8FTE, does this mean that far from furthering the leadership by women in SET subjects, I am not going to count in these kinds of statistics? How many part-time professors are there out there? Are we not good enough?

I can understand that there is merit in using the proportion of full-time professors, but shouldn't an organisation that tells us to improve our family-friendly policies (including flexible working) in order to encourage more women to stay in SET subjects to high levels at least recognise the part-time female professors who are also valuable role models?

It's enough to make me choke on my tea...