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...
Tuesday, 25 October 2011
Thursday, 6 October 2011
Token women?
Our School has just introduced two new policies regarding the gender balance of seminar series. Firstly for our two main seminar series (one given by externally invited speakers, one by internal speakers) over any year, the list of speakers is to include at least 30% female, 30% male (our gender balance in the department is about 30% at postdoc level, less than this at faculty level and more at PhD). Secondly, any scientific meetings hosted by the SChool should have both male and female speakers (unless this is a very small field and people just aren't there).
A female colleague mentioned that she was thought this was a strange thing to do, as she didn't see how the organisers of such series or meetings had the power to ensure the gender balance is met.
I disagree - it may mean looking a bit harder for female speakers, but in principle certainly for seminar series in our field it is relatively easy to do.
The more complex argument is whether this is the start of quotas for women at various things. We already have some of these imposed by the university - e.g. on interview panels. The school is aiming to have female representation (in the spirit of enhancing diversity) on the main strategic committees and promotions committees. Hence I find myself on two new committees this term. Some would say I was there as the token woman. I have indeed felt resentful of this in the past. But I have a new motto:
"Just because you start as the token woman doesn't mean you have to stay one"
I figure that without women in senior leadership positions, the battle for increased diversity (which has a strong business case) will never be won. So my goal is to learn from and contribute to these committees where I can, and if I really feel that there is no sense for me being on one other than being female, I will say so and resign. Perhaps this is overly naive and aspirational since I haven't yet attended any of the meetings, but it can't hurt to start like this.
A female colleague mentioned that she was thought this was a strange thing to do, as she didn't see how the organisers of such series or meetings had the power to ensure the gender balance is met.
I disagree - it may mean looking a bit harder for female speakers, but in principle certainly for seminar series in our field it is relatively easy to do.
The more complex argument is whether this is the start of quotas for women at various things. We already have some of these imposed by the university - e.g. on interview panels. The school is aiming to have female representation (in the spirit of enhancing diversity) on the main strategic committees and promotions committees. Hence I find myself on two new committees this term. Some would say I was there as the token woman. I have indeed felt resentful of this in the past. But I have a new motto:
"Just because you start as the token woman doesn't mean you have to stay one"
I figure that without women in senior leadership positions, the battle for increased diversity (which has a strong business case) will never be won. So my goal is to learn from and contribute to these committees where I can, and if I really feel that there is no sense for me being on one other than being female, I will say so and resign. Perhaps this is overly naive and aspirational since I haven't yet attended any of the meetings, but it can't hurt to start like this.
Apparently it's an OYCN (offer you can negotiate)
Well, in a previous post I described a dilemna about accepting a senior management position within a year of being promoted to full professor. My main issue was that since I work 0.8FTE, if I took the role (roughly 0.5FTE), this would make my workload unfairly biased towards admin compared to a 1.0FTE person taking the same role. After lots of negotiations and meetings, it appears that we have split off some aspects of the work to another person and so can now demonstrate that 20% of the load has gone. So it looks like I'll be a senior staff manager from Easter. Scary.
They're here...
Of course I don't mean the alien invasion, just that the students are back, oh hang on.. :-)
Actually aside from campus looking like a trash can at the moment, it's nice to see the place restored to (one of) it's primary functions. There was a danger for a week or so that I was about to actually acheive one of my summer research goals but now there's no chance. However, there is definitely a different buzz around the place.
Our new PhD students start today, and as admission tutor I feel excited that I have been involved in giving 15 students opportunities to follow our graduate programme.. but slightly nervous in case any of them turn out not to live up to expectations. For the coming year I wanted to try to get a better comparative measure than their paper applications, but I would have at most 10 mins with each student in which to do it. I wonder about
a) asking some very standard questions to each student (should these be technical or more open-ended e.g. what excites you about the subject X)
b) sending out something to be prepared in advance (e.g. get them to summarise a short paper in subject X)
Either of these would be more objective than a look at their paper application, a general chat, and a "gut instinct". But would they be more reliable?
Actually aside from campus looking like a trash can at the moment, it's nice to see the place restored to (one of) it's primary functions. There was a danger for a week or so that I was about to actually acheive one of my summer research goals but now there's no chance. However, there is definitely a different buzz around the place.
Our new PhD students start today, and as admission tutor I feel excited that I have been involved in giving 15 students opportunities to follow our graduate programme.. but slightly nervous in case any of them turn out not to live up to expectations. For the coming year I wanted to try to get a better comparative measure than their paper applications, but I would have at most 10 mins with each student in which to do it. I wonder about
a) asking some very standard questions to each student (should these be technical or more open-ended e.g. what excites you about the subject X)
b) sending out something to be prepared in advance (e.g. get them to summarise a short paper in subject X)
Either of these would be more objective than a look at their paper application, a general chat, and a "gut instinct". But would they be more reliable?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)