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Retention: A Recurring Concern

Summary of Reports on Retention

SUMMARY OF REPORTS ON RETENTION 

ACM COMMITTEE ON WOMEN'S CONCERNS 

1986

1986 - LEAVING A FACULTY POSITION: HOW FEMALE AND MALE FACULTY ASSESS THEIR EXPERIENCE AT SMALL LIBERAL ARTS COLLEGES

Basis of Report:

• Questionnaire distributed to faculty who left ACM colleges between 1979-80 and 1983-84 Sample size - 494; response rate - 318 (65%)

• Female professors held significantly lower ranks than male professors though there was no significant difference between the number of years taught by women as compared to men.
• Women were significantly more I likely than men to have held a pan-time position.
• There was evidence of a greater attrition rate for women than for men; women made up only 25% of the teaching faculty in 1984 but 35% of the number who left.
• Women and men differed significantly in the single most important cause to which they attributed the decision to leave a faculty position with women citing family needs and unsupportive professional climate to a greater degree than men.
• 34% of women respondents indicated they had encountered sex discrimination themselves; an additional 3% claimed to have observed discrimination against other women. 3% wrote in unequal pay or other forms of discrimination as their main reason for leaving a faculty post. Nearly a fifth of the women professors reported that subtle forms of sexual harassment contributed to their decision to leave. 
• More women than men rated lack of college/community diversity and inadequate community/social life as contributing to their decision to leave. Gender in interaction with marital status (56% of female respondents were single as compared to 3 1% of males) was key to understanding this statistic. 

• None other than encouragement for further reflection and creative initiatives at the individual colleges.

1988

• Information released by the deans of all ACM colleges on all faculty:
• Number of full-time faculty), within each rank: full, associate and assistant professors and instructors
• Mean salary for women and men within these ranks.

• There were far fever women(21%) than men (79%) on the ACM faculties.
• The representation of female faculty decreased as the rank increased. Fewer than 7% of the full professors were women; 21%of associate and 38% of assistant professors were women. However, in the instructor rank, there were slightly more women (66%) than men (44%).
• Salary statistics showed an aggregate wage gap (female salaries as a percentage of male salaries) at each rank. The wage gap was smallest for the entry level position- women instructors earned 96% of the male instructors' salaries. The wage gap was largest for women with the longest tenure; female full professors earned 79% of what male full professors earned.

• Individual colleges and the consortium as a whole develop strategies to deal with hiring, promotion and retention of female faculty and to deal with the wage gap.
• Consider subtle factors which may be contributing to absence of tenured women at ACM colleges.
• Individual colleges investigate internal evaluation procedures to determine whether evaluation instruments are entirely appropriate and fair for the evaluation of women.

PART I: REPORT OF THE EVALUATION SUBCOMMITTEE

• Experiences of ACM women on own campuses
• Survey of the literature on possible gender bias in evaluation of professionals on college campuses.

• In peer evaluation, women tend to get less feedback than men, often have undue attention focused on personal lives and tend to be measured against a male standard.
• In terms of collegiality, women may not be treated as "full" members of the group and therefore may lack access to "inside" information. Women who attempt to make the environment more responsive to concerns of women run risk of alienating colleagues and may encounter opposition.
• Women have less access to the professional learning development that comes through mentoring relationships.
• Women may have particular difficulties meeting criteria for scholarly output because of different approaches to scholarship, interest in and/or commitment to interdisciplinary and feminist scholarship, the special roles they play on campus, and lack of collegial support and mentoring.
• Student evaluations of faculty show gender bias in several respects. Women tend to invest considerable time and energy in both formal aspects of teaching and informal interpersonal aspects of the instructor role in order to earn parity in performance evaluation with male colleagues. 
• Women faculty), and administrators are overburdened by special roles on campus: high informal advising loads. Expectations for mentoring and assisting with personal problems, a great number of committee assignments. Additionally,. women typically still have greater responsibility for family care in our society. 

• Retain outside consultant trained in issues of gender bias in evaluation to provide assistance in improving evaluation processes.

• Ensure that all involved in personnel decisions are aware of bias in evaluation.
• Examine use of student course evaluations in retention and promotion decisions.
• Give recognition in tenure and promotion decisions to special roles played by women.
• Solicit a self-evaluation as part of the evaluation process.
• Provide special support for scholarly activities in recognition of special responsibilities and difficulties faced by faculty women.
• Routinely perform exit interviews. 

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PART II: REPORT OF THE WOMEN ADMINISTRATORS SUBCOMMITTEE

Basis of Report:

• Incidents shared by administrative members of ACMCWC

• Few campuses had stated goals for recruitment and retention of women administrators. 
• Women were fairly well-represented in middle and lower management positions. But almost completely absent from upper levels of management. 
• Women administrators did not feel as if the campus environment supported or encouraged their professional development to same extent as their male colleagues were supported.

• inequalities in salary and title between male and female administrators with similar responsibilities
• positions downgraded in title and power when woman appointed
• woman given significant increase in responsibility with no promotion in rank, salary or title 
• failure to post positions internally. Thereby denying equal access to all qualified administrators 
• lack of awareness of support for women on campus by male administrator interviewing female candidate
• considerable business transacted in locker room and after work in bars
• unrealistic expectations for maternity leaves
• President's staff at one college unable to name women for a conference for development of leadership of administrative women, apparently unaware of women who could possibly be interested in or groomed for key positions.

To encourage women professionally:

• Sponsor, promote and encourage participation in women's leadership conferences and women's networks.
• Create and support mentoring programs for mid-level women administrators.
• Establish training and opportunities for women administrators to move into higher level positions.
• To encourage a supportive working environment:
• Expect all administrators to be knowledgeable about and sensitive to women's issues.
• Facilitate formation of campus-wide women's concerns groups.
• Create opportunities for communication and interaction between women faculty and administrators.
• Evaluate the climate for women administrators through a campus survey.
• Conduct exit interviews for departing administrators.
• Redefine job evaluations to eliminate implicit ideas based on a male role model. 
• Appoint at-large members to the President's staff from unrepresented constituencies such as women. 

• Establish a campus-wide affirmative action policy rather than an equal opportunity policy. Assign responsibility for monitoring to a senior-level official.
• Advertise all positions internally and ensure that notices are widely circulated.
• Develop clear procedures for appointing search committees which ensure balanced representation and clear affirmative action priorities.
• Set priorities for position qualifications focusing on required skills, avoiding job descriptions which reflect the current (usually male) occupant.
• Establish an "Information Network" which routinely connects key women on campus with prospective women candidates.

• AAUP salary data from 1976-77, 1980-81, 1988-89

• Number of women faculty at ACM colleges increased over the 13 years but still remains low.
• Percentage of all faculty who are women (at ACM colleges) increased from average of 14% in 1976-77 to 23% in 1988-89. Percentage of senior faculty (professors and associate professors) increased from an average of 6% to 14%; percentage of junior faculty (assistant professors and instructors) increased from an average of 25% to 4 1%.
• No analysis of salary differences N%,as made because numbers in each cell were small and other relevant data (discipline, time in rank, total time since Ph.D.) was not available at time of analysis.

• None

• Data, submitted by Deans of ACM colleges, on faculty hired with tenure or to tenure-track positions in two periods, 1979-80 through 198')-84, and 1984-85 through 1988-89 

• Women as percentage of total hired ranged across ACM colleges from 53% to 17% in the first time period and from 47% to 24% in the second.
• Women retained as percentage of the initial total of women and men hired ranged from 38% to 9% in the first time period and from 39% to 12% in the second. 
• In both time periods, for most colleges the differences in retention rates for men and women were not great. There was no consistent pattern of lower retention of women than of men; most colleges with high loss rates for women also had high loss rates for men. 
• There was little difference between women and men in the rates of granting tenure and that little favored women. In Only, 4 of the 12 colleges reporting in the first period did women do worse than men among those reviewed for tenure. In the second period, very few individuals of either sex had been reviewed for tenure at the time of the report.
• Resignations from the tenured ranks were disproportionately high among women. The ratio of women to men in the associate professor and professor ranks averaged 1:6 while the proportion of women among the tenured resignations was higher than that in both periods. However, the imbalance was not as severe in the second period as in the first. 

• None. Cautioned to remember that, in considering the data, large percentage differences result from small differences in the total numbers because of the small number of people in any one category.

1994 - ISSUES REGARDING RETENTION OF WOMEN ON ACM CAMPUSES

Basis of Report:

• Most pressing issues for women on ACM campuses, as identified by ACMCWC members

• Retention numbers not seen as the issue, at least for this committee, as much as identifying conditions which will make campus climate more supportive for women.
• Child/family issues job sharing, flex time, day care, spouses employment opportunities, etc.)
• Recruitment of women; too few women in positions on campuses
• Lack of women in highly visible positions and on powerful committees
• Pay equity
• Professional work not valued
• Networking opportunities for women on campus, sense of community
• Double standard with women having to prove themselves
• Part-time people not feeling an integral part of the campus
• Workload equity between women and men
• Anti-discrimination/affirmative action, etc. policies
• Unspoken attitudes vs. policies; feeling of censorship; feeling need to fit a male model
• Complacency vs. consciousness raising about women's issues/concerns; lack of education regarding women's issues/concerns
• Female faculty treated differently by students 

• Review reports on retention from 1986 and 1990 to delineate issues that continue to be of concern at ACM colleges

Prepared by Pat Smith
St. Olaf College
For ACMCWC Meeting
April 1995

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Updated 11/3/99