Prof: University still lagging in gender equity

Biochemistry Professor Phoebe Leboy presented a report yesterday illustrating a very clear message -- despite evidence of small improvements in recent years, Penn continues to struggle in creating gender equity among faculty members, and Leboy holds the administration accountable for the slow progress.

Leboy gave the presentation at a meeting held by the Association of Women Faculty and Administrators. It was intended as a follow-up to a report in the Almanac last December written by the Gender Equity Committee, which she co-chaired.

"It looks as if we're really behind," Leboy said. "And if you take home any message from today, I think that's it."

She began with numbers of female faculty members that she had collected from departmental Web sites. Her data reflected small increases in the number of female faculty members in many but not all departments over the last few years.

"It looks like there is something happening, and I don't want to de-emphasize this,"Leboy said.

However, her findings also revealed that despite these small improvements, the number of female faculty members at Penn is far from equal to that of their male peers.

Provost Robert Barchi responded to these observations in a subsequent interview by acknowledging that gender equity is a problem at Penn. However, he also asserted that progress cannot occur overnight.

"This is one of those tasks that will take time," he said.

Leboy also presented statistics from several studies that compared Penn to competing institutions. Those studies, particularly one conducted by Stanford University in 2001, showed that although other institutions struggle with gender equity, Penn lags behind many of its peers.

"We're not unique, we're just towards the bottom," she said.

Barchi admitted that many female faculty members have been wooed away by competing institutions in the past. He said that the administration is committed to changing that.

"We have been a target of heavy recruitment from other institutions... and we need to be aggressive about doing the same," he said.

"We all share a commitment to gender equity at the institutional level."

However, Leboy pointed to poor leadership and institutional secrecy as the reasons for the problem.

She referred to the Dec. 4, 2001 Almanac in which Barchi and University President Judith Rodin promised to report back to the campus about the progress of gender equity by the fall of this academic year.

"Have you seen it?" she asked. "I haven't."

Leboy emphasized that other institutions like Massachusetts Institute of Technology and California Institute of Technology release their gender equity statistics to the public, while even she struggled to obtain numbers from Penn for its own Gender Equity Report last year.

"There are university presidents who are not suppressing this," she said. "Why must we operate under a regime which suggests even the number of women in departments should be kept confidential?"

Barchi refuted accusations that the University is keeping its gender equity statistics secret. He pointed to the publication of the Gender Equity Report as evidence of that.

Barchi said that the only barriers to releasing gender equity data arise from the danger in revealing information about individual faculty members. He maintained that administrators are committed to assembling data in a way that does not violate the University's obligations to employees.

He also asserted that the delay in this year's gender equity update came partly as the result of the recent death of Associate Provost and Nursing Professor Barbara Lowery. According to Barchi, Lowery was in the midst of finishing the update last August when she became too ill to continue. He said the report will be printed in the Almanac within the next several weeks.

Leboy also referred to promises made by the president and provost to organize incentives for departments to hire and promote women while creating disincentives for them to hire and promote men.

According to Leboy, the administration has created small incentives via a fund through the Provost's Office, which was announced in a letter to deans and department chairs. However, she could not find clear evidence for the creation of disincentives. She supplied anecdotes of discrimination inherent in the selection processes of new faculty members as evidence of that.

Barchi said that disincentives are being instituted on an individual departmental basis. He said that he had discussed recruitment policies with all the deans and that they were doing the same with department chairs.

Leboy addressed an audience of about 65 faculty members, employees and students. Attendants were predominately female but several men attended as well.

Many audience members nodded and groaned throughout the presentation. Several offered their own tales of discrimination.

Religious Studies Department Chairwoman Ann Matter commented later about the importance of administrative leadership.

"I think this is a really serious issue and it needs to be taken more seriously by the administration," she said.

Matter added, "There must be something we haven't done that the administration could do to make a difference."

Students who attended the meeting expressed their concern about the lack of female professors at Penn.

"I just didn't realize that there were gender equity issues, especially in relation to peer institutions," College sophomore Helen Maher said.

Maher added that the discussion about discrimination in the faculty selection process was discouraging.

"What if I want to become a professor?" she asked.

Women left the AWFA meeting discussing possible strategies for raising campus awareness of gender equity problems and eliciting a stronger administrative response. They acknowledged the progress they are beginning to see but maintained that further improvements must be made.

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