The School of Engineering and Applied Science may have doubled the number of its female faculty in just five years, but the percentage of male professors in the University as a whole is still overwhelming.
The University has been making steady progress in the recruitment of female faculty over the years and will continue to make an effort to hire more of them, President Amy Gutmann said.
"There are issues about recruiting female faculty and retaining female faculty that we're continually concerned with and making efforts to level the playing field," Gutmann said.
Broken down by rank, women made up 35 percent of assistant professors, 27 percent of associate professors, and 15 percent of full professors in the entire University in 2003.
Engineering Dean Eduardo Glandt said the school has made a "conscious effort" in increasing its female faculty from six to 12 in five years. The school has a total of 104 faculty members.
Although Glandt said that the Engineering School is on the "right track," he said he feels impatient that the process of hiring more female faculty has been slow.
"We are constantly interviewing female faculty candidates," Glandt said. "We need more females on the faculty and we want the ones we have to succeed."
This year, Computer and Information Science professor Susan Davidson became the Engineering school's deputy dean, making her the first woman in the Penn Engineering administration.
Davidson said that being a female in a traditionally male-dominated field has not been an issue for her.
"I had two children before coming up for tenure at a time when Penn's policy on tenure, maternity and childcare was not well-formulated or understood --- but my department was always very helpful and accommodating," Davidson said.
Faculty who are offered tenure become full, standing professors.
Chemical Engineering professor Warren Seider said that over the last 30 years, all the faculty hired at the Engineering school have been offered tenure due to the selective hiring process.
"We're very proud of it. We're making a real big effort to hire female faculty, but it has not been really easy," he said, noting that competition was fierce for "the best" female candidates.
Associate Provost and Legal Studies professor Janice Bellace added that more than 75 percent of the 86 women who came up for review from 1999 to 2004 at the Provost Staff Conference were approved for tenure.
"Overall, various analyses have shown that there is no difference in the rate of success for women coming up for tenure," Bellace said, referring to the recently updated Gender Equity Report.
Bellace said she is currently forming an ad hoc committee to consider the impact of various University policies on tenure-track faculty.
Additionally, Gutmann said the University's goal is to make "Penn a more attractive place to have an academic career in light of family obligation and the tension between work and family."
