Women preparing to apply for tenure-track junior faculty positions experience the normal anxiety and excitement felt by most applicants.
But, they often feel the additional pressure of implicit practices that spawn from historically male-dominated fields, making professions in higher education more difficult to obtain for women, said Annette Kluck, assistant provost for women’s initiatives.
Malorie Hayes, graduate student and Ph.D. candidate in biological sciences, is in a historically male-dominated field and looked to her career icons — three women at the top of their field — all childless.
She was discouraged at first, but an early professor of hers encouraged her by telling her she could be both a professional and a parent.
“A lot of people see that as a statement that it is impossible to be a successful scientist and a parent,” Hayes said. “That’s not true for men. You just take the kids, leave them with the wife and move on.”
In areas where men are still in the majority, social norms can force women to put in more time than their male counterparts in the same department. Kluck said those norms have constructed an expectation for women to say “yes” when men are given more leeway in saying no.
“They are not only being asked for more, but they are having to go against the gender norm more,” Kluck said.
From 2013 to 2014, Harvard’s Collaborative on Academic Careers in Higher Education found that women at Auburn see the distribution of the teaching load more concerning than the University’s male faculty.
COACHE was used, updated and referenced once more through the Provost’s office in 2017. The University listed “flexible workloads and modified duties” under potential areas for improvement.
According to a paper published in an analysis of higher education in 2017, “Faculty Service Loads and Gender: Are Women Taking Care of the Academic Family?,” this service — external and internal tasks requested of faculty outside of their normal duties — can factor into performance evaluations, but does little to promote the faculty member in comparison to research that could have been done in place of such tasks.
Kluck said it is difficult for women to acknowledge inequity as it is happening.
“It’s hard to think about being treated differently,” Kluck said.
In response to this issue, Kluck said some departments are following the University of Maryland’s model of Service Desk Boards, a project that makes faculty service public to other faculty to encourage fair practices and allocation, according to Kluck.
The department of psychology and the College of Agriculture are two of the participating programs.
“The act of doing it will make everyone more aware of what tends to happen,” Kluck said.
Hayes, in her last year at Auburn, said she sees the tides turning for gender equity, albeit there is still work to do, she said.
COACHE data stated that Auburn’s results on whether colleagues support the work and life balance for women were below the mean and performed poorly compared to other unviversities.
Ana Fraco-Watkins, professor and chair of the department of psychology said she has worked toward a more flexible work-life balance in her department.
Watkins, who is the second woman in the history of the department to serve as chair, began her career in the male-dominated field of decision-making science.
According to Franco-Watkins, psychology is traditionally more balanced in gender. In Auburn’s case, she said they aren’t quite there yet.
“It is unique being a female faculty member,” Watkins said. “There are just different expectations.”
The COACHE survey in 2014 noted that women at Auburn were more concerned with the amount of courses taught than Auburn’s institutional peers. Men tested showed no concern.
Older male faculty were far more concerned about her balance of work and personal life than they were concerned about male faculty, Franco-Watkins noticed earlier in her career.
Aside from fellow faculty, Franco-Watkins said there was data from student evaluations to support students favored women less from her years as a professor.
“As a faculty member, I would get strange comments on my evals that pertain to my appearance that had nothing to do with the class,” Watkins said. “My appearance has nothing to do with how effectively or ineffectively I instruct and they learn.”
She said she was working toward tenure at the time and feared the consequences of such evaluations, but her colleagues were understanding.
“There was over emphasis on what I wear and my shoes,” Watkins said. “I’ve been called a cougar one time. I don’t think that they would ever say that to my male colleagues.”
Faculty were asked in 2014 to note “how well [they] fit” in their departments, and women overwhelmingly expressed more discomfort than their male counterparts at the University.
Hayes said she was lucky to have her adviser during her pregnancy in graduate school, but some of her peers have not been so lucky.
She said they expressed struggles with scheduling and faculty understanding during their pregnancies.
Kluck agreed there was much that could be done for graduate students looking to move into faculty positions, starting with encouragement.
“We have to make it clear to women students early on that they have what it takes, and they are valued,” Kluck said.
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