Women in the Geosciences E-Book

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Wissenschaft und neue Technologien
• Serie: Special Publications
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 309

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2015

Beschreibung

Read an interview with the author: "Working Toward Gender Parity in the Geosciences" The geoscience workforce has a lower proportion of women compared to the general population of the United States and compared to many other STEM fields. This volume explores issues pertaining to gender parity in the geosciences, and sheds light on some of the best practices that increase participation by women and promote parity. Volume highlights include: * Lessons learned from NSF-ADVANCE * Data on gender composition of faculty at top earth science institutions in the US * Implicit bias and gender as a social structure * Strategies for institutional change * Dual career couples * Family friendly policies * Role of mentoring * Career advancement for women * Recruiting diverse faculty * Models of institutional transformation Women in the Geosciences is a valuable contribution to the existing literature on gender issues in STEM disciplines. It focuses specifically on the geosciences, with a goal to spreading awareness on the best practices for gender parity in academic geoscience departments. Geoscientists, policymakers, educators and administrators could all greatly benefit from the contents of this volume.

Leseprobe

CONTENTS

COVER

TITLE PAGE

CONTRIBUTORS

INTRODUCTION

Does Gender Parity Matter?

Why Are the Geosciences Lagging in Gender Parity?

Isn’t This Issue Behind Us by Now?

The Pipeline Metaphor

Contents of This Volume

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

REFERENCES

SECTION I: THE DATA

1 WHO RECEIVES A GEOSCIENCE DEGREE?

1.1. Bachelor’s Degrees

1.2. Graduate Degrees

1.3. On to the Profession

REFERENCES

2 WE ARE THE 20%: UPDATED STATISTICS ON FEMALE FACULTY IN EARTH SCIENCES IN THE U.S.

REFERENCES

SECTION II: A FRAMEWORK TO ADDRESS THE ISSUE

3 A SOCIOLOGICAL FRAMEWORK TO ADDRESS GENDER PARITY

3.1. Introduction

3.2. Individual Barriers

3.3. Interactional Barriers

3.4. Institutional Barriers

3.5. Multiple Frames

REFERENCES

SECTION III: SUCCESSFUL STRATEGIES TO ADDRESS THE ISSUE

4 BEST PRACTICES TO ACHIEVE GENDER PARITY: LESSONS LEARNED FROM NSF’S ADVANCE AND SIMILAR PROGRAMS

4.1. The National Science Foundation’s ADVANCE Program

REFERENCES

SECTION III.A: INSTITUTIONAL STRATEGIES

5 STRATEGIC INSTITUTIONAL CHANGE TO SUPPORT ADVANCEMENT OF WOMEN SCIENTISTS IN THE ACADEMY: INITIAL LESSONS FROM A STUDY OF ADVANCE IT PROJECTS

5.1. Study Design and Methods

5.2. Theoretical and Empirical Perspectives

5.3. Findings

5.4. Discussion

5.5. Summary

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

REFERENCES

6 INSTITUTIONAL TRANSFORMATION: THE LAMONT-DOHERTY EARTH OBSERVATORY EXPERIENCE

6.1. Introduction and Overview

6.2. Institutional Transformation Efforts at LDEO

6.3. LDEO Institutional Structure

6.4. Columbia’s ADVANCE IT Grant: Setting the Stage for Institutional Transformation

6.5. Creation of Office of Academic Affairs and Diversity

6.6. Understanding Factors Impacting Diversity

6.7. Creating a Culture of Inclusiveness

6.8. Change in LDEO Gender Demographics 2005–2012

6.9. Understanding the Institutional Transformation Process at LDEO

6.10. Conclusion

REFERENCES

7 DUAL CAREER, FLEXIBLE FACULTY

7.1. A Woman’s Issue?

7.2. The “Problem” of Dual Career

7.3. Strategies to Address Dual Career

7.4. For Dual Career Couples

RESOURCES

REFERENCES

8 LACTATION IN THE ACADEMY: ACCOMMODATING BREASTFEEDING SCIENTISTS

8.1. Why for the Nation?

8.2. Why in the Academy?

8.3. What Is Needed?

8.4. Professional Travel

RESOURCES

SECTION III.B: INTERACTIONAL AND INDIVIDUAL STRATEGIES

9 IMPLICIT ASSUMPTION: WHAT IT IS, HOW TO REDUCE ITS IMPACT

9.1. What Are Implicit Attitudes?

9.2. How Do Implicit Attitudes Affect Evaluations?

9.3. Minimizing the Impact of Implicit Bias

REFERENCES

10 HIRING A DIVERSE FACULTY

10.1. Recruitment Before the Formal Search Begins: Insuring a Diverse Applicant Pool

10.2. Reviewing Applications and Selecting Candidates for the Short List

10.3. Interviewing Candidates/Campus Visit

10.4. Negotiating the Hire

REFERENCES

11 MULTIPLE AND SEQUENTIAL MENTORING: BUILDING YOUR NEST

11.1. Introduction

11.2. Faculty Chair: Identifying Mentors and Their Roles

11.3. New Faculty (Mentee): Examples of Multiple Mentors

11.4. Mentor and Mentee Collaboration

11.5. A Last Word of Caution: Don’t Ignore Difficult Topics

REFERENCES

RESOURCES

12 MENTORING PHYSICAL OCEANOGRAPHY WOMEN TO INCREASE RETENTION

12.1 Background

12.2. Formulation of MPOWIR

12.3. Assessment of MPOWIR

REFERENCES

13 ASCENT, A DISCIPLINE-SPECIFIC MODEL TO SUPPORT THE RETENTION AND ADVANCEMENT OF WOMEN IN SCIENCE

13.1. Introduction

13.2. Description of ASCENT

13.3. Recruitment

13.4. Reaching a Broader Audience

13.5. Maintaining Contact

13.6. Evaluation of ASCENT Success

13.7. Conclusions

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

REFERENCES

14 FACILITATING CAREER ADVANCEMENT FOR WOMEN IN THE GEOSCIENCES THROUGH THE EARTH SCIENCE WOMEN’S NETWORK (ESWN)

14.1. Background

14.2. ESWN Connections: Online and In Person

14.3. Concluding Thoughts

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

REFERENCES

15 LEARNING TO DEVELOP A WRITING PRACTICE

15.1. The Situation

15.2. Why People Don’t Write

15.3. Remedies

15.4. Summary of Helpful Steps

Recommended Books on Writing and Writing Practice

REFERENCES

INDEX

END USER LICENSE AGREEMENT

List of Tables

Chapter 07

Table 7.1 Examples of non-traditional academic positions to increase flexibility for partner hires.

Chapter 10

Table 10.1 Applicant availability. Women and underrepresented minority geoscience doctorate recipients between 2006 and 2010 (from http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/srvydoctorates). % Female includes all females as a

percentage

of total PhD recipients. Ethnic groups include

number

of PhD recipients.

Table 10.2 Tips on defining and writing the position description from the University of Rhode Island.

Table 10.3 Examples of legal and illegal topics and questions that can be asked during any employee interview.

Chapter 11

Table 11.1 Modified kitchen cabinet after Sutkowski [2011].

Table 11.2 Example of mentoring task table.

Chapter 12

Table 12.1 Post-Pattullo Survey (2008, 2010, and 2011) of junior and senior scientists.

Chapter 15

Table 15.1 Writing productivity and creative ideas produced by nine faculty in each control group over a 10-week period [Boice, 1984].

List of Illustrations

Introduction

Figure 0.1 Women faculty in the School of Science at MIT (1960–2010). The numbers of women increase only when effort is focused on their recruitment and retention. Between 1970 and 2010, the percentage of women faculty at MIT increased from 8% to 19% [

from Conrad et al

., 2011].

Chapter 01

Figure 1.1 Proportion of Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in EAS awarded to women.

Figure 1.2 Proportion of women at various stages in the geoscience workforce pipeline. Student and post-doc data from

NSF

, 2013. Bachelor’s degrees are forwarded by seven years to compare with PhD recipients. Faculty data from

AGI

, 1996–2012, for PhD-granting institutions. Bachelor’s and Master’s granting institutions have 3–5 higher percentage points of women faculty than doctoral granting institutions.

Chapter 02

Figure 2.1 Numbers of female and male faculty members by rank at the 106 top-ranked PhD-granting geoscience departments. Data for 2010–2011 academic year.

Figure 2.2 Percentage of female faculty by institution for 106 top-ranking PhD-granting geoscience departments in the U.S. Data for 2010–2011 academic year.

Figure 2.3 Geographic location of top-ranked geoscience departments in the U.S. labeled by color based on percentage of total faculty who are women.

Chapter 03

Figure 3.1 Individual, interactional, and institutional barriers to gender parity may overlap.

Chapter 06

Figure 6.1 LDEO scientific staff by gender, 2005–2012.

Figure 6.2 Doherty/Lamont assistant research professors by gender, 2005–2012.

Chapter 09

Figure 9.1 Children who visit Fermilab are asked to sketch and describe their concept of a scientist before and after they visit the labs and meet the scientists working in them. The “before” sketch is often a white man in a white lab coat. The “after” sketches are more diverse. See http://ed.fnal.gov/projects/scientists/amy.html.

Chapter 10

Figure 10.1 Steps to hiring diverse faculty.

Figure 10.2 Example of an application evaluation tool for a junior faculty position developed by the University of Michigan ADVANCE STRIDE program. It can be used as a template and modified. Available at http://sitemaker.umich.edu/advance/good-practices.

Figure 10.3 Example of a candidate evaluation tool for a junior faculty position developed by the University of Michigan ADVANCE STRIDE program. It can be used as a template and modified. Original available at http://sitemaker.umich.edu/advance/files/CandidateEvalForm.pdf

Chapter 11

Figure 11.1 Mentoring chart. These positions are not set in stone and a position could be filled by an organization. There may be other people whom you need, if so, add them. There may be people in this chart whom you don’t need. Eliminate them. Modified from Rockquemore workshop (www.facultydiversity.org/).

Chapter 12

Figure 12.1 Results of MPOWIR’s 2012 survey to evaluate the effectiveness of mentor groups.

Figure 12.2 Results of MPOWIR’s 2012 survey showing value of mentor groups to feedback on professional development and personal matters.

Figure 12.3 Women are more likely to report that they would change decisions related to their graduate studies.

Figure 12.4 Nearly 40% of both male and female respondents do not have a mentor. Whether or not a student has a mentor significantly affects their attitude toward graduate school.

Figure 12.5 Part I of MPOWIR participant survey. Junior women were asked to indicate their current position.

Figure 12.6 Part II of MPOWIR participant survey. Junior women were asked to indicate the overall impact of MPOWIR on their careers.

Chapter 13

Figure 13.1 The ASCENT logo created by Lisa Wable, graphic artist at the Desert Research Institute.

Chapter 14

Figure 14.1 ESWN membership growth since its inception in 2002 (in 2012 the number of members is based on subscribers to the National Center for Atmospheric Research–supported listserv; June 2013 represents the number of members registered to the new Web center).

Figure 14.2 ESWN membership breakdown by (self-identified) career type.

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Special Publications 70

WOMEN IN THE GEOSCIENCES

Practical, Positive Practices Toward Parity

Edited by

Mary Anne HolmesSuzanne OConnellKuheli Dutt

This Work is a co-publication between the American Geophysical Union and John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

This Work is a co-publication between the American Geophysical Union and John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Published under the aegis of the AGU Books Board

Brooks Hanson, Director of PublicationsRobert van der Hilst, Chair, Publications Committee

© 2015 by the American Geophysical Union, 2000 Florida Avenue, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20009For details about the American Geophysical Union, see www.agu.org.

Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New JerseyPublished simultaneously in Canada

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise, except as permitted under Section 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without either the prior written permission of the Publisher, or authorization through payment of the appropriate per-copy fee to the Copyright Clearance Center, Inc., 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, [phone], fax [phone], or on the web at www.copyright.com. Requests to the Publisher for permission should be addressed to the Permissions Department, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030, [phone], fax [phone], or online at http://www.wiley.com/go/permissions.

Limit of Liability/Disclaimer of Warranty: While the publisher and author have used their best efforts in preparing this book, they make no representations or warranties with respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this book and specifically disclaim any implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. No warranty may be created or extended by sales representatives or written sales materials. The advice and strategies contained herein may not be suitable for your situation. You should consult with a professional where appropriate. Neither the publisher nor author shall be liable for any loss of profit or any other commercial damages, including but not limited to special, incidental, consequential, or other damages.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication data is available.

ISBN: 978-1-119-06785-6

Cover images:

Troikken. A winters day holds a rare oportunity to view Mt. Fuji with complete clarity. Fuji-san normally hides beneath clouds and snow filled winds but this day the great mountain decides to put on a show.Titlezpix. Beautiful silhouette sunset at tropical sea.Kali9. Close up of mature woman, 40s, working in industrial lab in chemical plant.Lumenetumbra. The Wave at the Paria Wilderness in Northern Arizona.Ericfoltz. The famous Great Smoky Mountains National Park, North Carolina.

CONTRIBUTORS

Ann E. AustinProfessorHigher, Adult, and Lifelong EducationMichigan State UniversityEast Lansing, Michigan

Linnea AvalloneProgram DirectorDivision of Atmospheric and Geospace SciencesNational Science FoundationArlington, Virginia

Sarah ClemMPOWIR Program CoordinatorNicholas School of the EnvironmentDuke UniversityDurham, North Carolina

Kuheli DuttAssistant Director, Academic Affairs and DiversityLamont-Doherty Earth ObservatoryColumbia UniversityPalisades, New York

Laura M. EdwardsClimate Field SpecialistSouth Dakota State University ExtensionAberdeen, South Dakota

Jennifer B. GlassAssistant ProfessorGeorgia Institute of TechnologyAtlanta, Georgia

INTRODUCTION

Does Gender Parity Matter?

The geoscience workforce has a lower proportion of women in it (21%) compared to the general population of the United States (50%) and compared to the average of all other science (37%) or mathematics (26%) fields [NSF, 2011]. Our workforce is overwhelmingly white: 86% compared to 68% of the total U.S. population, one of the least diverse among all the other science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields. In short, the U.S. geoscience workforce lacks the rich diversity of our population. According to the 2011 U.S. Census Bureau, 88% of doctoral degrees in the geosciences are awarded to white students, with only about 5% awarded to students from underrepresented minority groups.

Does this low rate of diversity matter? Obviously, since you have opened this book and many geoscientists have contributed to it, many people think so and you likely think so, too. Feelings aside, what is the evidence that it really matters? Is it something we should put our limited time and resources into addressing, to have our workforce diversity more closely match the nation’s? Does the geoscience enterprise really suffer if we never diversify to match population demographics?

The answer we contend is, of course, yes. Scott Page, an economist at the University of Michigan, uses mathematical modeling and case studies to show that diverse workplaces are more productive, more innovative, and more creative (2008). People with different backgrounds have different ways of looking at problems (what Page calls “tools”). In science, having more tools generates more working hypotheses, a necessary step in the scientific method. But not only do different types of people view problems differently, different types of people ask different questions, the fundamental first step in the scientific method. Bringing personal knowledge to the scientific endeavor means that different scientists sense (observe) differently, question differently, and hypothesize differently [Selby, 2006a,b].

Page [2007] points out that today, teams do more work (and science) rather than do lone individuals. Does diversity improve team performance? Woolley and others [2010] developed a measurement of group intelligence (termed c) and determined, surprisingly, that it does not correlate with either average individual intelligence of group members or with maximum individual intelligence (the “smartest person” in the group). Instead, they found that c significantly correlated with a measure of average social sensitivity of the group and negatively correlated with the presence of a few people in the group who dominated the conversation. The presence of women in the group increased the group’s intelligence as measured by its ability to perform specific group tasks. These researchers hypothesized that in this study, the women’s influence arose from their tendency to score higher on social sensitivity tests. Just having more people able to voice an opinion raised group intelligence.

Page [2007] found that when a team values diversity, a diverse work group improves the bottom line for corporations, perhaps as much as the actual ability of individual workers. In a diverse workforce, people’s abilities are superadditive: if two people have different perspectives on a problem as well as different proposed solutions, the best solution may lie in a combination of the two solutions, an outcome not possible when only one brain works on the problem.

Govindarajan and Terwilliger [2012] found that a diverse team does the most effective research brainstorming. Like Page, they use the term diversity to include a range of expertise, ages, disciplines, and cultures.

Valian [2004] provides additional rationales for the benefits of gender parity in academia. Broadening the applicant pool for faculty positions maximizes the chances of hiring the best new faculty. The larger the pool, the greater will be the choice and the higher the likelihood of finding a well-qualified candidate.

Students benefit from a diverse faculty. Students who see someone on the faculty “like me,” someone whose life they wish to emulate, are more likely to stay in the field. In addition, students benefit from working in diverse groups and with diverse faculty, as they will be working in a diverse workforce after graduation [Valian, 2004]. The benefits of being a scientist are great: scientists earn more than nonscientists and are more likely to be employed. And as scientists, we know the joy of doing science that no other field of endeavor provides.

Diversity of the geoscience workforce matters because we need a variety of minds asking a variety of questions and posing a variety of solutions. Diversity of the geoscience workforce matters because the U.S. population continues to diversify: nonwhite children became the majority of one-year-olds in 2010. We need to attract new majors and new geoscientists from the population that exists today and tomorrow or we will find our classrooms and consequently the geoscience workforce shrinking.

Paying attention to the factors that promote gender equity in departments improves the workplace for all faculty [Valian, 2004]. When we discover that mentoring, advocacy, and power networks omit women and people of color, and we construct mentoring programs for early and mid-career faculty, these benefit all faculty. When we address dual-career issues for women, we address dual-career issues for men, too. More than half of STEM men (56%) are married to a STEM woman [Schiebinger, 2008]. As more women and people of color have received PhDs and expect an inclusive workplace, the majority’s perception of what makes a good work environment has evolved, too. We are not the same academy that we were 10 years ago.

Professional science societies recognize the value of diversity. For example, The American Association for the Advancement of Science has issued a statement with the Association of American Universities in support of diversity-enhancing programs (http://php.aaas.org/programs/centers/capacity/documents/Berdahl_Essay); the American Geophysical Union has a Diversity Plan (http://education.agu.org/diversity-programs/agu-diversity-plan/); the Geological Society of America adopted a position statement to embrace a diverse workforce (http://www.geosociety.org/positions/pos15_Diversity.pdf), and the American Association of Petroleum Geologists has held panels on making the bottom-line case for diversity in the petroleum industry (http://www.aapg.org/explorer/2010/06jun/regsec0610.cfm).

Yet despite broad support for the concept of gender parity, there has been little actual change in the demographics of the geoscience faculty (see chapters 1 and 2).

Why Are the Geosciences Lagging in Gender Parity?

We show from the literature through the rest of this volume that lack of gender parity is not unique to the geosciences and that, for all STEM fields, gender parity is not a “pipeline issue”: simply adding more women to one end of the pipeline, such as PhD recipients, has not effected meaningful change in the numbers of women on the STEM faculty. Nor is the answer simply “women prefer to have families,” as the numbers of single women or women with no children are not increasing on the faculty. Policies and procedures of academic institutions, as well as how we perceive and interact with each other, play important roles in whether we can achieve parity. The academy is set up for an “ideal worker” who is currently in the majority [Williams, 2000]. Our selection processes, those that determine who gets encouraged to enter graduate school, to complete the PhD and postdoc, and to win the job, contribute to the leaky pipeline [Georgi, 1999]. The academy needs to change to accommodate a variety of types of workers.

Chilly climates continue to contribute to women’s attrition from the geosciences. By “climate” we mean the factors in the workplace that enable us to find meaning and joy in our work. It is an important component of job satisfaction. A variety of factors can contribute to chilly climates for women. The literature is replete with examples of women’s accomplishments being discounted and ignored [Lincoln et al., 2011; and see, in references, the AWIS AWARDS project to increase the number of women nominees for national awards]. In addition, women are more likely to serve on committees that are perceived as nurturing (e.g., undergraduate advisor) as opposed to committees that wield influence on academic processes, such as promotion and tenure and graduate committees [e.g., Misra et al., 2011]. Women typically have higher service loads and take these on at earlier stages in their career [Misra et al., 2011], in part because they are asked to serve as the “diversity” component on every committee. Women tend to be interrupted more at meetings, tend to have lower salaries, sometimes as a result of their not negotiating sufficiently [Bilimoria and Liang, 2011; Valian, 2005]. As Valian [2005] puts it, “Each example [of chilly climate] . . . is a small thing. One might be tempted to dismiss concern about such imbalances as making a mountain out of a molehill. But mountains are molehills, piled one on top of another over time.”

Student Perspective

As we wrote this volume, younger women provided us with plenty of examples of the chilly climate they experience. Below, a few examples:

“The professor told the class that women really weren’t that good for geology because they value family more than anything else. The only person who objected was a male postdoc who said he thought family was just as important to men.”

“The male presenters frequently made good-natured and humorous comments about other male lecturers that were present in the lecture hall. They used each other's first names. The one time I heard a male lecturer make a comment about a female lecturer that was present, he did not use her name but referred to her as ‘that woman.’”

“A lecture given by a woman was interrupted by male organizers announcing the arrival of a new (male) lecturer and the departure of another (male) lecturer. Later on the same talk was again interrupted by another departing (male) lecturer wanting to announce he was leaving. No talk given by a man was interrupted by such departures and arrivals.”

“The female participants of the summer school were sometimes referred to as ‘girls.’ Male participants were not addressed as ‘boys’ or ‘guys,’ at least never within my hearing.”

“During an evening event, a medal was given to a distinguished male scientist. . . . After the talk the organizers took photos of the medal-winning scientist. They addressed the audience and asked for ‘girls’ to step up and have their photo taken with the awardee.”

“While I was completing an assignment in an all-female group, one of the male lecturers stopped by to inquire how we were doing, and then made a loud public comment about the beauty of our group. I heard no such comments about the appearance of the male participants.”

“In three different talks, the lecturers had included in their overheads a photo of a woman in revealing clothing. In all cases, the woman had a ‘conventionally beautiful’ body type and general appearance. I saw only one photo that depicted a man in sparse clothing, and in that case the man was very obese. I got the feeling that female bodies were shown not only to illustrate a point, but also because they were thought to be pretty to look at (and amusing in a scientific context). The man's photo was also there to make a humorous point, but in his case the humor largely stemmed from the fact that he was very fat (and very fat guys are supposedly funny).”

The signature file from the e-mail of a (male) chair of an earth sciences department:

The primary duty of the University to a student is to provide him with such instructors as will make him realise that the responsibility for progress is his own and no one else's.

S.E. Whitnall, 1933

“This phrase. This ‘you will ruin your career if.’ It's false. It's a total, complete lie. And it really upsets me to watch so many young, promising scientists agonize and fall prey to it. Because the correct phrase is not ‘you will ruin your career if,’ the correct phrase is ‘your career (in a TT position at an R1 institution) will be a lot easier if.’ ”

Isn’t This Issue Behind Us by Now?

The above examples provided by women students are fairly convincing that we have not yet fully thawed the chilly climate for women. In addition, Nancy Hopkins, the author of the now-famous “MIT Study” that brought gender inequity on that campus to light [Hopkins, 1999; Hopkins, 2007], demonstrated that when there was agitation for adding women to the faculty, excellent women were found and hired at MIT (Figure 0.1). When the agitation waned, hiring leveled off. A renewal of agitation increased hiring again. Looking at women’s composition on the geoscience faculty in the earlier part of this decade, we noticed that many departments had one woman on the faculty at approximately midcareer. We all sort of rushed to hire our woman and then neglected the issue from then on. The ADVANCE program at NSF (see Chapter 4) has renewed the agitation to pay attention to this issue. When we stop paying attention, we make no progress.

Figure 0.1 Women faculty in the School of Science at MIT (1960–2010). The numbers of women increase only when effort is focused on their recruitment and retention. Between 1970 and 2010, the percentage of women faculty at MIT increased from 8% to 19% [from Conrad et al., 2011].

The Pipeline Metaphor

Many women object to the concept of a pipeline: that we input students at one end and some proportion emerges ready for faculty positions. They do not wish to be considered passive in the motion from one end to the other, and particularly do not wish to be considered passive drops of water that leak out of the system.

A better metaphor for the process of developing new scientists is the interstate highway system: there are many ways to enter the science enterprise, beginning with a community college or beginning with entry into a Research I institution. The various ways to enter the path are “on-ramps.” There are various stages at which a student might exit (off-ramps) and perhaps reenter via a different on-ramp at another time. Students might take “rest stops” via working in private industry or staying at home to start a family. Interstates lead to multiple destinations: academia is not the only endpoint for geoscience students. Exiting, entering, resting, and reaching a destination all imply some agency on the part of the participant.

Not all interstates are the same; some are state of the art with clear signposts and directions; others are in need of repair, perhaps rerouting, better on-ramps, or at least, better signage.

Contents of This Volume

The remainder of this volume will discuss research-based reasons for the lack of gender parity and research-based strategies to achieve gender parity. In Section I we look at data on gender parity in the geoscience student body and faculty. Chapter 1 looks at the gender composition of the recipients of geoscience degrees. Chapter 2 looks at the statistics of female faculty in Carnegie top-tier geoscience departments across the U.S.

Section II provides a conceptual framework for understanding and addressing gender parity issues. Specifically, chapter 3 explores Risman’s theory of gender as a social structure that allows us to categorize types of barriers to women’s entry, retention, and advancement in the geosciences.

Section III looks at various lessons learned from NSF-funded ADVANCE programs across the U.S. and the best practices learned from these programs, and summarizes the experiences of various institutions’ progress made towards gender parity. This section first provides an overview of the NSF ADVANCE program, followed by examples of institutional, individual, and interactional strategies.

Chapter 4 provides an overview of NSF’s ADVANCE program. Chapter 5 summarizes work done at ADVANCE institutions, that is, those that received an ADVANCE Institutional Transformation award. This chapter focuses on the effectiveness and long-term viability of organizational change efforts to create institutional environments that are conducive to the success of women as well as men in STEM. Chapter 6 presents an overview of the successful institutional transformation process of Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory. Chapter 7 looks at how faculty appointments can be made more flexible and therefore conducive to retaining women; specific examples include stop-the-clock provisions, the option to work part-time, and dual-career appointments. Chapter 8 looks at the provision of on-campus lactation facilities and access to day care; since women bear a disproportionately higher burden of familial responsibilities, such facilities will help to retain them in STEM.

Chapter 9 discusses implicit bias, stereotype threat, imposter syndrome, and how these affect efforts to diversify the workforce. Chapter 10 looks at the best practices for recruiting diverse faculty by diversifying the applicant pool. Chapters 11 through 13 focus on mentoring. Chapter 11 discusses multiple and sequential mentoring, while chapters 12 and 13 expand upon intensive mentoring programs: ASCENT (Atmospheric Science Collaborations and Enriching Networks) and MPOWIR (Mentoring Physical Oceanography Women to Increase Retention). These two programs serve as excellent models not just for mentoring but also on how to increase transparency of processes in academia that lead to success of new faculty. Chapter 14 explains the Earth Science Women’s Network, ESWN, a peer-mentoring network for women geoscientists particularly targeting early-career women.

Some of what we write in this volume also applies to the issue of race and ethnicity parity in the geosciences’ workforce. We focus on gender parity for this volume because it is time, after more than a decade of focused research through the ADVANCE program, to pull together a what-, why-, and how-to-proceed handbook. So far, no similar body of work exists to address racial and ethnicity underrepresentation. We hope that you find this volume useful and we welcome any constructive feedback.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

We wish to thank all of our colleagues who contributed to this volume, to the reviewers of each contribution, and to all of our colleagues who discussed and debated these issues with us, and thanks to our colleagues at AGU who helped see this book through to publication. We wish to acknowledge the financial support of the National Science Foundation through NSF ADVANCE Grants #0620101 and 0620087.

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SECTION I: THE DATA

1WHO RECEIVES A GEOSCIENCE DEGREE?

Mary Anne Holmes

Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, Lincoln, Nebraska

ABSTRACT

To match applicant pools for faculty positions, and ultimately, faculties with the available pool, the student population, we need data on who gets a geoscience degree. The National Science Foundation (NSF) provides these data; they reveal that in the past 10 years, 35–40% of geosciences bachelor’s and doctoral degrees are awarded to women; yet, less than 30% of geoscience assistant professors at doctoral-granting institutions are women. The principal leak in the academic pipeline, then, occurs at the entry-level hiring stage.

How many women should be on geoscience faculty? We propose that the proportion of women on the geoscience faculty should approximate the proportion who earn geoscience degrees. An analysis of NSF data on gender and race/ethnicity of STEM degree recipients in the U.S. in the last 10 years reveals that 35% to 40% of geosciences bachelor’s and doctoral degrees were awarded to women. Yet less than 30% of geoscience assistant professors at doctoral-granting institutions are women.

1.1. Bachelor’s Degrees

The National Science Foundation and the American Geosciences Institute collect data on who receives what degree in STEM and earth and atmospheric sciences (EAS) fields, respectively (http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/sestat/; http://www.agiweb.org/workforce/). NSF’s data extend from 1967 to the present (no data were supplied for 1999). Undergraduate degrees awarded to women in