Reports and Policies

• Yale Reports on the Status of Women and Minorities
• Reports from other Universities on the Status of Women Faculty and Family Life
• Faculty and Family Life: Research Institutes, Policies, and Reports
• University Policies for Parental Leave

Links noted with the PDF icon are PDF files and require Adobe Acrobat Reader to view.

 

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Yale Reports on the Status of Women and Minorities

• Diversity Initiative Yale University (2005)
  Intended to increase the number of minority professors who are brought to the university and retained in the next seven years, this plan allows for the creation of a Diversity Recruitment Program for the Graduate School.
• Child Care Initiative (2005)
  Designed to address the needs of professors, graduate students, and Yale staff, this initiative seeks to expand center-based care, and to endorse a network of family-based child care providers.
• Women and Yale University: A View from 2002
  Produced by the Women Faculty Forum, this report was prepared to help the Yale community gain a picture of the roles women have come to play in the University.
• Summary of Recommendations from Past Reports on the Status of Women and Minorities at Yale (2002)
  This document includes a list of many of the recommendations made over the past thirty years, culled from the previous reports.
• First Report of the President’s Committee to Monitor the Recruitment and Retention of Disabled, Minority, and Women Faculty (1991)
  This report details the problems faced by minority and women faculty on campus, and posits several recommendations for academic departments to use in creating a more hospitable climate for underrepresented groups.
• Recruitment and Retention of Minority Group Members on the Faculty at Yale (1989)
  Responding to the national attention to affirmative action, this committee’s report outlines a plan for a Yale affirmative action policy.
• Yale Announces Goal of Doubling Number of Tenured Faculty Women (1985)
  This file contains a number of helpful documents related to the first attempts to systematically increase the hiring of women professors. Included is a press release, committee report, and the President’s response.
• Provost’s Report on Affirmative Action (1985)
  A summary of the Provost’s efforts to achieve the Crother’s Committee goal of doubling women faculty members by 1990, the report reaffirms the university’s commitment to affirmative action.
• Summary of Yale University Affirmative Action Program for the Employment of Women and Members of Racial/Ethnic Minority Groups, 1984-85 (1985)
  The initial plan for affirmative action, this report lays out the steps departments must make, and also provides valuable charts and statistics related to women faculty appointments.
• Report of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences Advisory Committee on the Status of Women (1984)
  A general examination of women’s experiences in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, along with recommendations for improving the campus climate for women faculty.
• Women at Yale: A Statistical Profile, 1969-1979 (1979)
  Report contains statistics on undergraduate women’s enrollment and grade distribution, as well as women faculty appointments and retention.
• A Report to the Yale Corporation from the Yale Undergraduate Women’s Caucus (1977)
  Written by Yale’s first undergraduate women, their report addresses campus sexism and institutional discrimination.
• Reports of the Faculty Study Group on the Recruitment and Appointment of Women and Minority Group Faculty (1976)
  A compilation of the reports produced by 4 different working groups in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, this report monitors the progress on the university’s affirmative action plan.
• Report to the President from the University Committee on the Status of Women, 1973-1974 (1974)
  Written following the first graduating class of women. Evaluates the committees, resources, and special offices set aside for women undergraduates.
• Report of the Committee to Recommend Procedures Concerning the Recruitment of Qualified Women (1971)
  A report containing concrete suggestions of how to increase women faculty hires for the upcoming school year.
• A Report to the President from the Committee on the Status of Professional Women at Yale (1971)
  This report gives anecdotal as well as statistical evidence about the way women are valued at the university from graduate students to tenured faculty.
• Graduate Education for Women at Yale (1969)
  Following the accusations of gender discrimination from graduate students and faculty, this report explores the situation of women graduate students and recommends department-level and university-wide changes.

 

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Reports from other Universities on the Status of Women Faculty and Family Life

 

• The Status of Women Faculty in the Humanities and Social Sciences at Princeton (2005)
  This report parallels the report on The Status of Women Faculty in the Natural Sciences and Engineering made in 2003.
• Princeton: Report of the Task Force on the Status of Women Faculty in the Natural Sciences and Engineering at Princeton (2003)
  Charged with creating a long-term strategy to attract and retain highly talented women faculty in the Natural Sciences and Engineering departments at Princeton, the Task Force on the Status of Women suggests administrative changes in this report.
• Duke: Report of the Subcommittee for the Women’s Initiative at Duke University (2003)
  A report commissioned by Duke’s President, Nan Keohane, to assess the status of women at all levels of the university as a follow-up to a similar inquiry made in 1994.
• The Status of Women Faculty at MIT (2002)
  An Overview of Reports from the Schools of Architecture and Planning; Engineering; Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences; and the Sloan School of Management
• Report of the School of Science (2002 update, 1999 report)
  Following the original report on women faculty in the sciences, the Provost asked the remaining four schools at MIT to conduct a similar study on the status of women faculty in their departments. In addition, the School of Science completed an updated version of their original work.
• University of Michigan: The Institute for Research on Women and Gender project NSF ADVANCE (2002)
  The Institute for Research on Women and Gender is administering NSF ADVANCE, a five-year grant funded project promoting institutional transformation in science and engineering fields. Planning for the project began following the MIT conference with eight other research institutions. The goals of this program are to improve recruitment and retention of women faculty in science and engineering and to improve the institutional climate for them. The project’s website also has links to several reports on the status of women not included in this listing: http://www.umich.edu/~advproj/schoolreports.html
• Stanford: The Provost’s Advisory Committee on the Status of Women Faculty at Stanford University- Website Project (2002)
  Following the MIT report, Stanford formed the Provost’s Advisory Committee to work with the Provost to explore ways to foster the goals of gender, racial and ethnic diversity and equal opportunity for its faculty. The Committee created this website as a resource for Stanford and other universities.
• MIT Conference on Women in Science and Engineering (2001)
  University leaders from nine research institutions gathered at MIT to discuss the findings of the MIT report. All present signed a pledge to work toward gender equity at their respective institutions. The schools represented were: Harvard University, MIT, the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), Princeton University, Stanford University, the University of California at Berkeley, the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, the University of Pennsylvania and Yale. The initiatives started at these schools are detailed below.
• California Institute of Technology (Caltech): Committee on the Status of Women Faculty Report (2001)
  Motivated by the publication of the MIT report, a Committee on the Status of Women Faculty at Caltech was formed in early 1999. The Committee was charged with assessing gender inequity in the Institute, enumerating problems that affect not only women, but also men. The Committee carried out interviews with the 29 women faculty members at the Institute and found that they are markedly more dissatisfied with Caltech than their male counterparts. They addressed issues like salary and space differentials, endowed chairs, chairpersonships, and family leave policies. Though they could not determine whether there was gender discrimination in salary or space disbursement, the Committee found that women had little or no voice in the management of the school, largely due to a legacy of gender discrimination. The Committee ultimately recommends steps to hire more women faculty, improve mentoring relationships with women junior faculty, and create a more family-friendly atmosphere to assist women faculty with children as they rise through the tenure ranks. One unique suggestion is to commence a fund-raising campaign aimed exclusively to amass funds for the hiring and retention of more women faculty. The Committee suggests that Caltech’s progress be monitored at three-year intervals, preferably by women trustees of the Institute.
• University of Pennsylvania: Gender Equity Committee (2000)
• MIT: A Study on the Status of Women Faculty in Science at MIT (1999)
  This groundbreaking 1999 study analyzed the status of women faculty in the six departments in the School of Science at MIT. The committee discovered that junior faculty women feel well supported within their departments and most do not believe that gender bias will impact their careers. They also believe that junior women faculty that family-work conflicts may impact their careers differently from those of their male colleagues. In contrast to junior women, many tenured women faculty feel marginalized and excluded from a significant role in their departments. Marginalization increases as women progress through their careers at MIT. Examination of data revealed that marginalization was often accompanied by differences in salary, space, awards, resources, and response to outside offers between men and women faculty with women receiving less despite professional accomplishments equal to those of their male colleagues. The report makes recommendations regarding the hiring, treatment, and retention of women faculty in the sciences.
• Harvard: Report on Women in the Sciences (1991)
  The FAS Standing Committee on the Status of Women calls on the Faculty of Arts and Sciences to make a commitment to the recruitment, retention, and professional development of women graduate students and junior faculty in the sciences, in order to increase the number of women in Harvard science departments.

 

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Faculty and Family Life: Research Institutes, Policies, and Reports

• Report- Do Babies Matter?: The Effect of Family Formation on the Lifelong Careers of Women (2002)
  Mason, Mary Ann and Marc Goulden
  Graduate Division, University of California at Berkeley
  This report finds that family formation has a profound and generally deleterious effect on women attempting to achieve tenure in the university setting. Most importantly, the report finds a large gap between men and women academics who have babies early in their academic careers. There is a 24% gap in achieving tenure between women and men PhDs who have babies early in their career. Likewise, women who achieve tenure are far more likely than men to have no children at all. The report breaks down statistics regarding this situation by type of university and faculty (humanities, social sciences, sciences). The report also assesses the decision-making process women with children undergo as they determine whether they will remain in academia or not. Finally, the report makes suggestions for university administrations regarding how they should support young professors with children (particularly women) in terms of childcare, tenure clock manipulation, and financial support.
• Alfred P. Sloan Foundation
  Dual Ladder Program: supports colleges and universities in their efforts to add to the existing tenure ladder a second legitimate, or dual, ladder for career advancement for those staff currently off the tenure line. http://www.sloan.org/programs/stndrd_dualcareer.shtml
  Workplace, Workforce and Working Families: program to enhance scholarly, business, and public understanding of the interaction of family and workplace and of how the workplace can be restructured to provide more choice in work hours to meet the needs of an increasingly diverse workforce. http://www.sloan.org/programs/stndrd_dualcareer.shtml
  Sloan Work and Family Research Network at Boston College is designed to support research and teaching, promote best practices at the workplace, and inform state policy on issues that affect the lives of working families and the places where they work.
  http://wfnetwork.bc.edu/
• The Center for Work Family Research at Penn State includes the Faculty and Families Project as well as the Mapping Project: Exploring the Terrain of U.S. Colleges and Universities for Faculty and Families.
• Workplace Flexibility 2010 is a campaign to support the development of a comprehensive national policy on workplace flexibility at the federal, state and local levels. Workplace Flexibility 2010 believes that social change occurs best through a combination of voluntary action and government action. The American workplace is a complex, constantly changing, and rich human environment. We believe the best policy approach to workplace flexibility must therefore combine thoughtful and careful government regulation, robust voluntary and individualized efforts by employers, and governmental support of innovative voluntary efforts.
• The Center for WorkLife Law is a research and advocacy center that seeks to eliminate employment discrimination against caregivers such as parents and adult children of aging parents. WorkLife Law is based at UC Hastings College of the Law and is directed by professor and author Joan C. Williams. It was founded as the Program on Gender, Work & Family in 1998 and is supported by research and program development grants, university funding, and private donations. The Center changed its name to WorkLife Law in October 2003 to better reflect its increasing emphasis on identifying discriminatory employment practices against caregivers and using the legal system to prevent discrimination.

 

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University Policies for Parental Leave

Many universities provide leave, reduce teaching loads, and stop the tenure clock for all new parents. Below are links to leave policies at Yale and some of its peer institutions.

• Yale University, for FAS and the Schools of Architecture, Art, Divinity, Forestry and Environmental Studies, Law, and Management
• Yale University Revised Child Rearing Policy for Childbirth and Adoption
• Yale School of Medicine: Faculty Child Rearing Leave and Caregiving Leave (2005)
• Yale University Parental Support and Relief Policy for Graduate Students
• Harvard University, FAS
• Princeton University Faculty benefits
• Princeton University Junior Faculty tenure clock extension for childrearing
• Princeton University Child Care Policy for Graduate Students
• Stanford University: Work Life Office
• Stanford Faculty Handbook on Parental Leave
• Stanford University Childbirth Policy for Women Graduate Students
• University of California, Berkeley
• University of Chicago
• University of Pennsylvania
• University of Southern California