Best Practices to Promote Gender Equity in Academia

Now that you've learned how to recognize hidden gender bias in academia, here you can find out ten steps you can take to stop it. The policy recommendations and best practices below present solutions that are easy to incorporate into standard human resources procedures. Developing practices such as these will go a long way in facilitating gender equity in recruiting, retaining and advancing women faculty.

Have your own ideas about promising practices? Tell us about them here.

1. Treat Pregnancy Leave the Same as Other Kinds of Disability Leave

One common mistake academic employers can make is to provide pregnancy disability leave on terms that are less generous than for other kinds of medical leave.[1] For example, in one law school, female faculty were forced to choose between getting course release or getting paid disability leave for delivery. This is illegal under the Pregnancy Discrimination Act. The easy remedy for this discrepancy: apply the same terms and conditions to pregnancy leave that are on the books for other medical leaves.

2. Design Parental Leave Policies Based on Caretaking Status, Not Gender

Parental leave should be available to both mothers and fathers. The key is to link the leave with the relevant activity—being a caregiver—instead of linking it to biological sex. That means that anyone who is a primary or equal caregiver should be entitled to parental leave. Linking parental leaves to caretaking status ensures a fair application of the policy.

Additionally, stop-the-clock and modified duties policies should require faculty to certify that they are providing at least 20 hours a week of child care during normal working hours. Why is this necessary? Studies have shown that while some men are actively engaged in family care (and should be eligible for parental leave when they are), women often still do more than their fair share. One survey by the UC Berkeley Family Friendly Edge found that women faculty aged 30-50 with children reported spending approximately 15 hours a week more than their male colleagues with children did on caregiving activities.[2] This quantification and certification of time spent on caregiving ensures equity among faculty who are taking caretaking leave, so that both men and women who take these leaves do so only to care for children or other family members.

Best Practice: Stanford University's Reduced Teaching and Clinical Duties policy

Stanford University is one example of a research institution that has adopted a Reduced Teaching and Clinical Duties policy that allows faculty to remain on full salary with reduced teaching duties. To avoid abuse of the policy, faculty are only eligible if they are the sole caregiver for at least 20 hours during the workweek between 8 a.m. and 7 p.m., Monday through Friday.[3] Similarly, Harvard Law School has adopted a policy that provides paid leave to any faculty member who is "the sole caretaker of his or her newborn or newly adopted child at least 20 hours per week, from Monday through Friday, between the hours of 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. The applicant for the leave must assert that he or she will be the "sole caregiver" for the requisite period.[4] This kind of policy is not based on biological sex, but rather on caregiver status. Under this policy, both mothers and fathers can bond with their newborn or newly adopted child.

3. Have Opt-In vs. Opt-Out Policies

When stop-the-clock and other policies such as family leave rely on faculty to "opt in" to the policies rather than opt out of them, it leaves mothers and fathers in the uncomfortable position of negotiating with chairs about eligibility to utilize the policies. A 2002 national survey of over 4,000 faculty members revealed that 33 percent of faculty who were parents—mothers and fathers—did not ask for parental leave, and just less than 20 percent did not ask to stop the tenure clock, even though they thought they would have benefited from doing so.[5]

One way to lessen the stigma of stop-the-clock policies is to make them trigger automatically, so faculty have to opt out of them if they do not want to stop the tenure clock when an eligible event, such as having a child, occurs.

Best Practice: MIT's automatic tenure clock extension policy:

At MIT, women who give birth are automatically granted a tenure-clock extension. The policy states:

In recognition of the effects that pregnancy and childbirth can have on a woman's ability to perform all the tasks necessary and expected to achieve tenure, a woman who bears one or more children during her tenure probationary period will have that period extended by one year. As in all tenure cases, a tenure review can take place prior to the end of the probationary period and that possibility should be assessed annually.[6]

Thus, the MIT policy allows for flexibility if the qualifying employee does not want to extend the tenure clock.

Best Practice: Vanderbilt University's automatic one-year extension of the tenure clock:

Vanderbilt University has a comprehensive parental leave policy that provides for an automatic one-year extension of the tenure clock when a faculty member gives birth or adopts a child.[7]

4. Eliminate Bias by Clearly Communicating Policies to Internal and External Reviewers

Unfortunately, there are many stories of people who have stopped the tenure clock, only to encounter outside reviewers who ignore this fact. Inside and outside reviewers should be informed that, when a candidate has stopped the clock, the appropriate evaluation of the candidate should not be based on years from the Ph.D., but instead should tally only the countable time. To protect against discrimination, some universities have adopted statements against discrimination.

Best Practice: The University of California's Policy on Family Accommodation and Personnel Reviews

The University of California's Policy on Family Accommodation and Personnel Reviews provides that:

Academic appointees shall not be arbitrarily disadvantaged in their promotion, advancement or compensation because they have elected to take a childbearing or parental leave, to stop the clock, or to defer a personnel review. Personnel reviews that are deferred due to a family accommodation should be treated procedurally in the same manner as personnel reviews conducted at the usual intervals. The file shall be evaluated without prejudice at the usual intervals. The file shall be evaluated without prejudice as if the work were done in the normal period of service and so stated in the department chair's or unit head's letter.[8]

5. Provide Training for All Departmental Chairs on Gender Bias

Hidden gender biases can affect the behavior of even well-meaning faculty and administrators, and can penalize women in general, as well as mothers and others with caregiving responsibilities.[9] To make family-friendly policies effective, it is essential that chairs be trained to recognize gender bias and act to prevent it.

Best Practice: The University of Michigan STRIDE program

The University of Michigan STRIDE program has created innovative programs to educate key faculty about the impact of unexamined bias. STRIDE has recruited full professors at the University of Michigan to participate in an ongoing committee that provides advice on strategies to recruit a diverse and well-qualified faculty. Each member studies a recommended reading list and attends three half-days of training on diversity issues.[10] STRIDE committee members then lead workshops for departments, search committees, and other groups in which they educate their peers about unexamined gender and other biases.[11] The STRIDE program has been particularly effective because the committee members are well-respected in their fields and the training is provided only upon request. The STRIDE program has succeeded in increasing the percentage of female hires in science and engineering from 14 percent to 34 percent in a period of four years.[12]

6. Offer a Part-Time Tenure Track

The rigidity of the tenure clock keeps some mothers from succeeding in academia and dissuades many other women from even initiating a career in academia. The average faculty workweek exceeds 50 hours a week[13]; this schedule discourages many women from entering, or remaining, in academia, given that 95% of American mothers age 25 – 44 work less than fifty hours a week. Married women, both with and without children, are leaving academia at disproportionately high rates at every stage of the academic career.[14] A part-time tenure track can create a viable pathway to success for men and women with significant caregiving responsibilities.

Best Practice: The University of Washington Part-Time Tenure Track:

The University of Washington has two policy options for tenure-track faculty who want to work part time: 1) a permanent part-time tenure track, and 2) a temporary part-time option, using partial leave and tenure-clock extension. The University of California, Berkeley, also has instituted a part-time tenure track and found in a survey of UC faculty that even the majority of men supported this option, especially if it could be taken at any time during a career.[15]

7. Train All Chairs in Managing with Flexibility

While department chairs have critical roles in hiring, evaluating, and retaining faculty, they traditionally have had minimal training in management and often know little about important university policies such as family leave. An untrained chair, for example, may unknowingly violate the Family and Medical Leave Act by conditioning leave on a faculty member finding his or her own teaching replacement. It is essential to train all chairs on how to implement family-friendly policies and manage with flexibility.

Best Practice: The UC Berkeley Family Friendly Edge also conducts a "School for Chairs."

The UC Berkeley Family Friendly Edge also conducts a "School for Chairs." These university leaders are taught how to discount resume gaps attributable to parenthood, mentor new parents through the tenure process, find a second job for dual-career couples, create a more family-friendly climate through small changes such as ending faculty meetings by 5 p.m., and ensure that stopping the clock or taking family leave is not counted against candidates. These policies and practices have helped UC Berkeley to increase its hiring rates for new women faculty from 26 percent to nearly 40 percent in the last few years.[16]

Best Practice: The University of Washington CIC Leadership Workshop for Chairs

At the University of Washington, the ADVANCE Center for Institutional Change (CIC) has instituted quarterly half-day leadership workshops for chairs and emerging leaders. These workshops are a chance to discuss best practices and strategies to advance women and underrepresented minorities in science, engineering, and mathematics.[17] Past topics include family leave and tenure-clock extensions, dual career hires, and building job offers. The CIC has found that holding regular gatherings, using case studies, and asking faculty members to lead the discussion have been critical to their workshops' success.[18]

8. Provide Cafeteria-Style Benefits

Another key way to control backlash against family-friendly policies is to provide cafeteria-style packaging of existing benefits, in which employees design their own benefits packages from a list of options. This plan recognizes that employees have a range of caregiving responsibilities—some faculty will need assistance with child care while others may have elder care duties. Academics without children may feel that their own struggles with balancing their work life are being ignored if the emphasis of existing benefit policies solely addresses the needs of faculty with children.

Best Practice: University of Delaware Cafeteria-Style Benefit Program

At the University of Delaware, for example, employees are allowed to choose from a cafeteria-style benefit program to suit their personal circumstances.[19]

9. Foster Dual Careers with Central Financing

While both men and women in academia struggle to find work in the same geographic area as their partners, this challenge disproportionately affects the careers of women academics. One study of dual career policies at a major university showed that 70 percent of the primary hires were male.[20] The "trailing spouse" often ends up with a much less desirable position than the primary hires. If colleges and universities want to advance women, a dual career program that is centrally funded and provides real opportunities for accompanying spouses can alleviate this negative impact.

Best Practice: Purdue University Bridge Program

To facilitate dual careers, Purdue University introduced the Bridge Program in 1992 to assist couples who both want to be on the faculty. This program is run by the executive vice president for academic affairs and can provide funding if a department cannot fund a full-time position for one of the spouses. The program also assists accompanying spouses who are not academics with contacts in the surrounding job market and help with relocation issues.[21]

10. Establish Re-entry Programs for Academics

One way to undo the damage caused by the lack of institutional support for families in academia is to create re-entry programs for the men and women who have left academia because of their caregiving responsibilities. Colleges and universities can create re-entry programs to realize their investments in the many academic mothers who already have been fully trained, and who are languishing in the second tier of academia or are out of the workforce because of the lack of family-friendly policies.

Colleges and universities can also help assist candidates seeking to re-enter academia by encouraging faculty hiring committees to discount resume gaps due to caregiving responsibilities.[22] And federal and other research funders can mitigate the impact of caregiving responsibilities on academic careers by restructuring research grants to include family accommodation policies.

Best Practice: Lehman Brothers Encore Program:

In 2005, Lehman Brothers launched its Encore Program in New York City. This program is designed to foster networking and professional development opportunities for women who formerly worked in finance and are interested in re-entering.[23] "We recruit at undergraduate schools, grad schools, and competitors, but in terms of achieving diversity goals, there's just not enough talent there. If you want more women applying, you have to look at the at-home pool."[24] Academia can learn from the bottom-line interests of business to increase the talent pool of women.

Best Practice: The National Institute of Health

The National Institute of Health sponsors re-entry grants for scientific research, which target women who have been away from research for at least two years, but no more than eight years.[25]

The best practices cited above are at the vanguard of human resources policies that promote gender equity in academia. Unfortunately, these kinds of programs are few and far between. In order to achieve excellence in academia, we must find ways to allow the talents of faculty members with family obligations to thrive without giving up either their career potential or their caregiving responsibilities. Fortunately, many institutions such as those described here have started to develop promising practices to recruit, retain, and advance women. These institutions can serve as a model for others seeking to follow their lead. For more information, contact the Center for WorkLife Law at info@worklifelaw.org.

(The above is excerpted from Joan C. Williams and Donna L. Norton, "Building Academic Excellence through Gender Equity," American Academic 4, no. 1 (March 2008) 185-208.)

Endnotes