Murray State ADVANCE

ADVANCE Seminar

An ADVANCE Seminar will be held on Thursday January 31st, 2019 at 3:30pm in Faculty Hall 308.  Dr. Patricia Kelley will discuss "Women in Science: Dress Like a Lady, Act Like a Man, Work Like a Dog".  Dr. Kelley is a Professor Emeritus of the University of North Carolina, Wilmington.

Although women make up half the total U.S. workforce, only 28% of the science and engineering (S&E) workforce is female (Science and Engineering Indicators, 2018), despite improvements in recent years. Substantial differences in the proportion of women exist among S&E fields, with the fewest women represented in the physical sciences and engineering. S&E unemployment rates are highest for underrepresented minority women, who face multiple threats of discrimination (“intersectionality”). Failure to recruit and retain females occurs at several points in the “pipeline,” with losses documented between 4th and 8th grade, on entering college, between successive degrees (BS, MS, PhD), and on entering the workforce.  A host of factors impede female recruitment and retention, including disproportionate family commitments, salary disparities, and a culture of negative stereotypes, explicit and implicit biases, and hostilities.  These factors can be overcome by deliberate measures to eliminate threats and attract and retain, rather than discourage, females from pre-K years onward. For example, the presence of role models, mentoring, and networking opportunities can encourage women to continue in science. Workplace policies and environments that prevent explicit and implicit bias, discrimination, and harassment based on gender are paramount. With cultural change, women will not need to “look like a lady, act like a man, and work like a dog” to succeed in science.

ADVANCE 2017 Climate Study Recommendations

The ADVANCE PIs have made the following recommendations to Murray State based on the 2017
Climate Study:

• Improve perception that work/life balance is a priority at Murray State.
• Provide childcare facility for employees.
• Develop faculty support network by institutionalizing the mentoring circles through the
  Faculty Development Center.
• Assess workload expectations, particularly regarding teaching and service.
• Increase salaries to be comparable to peer institutions and establish mechanism for annual
  increases.
• Introduce optional bias training with a view to improving recruitment activities, and tenure
  & promotion processes.
• Increase exposure to policies about extension of the probationary period (see Faculty
  Handbook).

The report is available here.

Differences and Deficits Affecting Women STEM Faculty: Creating a Framework for Change at a Rural Public University

Murray State University provides a unique opportunity to examine how structural and cultural differences associated with a historically rural agrarian area may impact the recruitment, retention and promotion of women faculty in STEM and SBES disciplines. It has been a challenge to recruit and retain female faculty and students in STEM at Murray State. We hypothesize that deficit and difference factors manifest differently at a rural public institution. We will conduct a survey of all faculty and interviews of selected female faculty members, review existing institutional data and policies, conduct site-visits to other ADVANCE institutions, invite external speakers to campus to inform and educate the administration and faculty, and conduct mentoring circles to support our junior STEM and SBES women faculty.