From The Faculty
Chair
Women and
MIT:
Role of the Department Head
Jacquelyn
C. Yanch
The trouble is the Institute
provides the carrots, but it leaves discretion with individual
departments.
Interviewee, Report of
the School of Architecture and Planning, p. 55
Now
that the President and Provost have openly and enthusiastically
mandated the creation of an equitable and hospitable environment for
women faculty at MIT, the bulk of the responsibility for changing the
climate now rests with the 26 men and 5 women who head the
Institute's departments/divisions/sections. These are the individuals
who have the biggest influence on the kind of experience a woman has
at MIT.
Clearly the department head has a
major influence on the tangibles: the allocation of laboratory and
office space, the teaching load, participation on committees, and
annual salary raises. Data about the tangibles are fairly easily
obtained and inequities are simple to rectify once uncovered. That's
the easy part. The more difficult task is to address the intangibles
that, added together, create the overall departmental environment. It
is the department head's responsibility to make that environment one
within which a woman feels her contributions are valued equally with
those of her male colleagues; an environment where a woman feels that
she is a full participant in the department, not an
on-looker.
The startling quantitative and
qualitative data presented in the Reports of the Committees on the
Status of Women Faculty point to a situation for women that is the
result of discrimination and biases held by decades of previous
department heads. I believe, for the most part, that this
discrimination was inadvertent and subconscious, and thus changing
the overall environment is going to be a challenging task.
By action and example the department
heads set the stage for their entire department. They must, by their
actions, demonstrate to their entire faculty that support of women in
the department is expected. Here are some examples of actions
department heads can take that can make a difference.
- Make sure important decisions are
made through the regular committee structure (since the unofficial
power structure is so heavily male-dominated) and make sure that
women are represented on the important committees.
- Make it your business to know the
specific research area of your women faculty. (It can't be that
onerous, there aren't that many of them.) Make a point of asking
why Professor so-and-so is not a part of a particular student's
doctoral committee when the student's area of research is so
clearly related to hers.
- Set an example for the faculty at
large by scheduling meetings only during normal (?) working hours
or by asking why meetings set by others in the department are
scheduled at 6:00 p.m. or 8:00 a.m. Make it clear, by actions such
as these, that you fully expect your faculty to have family
obligations and that you don't expect MIT to always come first in
the ever-present conflict between MIT and family/life.
- Communicate, on a regular basis,
information about the new Institute family support policies. Even
more important is the need to show support for the women and men
who use these policies. Make it clear by your own example that
resentment of faculty who participate in these policies will not
be tolerated.
- Don't wait until one of your
women faculty threatens to leave or receives outside offers to
make it clear to her that you honestly value her contributions to
the department. Everyone wants to know their efforts are
appreciated (especially if making the effort has meant family
sacrifices).
- Don't assume that just because
you have supervised female graduate students, or perhaps raised
daughters, that this makes you sensitive to subtle and
subconscious discrimination against women, or that this renders
you pro-active enough in terms of making the environment more
hospitable for women.
- If a woman in your department
comes with a request for resources, put extra effort into trying
to get them for her. If you think that by putting this advice into
action department heads will be pandering to women professors,
remember that the Institute's history of discrimination has
created a somewhat hostile environment. Your extra efforts on her
behalf may help to level the playing field. And they certainly
will go a long way toward making her feel valued by you, her boss.
If you worry that you will be neglecting the needs of the junior
men on the faculty, give them the same treatment, and they will
also feel more valued.
- Re-read those portions of the
Reports where women faculty have described their experience
at MIT, and where examples are given which illustrate the things
that, bit by bit, sum to generate a working environment that is
neither supportive nor equitable for women.
Generation of a positive climate is
primarily the responsibility of the department head. However, it is
the responsibility of the deans and the provost to provide guidance
to the department heads so that they can make the necessary changes
to the climate for women faculty, and to monitor the situation to
ensure that positive changes are, in fact, being made over
time.