Dive Brief:
- A study on faculty diversity growth between 1993-2013 reveals that women have increased substantially in tenure and non-tenure-track faculty appointments, while racial minorities have only seen minor increases. Data taken from the Department of Education reveals that women earning tenure increased by 46,700 positions over the period, while males decreased by 14,900.
- In the percentage of the total number of female faculty appointments, full-time hires increased by 144% while part-time hires grew by only 122%.
- The ratio of men-to-women holding tenured positions has dropped from 3-to-1 to 1.7-to-1 in the last 20 years, but the comparison ratio remains more than double at research institutions.
Dive Insight:
The survey of faculty data comes as colleges continue to wrestle with how to increase diversity among tenured faculty, and especially among women, whom are often socially pressured to postpone family planning to achieve promotion goals. When added to the focus on how colleges should recruit more diverse faculty, and how to make salaries more equitable among the gender, college executives face growing pressure to even playing fields along racial and gender lines — and in a hurry.
Some institutions are using dual career programs to recruit women and their partners to campuses, but research on the subject suggests that women are more likely to turn down these types of offers than men; even women who view their careers as primary or equal to that of their partners. Money may be a commodity that is growing more rare in higher education space, but it is the potential of higher pay or income to be recouped by a spousal loss of pay that is a key component in bringing more women into the highest faculty ranks.