February 1997: Volume 10, Number 3

Gender Distribution and Hiring Goals for IUB Faculty

In 1887, IU President David Jordan wrote the following note to the Board of Trustees:

A good many of the friends of the University are interested in having a woman appointed to some position in the institution. There can be no doubt that a woman of scholarship, tact, social experience, and maturity of mind and character could be of great value to the University. It is also true that a woman whose special scholarship was not such as to place her on a fair equality with the men in the Faculty could not succeed as the occupant of a Chair in the University.

Women who have had the requisite training and who possess the other qualities desired are very rare. I know of one and but one in this state, and I doubt if she could be induced to come here.

Despite President Jordan's concerns, women eventually did join the IUB faculty. The 1900 Indiana University Catalogue lists 68 men as full-time faculty and three women as "instructors." It is worth noting, however, that these women taught strictly feminine subjects: they were all designated instructors of women's physical education, physiology, or hygiene. A year later, in 1901, an assistant professor of chemistry accepted an appointment at IUB.

By 1922, the year IU appointed its first women full professors, 8% (17 faculty members) of the 192 full-time professors and directors were women. An additional 28 women and 34 men were designated as "instructors." A 1969 AAUP study conducted on campus by psychology professor Peggy Intons-Peterson revealed that of 1,301 faculty members, 141 (10.8%) were women. By 1983, the percentage of women professors had grown to 19%: 274 of the 1416 full-time faculty on the Bloomington campus were women. For this (1996-97) academic year, 385 (26.9%) of our 1,430 tenured or tenure-track faculty are women. To facilitate comparisons with the earlier data, this number does not include librarians.

While these ratios and percentages show steadily increasing opportunities for women faculty on our campus, analyses done by IUB's Office of Affirmative Action illustrate that women faculty remain underrepresented across most of the schools in the university (see Table 1 below) and in all but two of the departments in the College of Arts and Sciences (see Table 2 below). Afro-American Studies and Apparel Merchandising are the only two departments in which women scholars are not underutilized. To identify problem areas such as underrepresentation of women and minorities, the Office of Affirmative Action conducts an annual analysis of the university's workforce. The office's report provides a snapshot view of female and minority representation in each department in October of each year.

Table 1. 1995 IUB Women Faculty Utilization and Hiring Goals
Schools Total % Avail. % IU Util Underutilized?
Business 122 33.0 20.5 YES
Continuing Studies 6 63.2 0.0 YES
Education 107 61.8 35.5 YES
HPER 57 53.7 35.1 YES
Journalism 22 32.1 31.8 YES
Law 39 31.0 28.2 YES
Library and Information Sciences 18 46.8 50.0 NO
Medical Sciences 11 35.8 9.1 YES
Music 120 28.7 26.7 YES
Nursing 6 95.8 100.0 NO
Optometry 21 41.6 19.1 YES
Public and Environmental Affairs 48 30.0 18.8 YES
University Libraries 97 65.7 91.8 NO

Table 2. 1995 COAS Women Faculty Utilization and Hiring Goals


* Only departments with ten or more faculty members are listed. *

Departments Total % Avail. % IU Util Underutilized?
Afro-American Studies 13 46.0 53.9 NO
Anthropology 21 55.8 47.6 YES
Biology 47 40.3 17.0 YES
Central Eurasian Studies 15 49.5 0.0 YES
Chemistry 35 27.1 0.0 YES
Classical Studies 10 43.7 40.0 YES
Comparative Literature 14 57.0 35.7 YES
Criminal Justice 15 44.6 33.3 YES
Computer Science 20 20.0 0.0 YES
East Asian Languages and Cultures 16 52.2 43.8 YES
Economics 27 27.7 3.7 YES
English 66 51.4 36.4 YES
French and Italian 26 63.5 26.9 YES
Folklore Institute 13 51.5 38.5 YES
Germanic Studies 12 60.7 33.3 YES
Geology 20 24.8 5.0 YES
Fine Arts 32 65.5 43.8 YES
History 49 35.7 28.6 YES
Linguistics 14 61.1 21.4 YES
Mathematics 56 23.5 3.6 YES
Physics 42 11.3 4.8 YES
Philosophy 21 27.8 23.8 YES
Political Science
Psychology 41 60.3 19.5 YES
Religious Studies 16 23.1 18.8 YES
Slavic Languages and Literature 11 57.3 36.4 YES
Sociology 30 54.7 36.4 YES
Spanish and Portuguese 25 69.2 52.0 YES
Speech Communication 12 49.6 33.3 YES
Speech and Hearing Sciences 16 78.8 62.5 YES
Telecommunications 18 50.6 27.8 YES
Theatre and Drama 15 48.2 6.7 YES

To determine whether women and minorities are underrepresented in a given job category, the Office of Affirmative Action and the Office of Academic Affairs and Dean of the Faculties group positions that have similar skills, pay, and upward mobility. Women or minorities are considered underutilized if the national pool of available, qualified applicants for that job group is larger than the number of women and minorities employed in those positions. In most schools and departments, the available pool is determined by data from the National Research Council, a private, non-profit organization which records the number of Ph.D.s awarded in academic disciplines for the past six years.

Various monitoring agencies in the university the deans of schools, the Office of Academic Affairs and Dean of the Faculties, the Office of Affirmative Action, and the chairpersons of search committees bear responsibility for attracting qualified applicants that reflect women's and minority group members' participation in the field in question.

The largest disparities between the number of available, qualified women and IU's utilization of women professors occurs in the following schools:

Problem areas in the College of Arts and Sciences include:

Both Chemistry and Computer Science, which, according to the 1995 Affirmative Action data, have no female full-time faculty, hired one woman assistant professor for the 1996-97 academic year.

In 1985, the Bloomington Faculty Council adopted a recruitment and retention program aimed at improving the racial and gender mix of IUB's faculty. To implement the program, the campus administration allocates funds to hire minority faculty at any level and women at the tenured level each year. Departments nominate candidates to the Committee on the Recruitment and Retention of Minorities and Senior Women for its recommendation. Last year four faculty were successfully recruited three minority women and one white senior woman. Over the 12 years since the Committee's inception, 53 professors have been hired through this program. As the figures provided by the university's 1995-96 Affirmative Action Plan reveal, however, significant and continuous change is necessary before the IUB faculty becomes representative of the number of women Ph.D.s in the academic community at large. This spring, Deborah Freund, the Vice Chancellor of Academic Affairs and Dean of the Faculties, will appoint a commission to take a new look at our recruitment and retention strategies.

-- Susan Moke

From the Dean

March is Women's History Month. It is a time to recognize the achievements of women, to celebrate the impact of their accomplishments, and to honor the often courageous steps taken by women in our past. For this year's Office for Women's Affairs Women's History Month calendar, we gathered together photographs of some of IU's "first women" to accompany the listing of the month's events. A special thanks to the folks at IU Archives for their help with the photographs and information. We hope you are cheered and informed by our collection.

In our next issue we plan to write about the recently completed classification project for IUB support staff. The project has occupied the time, attention, and emotions of many women on campus, and we would like to know more about it. To do so, we need your help. We would like to hear from you about your experiences or reactions. To focus your responses, we would like you to consider the following questions:

As a support staff member or manager/supervisor, do you feel the reclassification project accomplished its stated goals of addressing equity concerns, overly complex classification structures, inflexible pay systems, and a lack of written policies?

Here are some questions for support staff: now that you have seen your final position slotting and assigned pay rate, do you feel your position has benefitted, stayed the same, or worsened after implementation? Was the appeals process effective in addressing employee concerns? Has the reclassification project changed how you feel about your job?

Here are some questions for managers/supervisors: do you feel the staff in your unit have benefitted from the reclassification project? Has it made your job as a supervisor easier? Did you feel the appeals process responded to your concerns about slotting your staff? Will the reclassification project have any effect on your ability to retain your current staff or to hire new staff in your unit? Have the results of the project adversely or positively affected the morale of your staff?

Please send your comments to OWA in Memorial Hall East 123 or e-mail us at owa@indiana.edu.

A Proper Scientist

The history of Indiana University's female faculty particularly in disciplines traditionally unreceptive to women's participation provides many interesting stories. The story of Mary Bidwell Breed has significance for women in the science and mathematics fields.

In 1901, acknowledging that women constituted about a third of the student body, President Joseph Swain hired Mary Bidwell Breed as the first Dean of Women. Dr. Breed held a dual appointment at IU: she was also an assistant professor of chemistry. A Quaker from Pittsburgh, Breed instituted proper behavior for men and women based on East Coast standards for suitable social interaction, speech, and dress at the University. Even with the housing shortage in Bloomington at that time, she insisted on the end of open housing and supported efforts of faculty wives (led by Mrs. Swain) to establish separate all-women's housing.

It is ironic that Mary Bidwell Breed was concurrently the keeper of decorous behavior for women and a professor in the traditionally male field of chemistry. Her own life reflects a non-traditional pursuit of science at a time when women were not welcomed into laboratories. Thus, Breed's responsibilities as Dean of Women are mentioned in IU's history more than her position in the Chemistry Department.

When Dr. Breed came to Indiana University, she was the only woman among 61 male faculty members. Thomas D. Clark, chronicler of IU history, writes that during this time there were a few adjunct female faculty members and staff, but "men and their younger colleagues comprise[d] a good teaching and promising research faculty." In fact, no woman held the rank of full professor until 1922 when Juliette Maxwell, Director of Physical Education for Women, and Lillian Gay Berry, associate professor of Latin, were both promoted to full professor on the same day. Today, the sciences remain largely male domains, and women are still underrepresented.

Women's History Month offers us opportunities to reflect on how far women have come at Indiana University. Ninety-five years after Mary Bidwell Breed's appointment as the first female assistant professor of chemistry, the chemistry department has one female faculty member an assistant professor who joined the faculty this year. The fact that women students constitute over 40% of the total undergraduate chemistry majors emphasizes the longstanding gender imbalance in science and mathematics. So, as we celebrate the historical accomplishments of women, let us also think about the lack of women faculty to educate our women students in the decorous behavior of scientists.

--Lynn K. Wilson, Women in Science Project Coordinator

Majority Report Index

February M.R. Index Sources:
1 a letter written by asst. IU Archivist Daniel Ruby; 2 IU Archives; 3 Harper's (Nov. 1996); 4,5,6,7 James Woodburn's History of Indiana University; 8 Chicago Tribune (12/12/96); 9,10,11 Indiana Alumni Magazine (Oct. 1970); 12,13 Thomas Clark's Indiana University: Midwestern Pioneer; 14 Harper's (Dec. 1996); 15,16,17 http://www.usatoday.com/leadpage/snap-shot/snap220.htm and snap002.htm; 18,19,20,21,22,23,24,25,26,27,29 The Chronicle of Higher Education (9/13/96);28,30 Herald Times (1/15/97).

Ms. Manners for the (18)90s

This sensible advice for women living at the turn of the last century comes from a book called The Glory of Women or Love, Marriage, and Maternity. The book's frontispiece promises that it contains "full information on all the marvelous and complex matters pertaining to women." Here are a few instructive, and we think amusing, excerpts in celebration of Women's History Month.

You Should have Useful Employments.


There is nothing unwomanly or unladylike in every woman being industriously and usefully employed. Every woman ought to be able to make her own clothing, and the clothing of at least young children. Every woman ought to know how to cook, so as to prepare a good meal in case of need, and to teach and direct her servants. She should be able to do everything that makes a house comfortable and elegant.

Receptions and Refreshments.


A call or the card, its equivalent, must be returned within a week; and every entertainment, dinner, ball, to which you are invited, must be responded to by a call, if you desire another invitation. When about to be absent for some time, it is expected that you will make a farewell visit to your acquaintances. If you do not see them, leave your card with P. P. C. upon it "Pour prendre cong‚" (to take leave). On your return, you are entitled to receive the first visit.

How to Escape a Bore.


And if a man is tiresome, or becomes so by talking too much, the best way to escape is by a compliment. Thank him for the pleasure he has given, and do not deprive others of the benefit of listening to his instructive remarks. We are not to be insincere; for everybody is instructive, though too much of some kinds of instruction may become monotonous. But a man of tact will be able at any time to give a new turn to conversation, and adroitly throw it into the hands of a more entertaining colloquist.

Subjects Not to be Mentioned.


Some say one should never mention at table anything which might not properly be placed upon it. Consequently, one should never mention disease, or medicine, or anything connected with either. If one speaks of a voyage, he must omit the interesting fact of his having been seasick. At all well-regulated water-cure establishments there is an absolute rule against the mention of disease or treatment. There may be no harm in saying, "I had a glorious douche this morning;" but the discussion that might arise is to be avoided.

Common Sense and Information.


To talk well, we must have both sense and knowledge; but one who has sense must have knowledge also. The experience and observation of every one's life is an education. He who knows himself knows the most of what is worth knowing; and all knowledge consists in self-knowledge, and the knowledge of our relations to the human beings, our thoughts and feelings, and the matter of our lives, is the best sense we can have, and what helps us most in conversation.

We do not usually talk about the sciences.


How seldom are geology or astronomy mentioned in conversation. Chemistry is less discussed than cookery. Men do not talk much of geography or geometry. History and biography come nearer to us, and still nearer politics and commerce, literature and art that is, the newest novels, and poems and pictures, or the songs of the season, are conversational topics in the best society. One must read the current literature, and know what is going on in the world; but the best of all knowledge for conversation is the knowledge of men, women, and life.

When Introductions are Not Needed.


No introductions are needed between people invited to a dinner or tea party or assembly of any kind. The fact that two persons are the guests of a mutual acquaintance is an introduction to each other. You have a right to offer a civility, or the charm of your society, to any lady present. You can ask any one to dance. You can enter into conversations.

A lady does not eat or drink without asking her neighbor to partake.


You never open and read a letter in company without the apology of asking permission. All fondlings and familiarities before company are improper. You have no right to do anything which any other person has not an equal right to do. The assertion, therefore, of any exclusive right to the attentions of your husband, in the presence of others, is a gross indelicacy.

New Women Faculty, Round III

Maria Bucur-Deckard (Ph.D. from the University of Illinois) comes to IUB as the John W. Hill Assistant Professor of East European History. Her work focuses on the development and use of eugenics in Romania after WWI as a means to modernize the nation and the state. She is currently teaching a survey course on gender in modern Europe and writing a chapter on Romania for a collection of essays on Culture and the Great War in Europe.

Donetta Cothran (Ph.D. from the University of Maryland) joins HPER's Department of Kinesiology as an assistant professor. She previously served seven years of active duty in the U.S. Army. Professor Cothran's research interests include teacher and student values, student cognition, and contextual influences in schools.

Assistant Professor of Speech Communication Leslie Jarmon (Ph.D. from the University of Texas in Austin) teaches courses in nonverbal communication and social interaction. Her research includes micro-analysis of face-to-face social interaction, ecologies of social interaction, and the use of digital video and embodied performance as tools for analysis and instruction. Dr. Jarmon created the first Ph.D. dissertation in the U.S. to be delivered in its entirety on CD-ROM.

Assistant Professor of Language Education Mitzi Lewison (Ph.D. from the University of Southern California) previously served as the Language Arts Director of the Galaxy Classroom, a public benefit corporation that uses a telecommunications network to link classrooms in 450 elementary schools. Her research interests include language arts instruction in culturally diverse settings, literacy development at the elementary level, establishing mutually beneficial university-school partnerships, exploring democratic forms of teacher professional development, and using telecommunications networks for collaborative inquiry among elementary students and teachers.

Deborah Carter (Ph.D. from the University of Michigan), who is an assistant professor of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies, does research on the high-school-to-college transition and the in-college experiences and achievement of Latino and African-American students.

Assistant Professor of History Arlene J. Diaz (Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota) is a specialist in Latin American history and women's history. Her research explores issues of gender and law in Venezuela. She comes to IUB from Chicago, where she was a Doctoral Dissertation Fellow at the American Bar Foundation.

Last Updated: May 9, 1997
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