Sciences Struggle To Draw Women

Departments in the natural sciences are struggling to keep up with University initiatives that aim to increase the number of tenured female faculty members.

Between 2002 and 2004, the number of senior female faculty in the natural sciences remained a constant 14 while the total number of tenured faculty grew from 151 to 158. The number of women will fall to 13 while the total number of tenured professors in the sciences will grow to 162 by Jan. 1, 2005, according to gender statistics from the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS).

Many professors say that specific departments’ hiring processes, misperceptions about the culture at Harvard, and the difficulties of uprooting women with families has led to a dearth of female senior faculty in the sciences.

WANTED: WOMEN

Department heads in the natural sciences say that the absence of women is not universal across all fields.

Harvard’s computer science and physics departments have an unusually high percentage of women on faculty, according to Dean of the Division of Engineering and Applied Sciences Venkatesh “Venky” Narayanamurti. In fact, the chair of the chemistry department is a woman.

But Harvard’s mathematics department currently has no women at the senior professor level, Narayanmurti says.

Harvard’s peer institutions face a similar situation in which men far outnumber the women at the highest levels in the sciences, he adds.

And the problem doesn’t involve convincing women to study the natural sciences.

“Many more women are getting graduate and undergraduate degrees in science but aren’t coming out the other end as professors,” he says.

EXPLAINING THE TREND

Professors offer various explanations for why women in the sciences aren’t keeping pace with their male counterparts at the highest levels of teaching.

Some argue that women are more difficult to relocate upon receiving a job offer in a different city than men are.

“A lot of families will relocate if a man gets the job,” says Higgins Professor of Mathematics and Department Chair Joseph D. Harris, “but not if the woman does.”

Peirce Assistant Professor of Mathematics Andreea C. Nicoara agrees that “there is a perception that it is easier to displace men than it is to displace women.”

The recent track record of the math department seems to substantiate this claim. Harris describes a process over the past 10 years in which the math department has “been trying to actively look for women.” During that time, the department has made about four offers at the senior faculty level to females, all of which were rejected.

The math department’s unique and hierarchical process of awarding tenure may contribute to the lack of senior females in the department.

Unlike other departments that promote assistant professors to senior faculty, the math department has no tenure track. As a general rule, it only “poaches” established senior faculty members from other institutions, Harris says.

This system may bias the tenure process in favor of men, Nicoara says. As part of the hiring process, the current all-male senior faculty evaluate the work of leading researchers at other universities and discuss whether or not to offer them tenure. In this situation, “men are favored because those kinds of networks are traditionally composed of men,” Nicoara says.

MIND THE GAP

Internal appointments in the other sciences are occurring more often as departments aim to tenure more women.

“When making senior appointments it is clear that we look at a number of junior faculty,” says Physics Department Chair John Huth.

Huth says that this new practice has made the tenure process seem significantly less daunting to assistant professors.

In addition to promoting more faculty along the tenure track, departments are conducting increasingly broad searches for professors. “We try to construct searches to be as broadly defined as possible,” Huth says, “because then the odds of identifying qualified women candidates can get substantially better.”

Huth says that if a woman is highly qualified but does not fit the job description precisely, the physics department still “moves rapidly” in order to try to recruit the female professor, who is termed a “target of opportunity.”

“We are beginning to be more proactive in identifying targets of opportunity,” Narayanamurti says. “You want to make phone calls to the right people.”

University President Lawrence H. Summers has been pushing for the hire of younger professors so that their best work is produced at Harvard.

Harris is particularly receptive to the emphasis on younger female hires because young professors are more likely to uproot. “We’re more willing to make an offer to younger women because it’s hard to recruit women who are established professors and have a family,” Harris says.

But Nicoara says that Summers’ policy could have detrimental effects on the hiring of women who may be starting families around the same time their male contemporaries are producing some of their best work. “Summers’ plan goes against having more women at the senior level,” Nicoara says, “because most women in math who are big in their field became so later on than many of their male colleagues.”

And the University should be more willing to accommodate couples in academia, she says. “If the husband is an academic in a different field,” Nicoara recommends, “then the University should try to provide position in that field or at least grant visitor status until they can find something in the area.”

At Tuesday’s Faculty meeting, Summers and Dean of FAS William C. Kirby expressed their support for plans to specifically target women in the tenure hiring process not just in the natural sciences but across FAS.

“We look at the total pool and sensitize the search committee if we think [the female candidates] are highly qualified,” Naraynamuri says.

“In borderline cases we may be especially receptive to evaluating a woman,” Hernquist says.

Jones Professor of American Studies Lizabeth Cohen said at Tuesday’s Faculty meeting that the Standing Committee on the Status of Women has recommended the return of an affirmative action dean.

However, Kirby said yesterday that he opposes the plan, preferring to leave oversight of tenure considerations to the divisional deans.

AN IMAGE PROBLEM

Despite moving toward hiring processes that target women, the University suffers from a problem with its image.

Chair of the Department of Astronomy Lars E. Hernquist says that “Harvard’s historic reputation is to not be friendly toward women.”

This image, combined with the perception of Harvard as refusing to promote from within, can be deterrent to prospective female academics, Hernquist says.

If Hernquist were a woman beginning a career, Hernquist says he might favor an institution like Berkeley—which has a reputation for a fairly painless tenure process. “Having a choice like that to me would seem like a no-brainer.”

Huth acknowledges the presence of a “macho culture” in which people constantly try to “one-up” each other by demonstrating their superior intelligence. “This is a turn off when you look to your peers for validation,” Huth says. “I find the atmosphere daunting as well.”

But Margo I. Seltzer, Smith professor of computer science, says she disagrees with the characterization of Harvard’s atmosphere as unwelcoming. “Harvard has an extraordinarily supportive environment,” Seltzer says. “It should be an attractive place to women.”

CHANGING PERCEPTIONS

Indeed, the University has employed policies specifically designed to make the experience for female faculty members more pleasant. “Harvard has done many good things in terms of leave policy and child care,” Narayanamurti says. “People are taking advantage of it.”

And at this week’s Faculty meeting, Summers also said the University would work to slow down the tenure clock, giving female professors the ability to take more time off for child-rearing.

Hernquist acknowledges the difficulty in trying to change people’s perspectives about the culture at Harvard. “I can only make the promise that the reputation is going to change in the future,” Huth says.

Being seen as what Narayanamurti terms a “collaborative, friendly organization” plays an especially important role in keeping undergraduate and graduate students in their science departments. It also makes female science professors feel comfortable at Harvard.

Departments are pushing for more mentoring programs for women in the sciences. Both the computer science and math departments offer mentoring programs in which undergraduates, graduate students and faculty members participate.

“We have been very active in mentoring all our junior faculty,” Narayanamurti says. “This mentoring is particularly important for women and minorities because they face issues of isolation.”

—Staff writer William C. Marra contributed to the reporting of this story.