Tenure denied

When University of Michigan political science professor Jill Crystal had her first child, she fought university policy and won the right to take a semester off with pay. But her efforts backfired later. Branded a troublemaker, she was denied tenure.

Sociology professor Rona Fields taught more for less pay than males ranked below her at Clark University and, when she rebuked the sexual advances of a senior colleague, was told, “This is no way to get tenure.” Sure enough, when she applied, tenure was refused.

When women’s studies professor Pat Washington applied for tenure at San Diego State University, the set of standards required for tenure was so elusive that it changed three times during her application process. “I’d meet it or exceed it, and they’d change it again,” she says. Tenure proved just as slippery—and was refused.

These are just three cases of 19 included in the American Association of University Women’s new report, Tenure Denied. The publication shows that women in academia hold only 27 percent of the tenured positions at four-year institutions. At the same time, they represent half the instructors and lecturers, almost half the assistant professors, a third of the associate professors and just a fifth of full professors.

The dearth of women in the most prestigious academic positions can be attributed in part to sexual discrimination, according to the study. It manifests as tokenism, hostility, backlash, invisibility and role stereotyping. It appears when the biological clock of motherhood “collides” with the tenure clock, when women’s studies is dismissed as frivolous, and when collegiality requirements are tainted by old-boy clubbiness or by perceptions of women as too quiet, or, when they are more assertive, as “uppity.”

Complicating these cases is a difficult tenure process that requires confidentiality, so that rising professors cannot know why they were denied these prestigious posts; the prohibitive expense of legal action, if required; and judicial interpretations so rife with nuance that the report labels the field a “tangled web of subjective judgments.” It doesn’t help that, at this level, professors are not unionized, although women on union campuses do benefit from the protection of collectively bargained administrative policies, says Leslie Annexstein, director of AAUW’s Legal Advocacy Fund (LAF).

AAUW is encouraging women to inform themselves and educate universities to prevent discriminating situations like those enumerated here. “Tenure Denied is not a call to lawsuits,” says Michele Warholic Wetherald, president of LAF. Rather, it is a call to universities to take time off the tenure clock for childbirth and parenting; provide written tenure policies to all current and prospective faculty; require written, explicit performance evaluations; and adopt clearly antidiscriminatory policies. The report also urges female academics to protect themselves by understanding employee rights (see box).

AAUW hopes these measures will create a fairer playing field for women in academia but, says Wetherald, “as the Tenure Denied report demonstrates, equity is still an issue.”

Students rarely ready for college

Finally graduated from high school, ready to take on the world. That’s how we’d like to think of our college-bound population, but a recent report shows them in crisis.

According to ACT, a research organization for education and the workforce, just 22 percent of high school graduates are prepared to succeed in college-level English, mathematics and science. Almost a third of them need remedial training when they arrive on campus, and half drop out of two-year colleges in the first year. At four-year colleges, a few more last—but a quarter of them still leave during those crucial freshman semesters.

ACT tested 1.2 million high school graduates in 2004 and found that just 26 percent could be expected to earn a C or higher in college biology, 40 percent are ready for college algebra and 68 percent could handle college English composition. And we can’t count on younger students to change the trend: Eighth- and 10th-graders show similar results on the college readiness scale.

Even more troubling is the racial disparity evident in the degree of college preparation. Native Americans and Hispanics are only half as likely to succeed in higher ed as Caucasians, and African-Americans dip to one-fifth as likely to be equipped to make the grade.

Those students who opt out of higher education altogether are not spared. They must be better prepared than ever for the workplace, and ACT asserts that students are falling short in that regard as well.

Ever since A Nation at Risk was published in 1983, ACT has advocated a core curriculum of four years of English and three each of mathematics, natural sciences and social studies. That may not be enough, and quality, not quantity, is the new focus.

ACT recommends a re-examination of the core curriculum, and now touts “Courses for Success”—biology, chemistry and physics as well as mathematics courses beyond algebra II. Students enrolled in these courses produced better scores, and those in more advanced courses rose even further.

Counter to ACT’s report, the “National Report Card on Higher Education,” from the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education, shows better college preparedness, but its reasoning reflects ACT’s: The increase is due to a rising number of students enrolled in upper-level math and science and Advanced Placement classes (see AFT On Campus, November 2004).

To improve college readiness, ACT encourages greater cooperation between K-12 and higher education institutions, a primary recommendation of AFT’s Student Persistance in College report (www.aft.org/pubs-reports/
higher_ed/student_persistence.pdf). Among ACT’s suggestions: annual reports from K-12 to higher ed describing each incoming student body, and subsequent reports from higher ed to K-12 on that cohort’s success; partnering professors and secondary teachers to share teaching expertise; new-teacher training to address learning gaps shown by assessments; and collaboration between colleges and high schools through dual enrollment, summer enrichment and distance learning.

To collect more ammunition in arguing for rigorous college preparation, see AFT’s publication, Hard Work Pays, available at www.aft.org/pubs-reports/parents/HardWorkPays.pdf.