AAS Committee on the Status of Women
Issue of March 18, 2011
eds. Joan Schmelz, Caroline Simpson & Michele Montgomery

This week's issues:

1. Senior Women: A Comparison of Astronomy Departments

2. Grad School Rankings: How Important is Diversity?

3. Univ. of Wisc.-Milwaukee Study: Work Climate Discourages Women Engineers

4. Leaders and Science and Engineering: The Women of MIT

5. NY Times Crossword with a Women-in-STEM Theme

6. Peer Mentoring

7. Women in Science

8. How to Submit to AASWOMEN

9. How to Subscribe or Unsubscribe to AASWOMEN

10. Access to Past Issues of AASWOMEN

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
1. Senior Women: A Comparison of Astronomy Departments
From: Joan Schmelz [jschmelz_at_memphis.edu]

Senior woman in astronomy provide us with mentors and role models. They can
sometimes change or even transform the culture, dynamics, and environment of a
university department. They can stand with us and fight for us if we find
ourselves the victim of gender discrimination, sexual harassment, or unconscious
bias. They can make a department more female friendly.

CSWA has compiled a list of % women on the senior faculty (tenured professors
only) for PhD astronomy departments in the US. For joint appointments, we
attempted to include the % time devoted to the astronomy department. Numbers and
percentages were confirmed by a member of each department except where noted.
Please feel free to contact me with any changes, updates, and questions.

For comparison, 18% of full members of the AAS are women. In addition, 30% of
named postdocs have been women for the past 20 years; these represent some of
the most highly qualified potential candidates for faculty positions.

This table is a corrected version of the one that was originally emailed with AASWomen. You can also
find a copy on the Women in Astronomy blog:

http://womeninastronomy.blogspot.com/


	%W	
	# W	
	# M	
	University	
	Department	
	Joint Appts.	
	42.9	
	3	
	4	
	Indiana Univ.	
	Astronomy	
		
	33.3	
	4	
	8	
	Univ. of Washington	
	Astronomy	
		
	33.3	
	1	
	2	
	Case West. Res. Univ.	
	Astronomy	
		
	29.2	
	3.5	
	8.5	
	Caltech	
	Astronomy	
		
	28.0	
	1.75	
	4.5	
	Univ. of Wisconsin	
	Astronomy	
	1 at 0.75; 1 at 0.5	
	23.8	
	5	
	16	
	UCSC	
	Astronomy & Astrophysics	
		
	23.1	
	3	
	10	
	Univ. Michigan	
	Astronomy	
		
	23.1	
	3	
	10	
	Columbia Univ.	
	Astronomy & Astrophysics	
		
	22.4	
	3	
	10.4	
	Ohio State	
	Astronomy	
	1 at 0.25; 3 at 0.05	
	20.0	
	2	
	8	
	Univ. of Minnesota	
	Astronomy	
		
	20.0	
	4	
	16	
	Univ. of Arizona	
	Astronomy	
		
	19.0	
	2	
	8.5	
	Princeton Univ.	
	Astrophysical Sciences	
	1 at 0.5	
	16.7	
	3	
	15	
	UCLA	
	Astronomy & Astrophysics	
		
	15.0	
	3	
	17	
	Univ. of Colorado	
	Astrophysical & Planet. Sci.	
		
	14.3	
	2	
	12	
	Univ. of Florida	
	Astronomy	
		
	14.3	
	2	
	12	
	UMass	
	Astronomy	
		
	12.5	
	1	
	7	
	Univ. of Illinois	
	Astronomy	
	2 at 0.5	
	12.5	
	2	
	14	
	Penn State	
	Astronomy & Astrophysics	
		
	11.8	
	2	
	15	
	UC Berkeley*	
	Astronomy	
		
	10.0	
	2	
	18	
	Univ. of Texas, Austin	
	Astronomy	
		
	9.5	
	2	
	19	
	Cornell Univ.	
	Astronomy	
		
	8.3	
	1	
	11	
	Harvard Univ.	
	Astronomy	
	4 at 0.5	
	7.7	
	1	
	12	
	Boston Univ.	
	Astronomy	
		
	7.4	
	1	
	12.5	
	Univ. of Maryland	
	Astronomy	
	1 at 0.5	
	4.7	
	1	
	20.5	
	Univ. of Chicago	
	Astronomy & Astrophysics	
	3 at 0.5	
	0.0	
	0	
	13	
	Univ. of Virginia	
	Astronomy	
		



----------------------------------------------------------------------------
2. Grad School Rankings: How Important is Diversity?
From: Nancy Brickhouse [bhouse_at_head.cfa.harvard.edu]

This website has an interactive tool that allows you to get rankings of graduate
school programs, based on a variety of priority settings:

http://graduate-school.phds.org/rankings/astronomy

For example, scroll down and set Diversity to 5, leave all else the same, and
see what you get. You can also go to "More options" under "Diversity" and set
Female faculty to 5.

Data come from the National Science Foundation, the National Research Council,
and the National Center for Education Statistics. The graduate school rankings
have been made possible by grants from The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and The
Burroughs Welcome Fund. The National Postdoctoral Association and The Center for
Science and the Media have served as the project's fiscal sponsors.

Having said that, the ranking algorithm is not yet described ("Details coming
soon. Stay tuned.").

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
3. Univ. of Wisc.-Milwaukee Study: Work Climate Discourages Women Engineers
From: Rick Fienberg [rick.fienberg_at_aas.org]

Women who leave engineering jobs after obtaining the necessary degree are
significantly more likely to leave the field because of an uncomfortable work
climate than because of family reasons, according to a study being undertaken at
the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (UWM).

Nearly half of women in the survey who left an engineering career indicated they
did so because of negative working conditions, too much travel, lack of
advancement or low salary, the study shows.

Despite successful interventions to increase the numbers of women earning
degrees in engineering, the field now faces the problem of retaining those
female engineers. The study, supported by a half-million-dollar grant from the
National Science Foundation (NSF), allowed respondents to list more than one
reason for leaving, and about half did.

To read more:

http://www4.uwm.edu/news/stories/details.cfm?customel_datapageid_11602=3967127

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
4. Leaders and Science and Engineering: The Women of MIT
From: Edmund Bertschinger [edbert_at_mit.edu]

As part of its 150th anniversary, MIT is hosting a major symposium on women in
science and engineering March 28-29, 2011. This symposium aims to recognize both
individual and institutional leadership in the success of women in science and
engineering. It is woven around the landmark 1996 and 1999 reports of the
Faculty Committees on Women in Science and their subsequent impact inside and
beyond MIT. The symposium will have plenary sessions of talks by outstanding
women faculty. In addition, there will be sessions giving a historical and
current assessment of women in science and engineering, including the impact of
the 1999 report.

A description of the symposium, with links to the program and to the
registration page, can be found at:

http://mit150.mit.edu/symposia/women-of-MIT

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
5. NY Times Crossword with a Women-in-STEM Theme
From: Catherine Garland [catherine.garland_at_castleton.edu]

Learn about women in STEM in the NY Times new Student Crossword:

http://learning.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/03/11/student-crossword-women-in-stem-fields/

NY Times suggests that when you're done, you might:

	Visit their Women's History Month collection to find lesson plans for
subjects across the curriculum, historical Times articles, and more related
Student Crosswords.
	
	Answer their Student Opinion question, "Why Are Women Underrepresented in
STEM Fields?"


----------------------------------------------------------------------------
6. Peer Mentoring
From: Hannah_at_women_in_astronomy_blog

I first encountered this term "Horizontal Mentoring" in the article "Horizontal
Mentoring Alliances: Resonant Phenomena" that appeared last fall in the Gazette,
published by the American Physical Society's CSWP. But the concept is not
strange to me. In fact, I wrote about it a couple of years ago, when I referred
to it as "Peer Mentoring."

In fact, I have been a part of a peer mentoring group myself for almost two
years now. The four of us come from various fields of science and all of us have
children, and when we started meeting, we were all postdocs. Although the
Gazette article cited above talks about peer mentoring at the senior faculty
level, I would argue that horizontal mentoring is valuable at any level. Since
the time we started meeting, two of us have given birth with a third on the way,
and 3 of the 4 of us have landed permanent positions. Simply based on those
statistics, I'd say our group has been a huge success!

So how do you go about setting up a peer mentoring group? We loosely based ours
on Every Other Thursday by Ellen Daniell, with a number of modifications that we
either agreed to in advance or evolved naturally as we went along. From there,
it's a matter of recruiting people who are willing to commit to regular
meetings, maintain confidentiality, and contribute to group problem solving.

To read more:

http://womeninastronomy.blogspot.com/2011/03/peer-mentoring.html
 
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
7. Women in Science
From: Rick Fienberg [rick.fienberg_at_aas.org]

From an AAAS policy alert, 3/16/11:

Bill Introduced to Promote Women in Science. On March 2 the Fulfilling the Potential of Women in Academic Science and Engineering Act of 2011 (H.R. 889) was introduced by Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-TX), ranking member of the House, Science and Space Committee. The legislation would require the National Science Foundation (NSF) to collect demographic data on federal grant awardees including information on gender, race, age, and tenure/rank. It would also require the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) to conduct workshops on mechanisms for minimizing gender bias in the evaluation of federal research grant proposals. The bill is similar to language that Rep. Johnson had included as an amendment to the America COMPETES Act but which was removed during the final conference negotiations with the Senate.

And from a NASA press release, 3/16/11:

NASA announced the creation of a new website that features women in NASA careers telling their stories in their own words. The website has 32 video interviews with women of diverse backgrounds who represent different aspects of the agency's work. Subjects include astronauts, engineers and scientists. They discuss their accomplishments and offer encouragement to women and girls considering technical careers so they can become the trailblazers of tomorrow. The site also provides information about NASA internships and career opportunities. Visit the new website at

http://women.nasa.gov

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
8. How to Submit to AASWOMEN

Send email to aaswomen_at_aas.org .

All material will be posted unless you tell us otherwise, including your email address.

Please remember to replace "_at_" in the e-mail address above.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
9. How to Subscribe or Unsubscribe to AASWOMEN

http://lists.aas.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/aaswlist

If you experience any problems, please email itdept_at_aas.org

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
10. Access to Past Issues of AASWOMEN

http://www.aas.org/cswa/AASWOMEN.html

Each annual summary includes an index of topics covered.


_______________________________________________
AASWList mailing list
AASWList@aas.org
http://lists.aas.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/aaswlist


End of AASWList Digest, Vol 49, Issue 3
***************************************