In October 2001 CEWH sent an email letter to the Harvard Women Faculty asking them what they considered to be the three most important issues facing women faculty at Harvard. Out of 340 messages sent we received 47 replies, or 13.8% of the total. Replies by women with tenure were 11, or 3% of the total messages sent and 23.4% of total replies received. Below is a summary of the survey.

SUMMARY OF CEWH HARVARD WOMEN FACULTY SURVEY

TEACHING CONDITIONS
were cited 20 times; comments included:

• Senior faculty attitudes create poor conditions for junior faculty women.
• University culture encourages patterns of dominance/submission and inclusion/exclusion, usually to the detriment of women.
• Mentoring of junior faculty by senior faculty is inadequate.
• Faculty committee assignments go mostly to men.
• Mentoring students receives inadequate recognition.
• Women have more administrative duties than men.

TENURE/WOMAN FACULTY PRESENCE
issues were cited 18 times; comments included:

• There are not enough tenured women university-wide.
• Women are underrepresented on the faculty as a whole.
• There is a lack of a "critical mass" of women.

SALARY
was cited 10 times:

• The perception is that women are paid less than men in all ranks.

PARENTING
issues were cited 10 times; comments included:

• Teaching work loads make no accommodation for the requirements of raising children.
• There is a lack of adequate daycare assistance.
• Scheduling meetings after 6 p.m. is difficult for parents.
• Maternity (and other) leave policies are found inadequate. Some found them poor (5) but one praised them; this seems to differ by school and/or department.

WOMEN'S COMMUNITY
issues were cited 9 times; comments included:

• The lack of tenured women faculty deprives junior women faculty of role models.
• There is no peer community among junior faculty.

ADMINISTRATIVE DISINTEREST IN WOMEN'S ISSUES
was cited 8 times; comments included:

• The administration lacks the capacity to imagine leadership roles for women.
• There is no/little administrative support for women's studies.
• There is no administrative support for research on women and gender issues.
• There is no public information from the administration on the status of women at the university in general.

HIRING AND PROMOTION
was cited 4 times; comments included:

• Hiring biases against women continue to exist.
• There is no standard procedure within the University as a whole for promotion processes.
• There is no publicized information about promotion and tenure procedures.
• The lack of tenure track positions results in a high turnover of lower-ranked women and a consequent lack of their investment in the University.

MISCELLANEOUS
with 4 citations, included:

• Absence of minority faculty throughout the university, including minority women.
• Depression and exhaustion

SUGGESTIONS
made by respondents, not covered by the above, included:

• Create a part-time tenure track for women faculty.
• Create a program to attract women to graduate programs in science by accommodating to parental needs.
• Overhaul the tenure system altogether; currently there is too much secrecy about procedures and too much discretion left to the president.
• Put more women in administration leadership roles, deans, etc.
• Give adequate leave for child-bearing and stop the tenure clock for same.
• Establish a Dean's Fund for faculty parents to help with extra expenses, for traveling etc. required by parents with young children.
• Change sabbatical leave policies to be like Princeton's.
• Establish in-house financial support for sabbatical and research leaves.
• Create spousal hiring programs.
• Hire an Ombudsperson with ethics experience for each school, from outside the university, so there will be no conflict of interest.

Below are some quotations from faculty, who have given their permission, both tenured and non-tenured.

'The biggest issue for me is how to have a family and work at the same time - there is no way that I can (or choose) to work as many hours as my male colleagues who have wives who stay at home with their kids. Very few tenured women here have children. It's quite depressing that I would have to choose between family and career in a different way than some of my colleagues. ... '

'Harvard is still a place that frequently schedules committee meetings, faculty meetings, and the like in the evenings or at a time that runs until 6 or 7 pm. This is also the case with seminars and classes. For faculty with children in day care, these meetings ... are difficult if not impossible to manage, and the expectation that you will be available on campus until that time is unreasonable. The frequent evening events are also extremely difficult for faculty without a partner to provide evening child care.'

'Compared to other universities mentioned in your message [MIT, Yale, Caltech, Stanford, Arizona and Wisconsin], Harvard has a very stingy leave policy. This seems fairly ridiculous for such a rich university. This obviously affects both men and women. But since women tend to have more commitments when they are not on leave (advising, committee service, and so on), the lack of sabbatical has an especially negative effect on women, making it more difficult for them to find time for research.'

'The current [tenure] system leaves far too much discretion in the hands of the President, and is too closed, unpredictable, and subject to political influence. I do not believe that efforts to promote more junior faculty will help all that much, although they are a step in the right direction. A more fundamental rethinking of the tenure system - for example, creating a tenured associate position, changing the way ad hoc committees are used, and so on - is required.'

And from Professor Jane Mansbridge, J F Kennedy School of Government:

'My highest priority is, in general, more tenured women faculty. My second priority is a committee to rethink the tenure process. My third priority is a massive program to attract women graduate students to the hard sciences - through fully subsidized day care and whatever else it takes.' (see MIT Report, 1999 and Grosz Report (Harvard), 1991).

URL: http://world.std.com/~cewh/
November 2004