CURRENT STATUS OF WOMEN AT IOWA STATE UNIVERSITY

ISU, like most research-based universities, struggles to attract and retain women faculty in STEM. Attrition rates of women faculty are higher than those for male faculty and rates for faculty of color are higher than those for white faculty. Across ISU STEM departments, 26% of assistant professors, 22% of associate professors and 9% of full professors are women.

Hiring and rank profiles reveal discrepancies. ISU’s STEM faculty and student body are primarily white men. ISU mirrors most Carnegie Doctoral/Research Extensive institutions in terms of employment rates of women and men in Agriculture and Engineering, but lags in female faculty employed in the natural sciences (13.71% vs. 20.8% nationally), computer science, statistics and mathematics (combined: 13.68% vs. 33.4% nationally) (Glover & Parsad, 2003). Women are underrepresented in almost all ISU STEM departments at all faculty ranks. Women make up only 9% of full professors in STEM fields, and ISU has 19.5% women in central leadership positions at the university compared to 27.6% for other similar AAU universities (ISU Institutional Research 2003, 2004). The percentage of faculty of color in ISU STEM fields is also low (18%) as it is nationally (19%). Of ISU’s 30 STEM departments, 16 have no female faculty of color, 15 have three or fewer, and only four have female chairs. The ISU Institutional Research data shows that of 763 tenure-track faculty in STEM, 21 are female and 129 are male faculty of color. Despite a growing pool of extremely qualified female and people of color candidates, ISU, like other culturally and demographically isolated universities, has been challenged to attract and retain them.

Attrition of women and minorities in STEM is high. What has happened to set Iowa State behind in creating a diverse academic community? In part, we have failed to aggressively prioritize the recruitment and hiring of women and faculty of color. In the past 10 years, ISU hired male rather than female faculty 67% of the time, and whites rather than people of color 78% of the time (ISU Institutional Research, 2004). Female and faculty of color we do hire do not stay long. Newly hired tenure-track women faculty have higher attrition rates than men faculty, especially in the first 3 years.

In a 10-year study of faculty hired since 1994, by the end of year 3, 16% of women had resigned compared to 4% of men (ISU Committee on Women, 2002). A five-year cohort study of STEM faculty through 2004 showed similar patterns. The resignation rate of women STEM faculty considerably increased between years 2-3, (6% to 16%), a pattern different than for men faculty in the same period (Figure 1). The resignation rate of faculty of color increased sharply in years 3-4 (15-20%), almost 25% higher for faculty of color than for white faculty at year 4 (Figure 2). Our attrition rates, queries to STEM faculty, and recent Campus Climate Study (Rankin, 2004) suggest that we have a chilly climate for women and faculty of color at the department and university level.

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