A long way to go in recruiting female faculty

Louise Story suggested last month in The New York Times that more and more women at elite institutions seem to be choosing motherhood over high-powered careers. Responding to the broader cultural questions that Story's piece suggests, columnist Keith Urbahn asked last Wednesday in the Yale Daily News, "Is the well-educated woman who influences her children through time at home less valuable to society than the well-educated doctor or university professor?" Urbahn is "not prepared to say so," and neither am I.

As I stated in my last column, I think the stay-at-home mom or dad is as vital to society as a person on Wall Street or in academia. And while one need not necessarily choose one role over the other — or even choose either — the premise of the "opt-out revolution" is only acceptable if one believes the women opting out are making a meaningful choice and are not simply being forced out of certain careers they would otherwise pursue. Nowhere is this problem more evident than in academia. The current state of affairs begs the question: Are women who seek a career in the academy discouraged from doing so as a result of persistent institutional disadvantages and prevailing gender stereotypes?

Princeton's own hiring policies are a good place to begin. For these purposes, the "Status of Women Faculty in the Humanities and Social Sciences at Princeton" report released last week by the Office of the Dean of the Faculty is invaluable. This report parallels the findings of a 2003 report that focused on the same issues in the University's science and engineering departments. Though this newspaper reported on Friday that "Women outpace men in tenure rate" — a statement that is certainly true according to the data — there is not much else to be proud of in these findings.

Joan Girgus, a psychology professor and special assistant to the dean for gender equity, writes in the Executive Summary of the report that "it is discouraging to see the slow progress [in increasing the representation of women faculty] in the decade between 1992 and 2002, especially considering that this lack of progress was not the result of scarcity." That's right — it was NOT the result of a scarcity of female Ph.D. candidates. In fact, if one looks at the table entitled "2002 Utilization Factors" on page nine of the report, it is apparent that only five of eighteen departments exhibit what would be characterized as a high utilization of the "available pools of women Ph.D.'s." The naked truth is that there is no shortage of women Ph.D.'s in the humanities and social science departments in which women faculty are currently underrepresented. So much for just science and engineering — it seems the entire campus has a serious underutilization problem.

Dean of the Faculty David Dobkin got it precisely right when he said in the 'Prince,' "I look forward to the day when the pool attracted to every faculty search has a profile similar to the talent pool in the discipline." There is nothing wrong with acknowledging that we're simply not there yet. But this recent report indicates that little progress has been made in the past decade, and should serve as a serious wakeup call for the University.

We have some reflecting to do. Is Princeton perceived by outsiders as a place unfriendly to women? To families? Are we attracting the appropriate pool and then dropping the ball by relying on antiquated criteria to make hiring decisions? Are we doing enough to not only make Princeton a healthier environment for women but to make sure that paradigm shift becomes common knowledge to the outside world as well? The report also mentioned that tenured women are twice as likely to leave the University as tenured men. What are we doing to keep these women, or more importantly, what are we doing that is driving them away?

President Tilghman's administration has rightly made improving the representation and retention of women a top institutional priority. This work must not cease, as the facts remain: In 1992, 23.2 percent of the 358 faculty members in the humanities and social sciences were women. In 2002, that number had increased to only 26.9 percent. What will we have to say in 2012, Princeton? Freddie LaFemina is a history major from North Massapequa, N.Y. He can be reached at lafemina@princeton.edu.