Female faculty at Murray State feel underappreciated and overworked, and it is the responsibility of the University administration to do something about it.
Several professors in the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) and SBES (Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences) fields performed a study, funded by the ADVANCE Catalyst Grant, of the recruitment and retention of female faculty at Murray State.
The results of the study included a section detailing the climate for women faculty in the STEM and SBES fields (Hutson School of Agriculture, the Jones College of Science, Engineering and Technology, the Bauernfeind College of Business and the College of Humanities and Fine Arts).
According to the study, “less than 10 percent of women and men felt that the climate for female faculty in their department was good.”
The study found that 90 percent of Murray State faculty felt professors in their department were not serious about treating men and women equally. This is an outrageously huge percentage and a problem that has to be solved.
The study also found that most faculty members would not be comfortable with a female department chair. Currently, 12 out of 29 total departments are headed by women, according to Murray State’s website. What does this statistic mean for female department chairs? Are they less respected because of their gender?
Most of the study participants “agreed that ideas presented by female faculty were not taken seriously;” however, “female faculty felt colleagues and department heads treated them with respect.”
Women are treated with respect, generally, by their colleagues, but they aren’t given as many opportunities to step up into leadership positions, because many feel women are not as competent for the job as a man.
Women also felt they had to work harder to convince colleagues they were competent. Women are perceived as incompetent and must work to prove the opposite. Men are assumed to be competent and they must fail, sometimes frequently and consistently, before they are called incompetent.
Female faculty not only struggle to garner respect from their peers and colleagues, they seem to have trouble in the classroom as well. More than half of the female faculty members felt that students treat them differently from their colleagues.
Professor Robert Valentine is so often wrongly assigned the title “Dr. Valentine,” he informs his students he is, in fact, Mr. Valentine. However, Professor Marcie Hinton must make it clear to her students at the beginning of the year that she has a doctorate. Students tend to automatically assume the male professor is a doctor and the female one is not.
The disparities between men and women in the STEM field has been studied for years, and it’s become increasingly clear that men are not the only ones who can excel in STEM careers. In fact, many scientific discoveries originally attributed to men are now attributed to women.
Rosalind Franklin discovered the double helix DNA structure, but James Watson and Francis Crick won the Nobel prize for it. The problem persists today, and it is present at Murray State.
The administration has a responsibility to solve the issues illuminated by the study. It is important to hire and promote female professors into leadership positions, not based on their gender alone, but on the merit of their accomplishments.
The University should commit to making sure female faculty member’s voices are heard. This could mean giving them a better outlet to report unfair conditions or training faculty, staff and students to treat female professors better.
The University should put more female professors in positions where they can showcase their strengths and excel as educators.