WOMEN FACULTY AGENCY: A CASE STUDY OF TWO UNIVERSITIES IN RUSSIA

The purpose of the study was to explore professional and personal challenges experienced by women faculty in Russia and analyze organizational factors that influence their sense of agency. Expanding on O’Meara, Campbell & Terosky (2011) theoretical framework on agency, this research suggests differentiating two forms of agency experienced by women faculty in Russia, professional agency and personal agency. Professional agency is shaped by a woman’s strong confidence in her capacity in professional fulfillment. Personal agency reflects a woman’s confidence to build relationships in her family that help her manage multiple roles in her personal and professional life, therefore, producing a strong mediating effect on professional agency perspectives and behavior and work satisfaction. The use of structural equation modeling (SEM) revealed strong positive effects of organizational factors such as promotion procedures, collegiality, workload distribution policies and practices, resources and support, and work-family balance factor on women’s agency perspectives and behavior, and a strong effect of agency behavior on faculty outcomes such as academic rank promotion and leadership opportunities, research productivity and overall satisfaction with their careers. The SEM model did not find gender differences in the above relationships, suggesting that the effect of organizational factors on faculty agency and outcomes is significant regardless of gender. Survey data also provided a broader picture of work environments of the two institutions and helped to gain understanding of which aspects of faculty work reveal significant differences by gender, rank, discipline, and type of institution, and whether women faculty in Russia feel more or less agentic than men faculty. In addition to pre-defined categories of organizational factors that influence faculty career, interviews with women faculty created space for emerging themes of issues shaping women experiences in their work environments and helped to identify what agentic perspectives and behaviors women faculty assume in their career that are pertinent to the Russian context

Construction of stably maintained non-mobilizable derivatives of RSF1010 lacking all known elements essential for mobilization

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>RSF1010 is a well-studied broad-host-range plasmid able to be mobilized to different bacteria and plants. RSF1010-derived plasmid vectors are widely used in both basic research and industrial applications. In the latter case, exploiting of mobilizable plasmids or even the plasmids possessing negligible mobilization frequency, but containing DNA fragments that could promote conjugal transfer, is undesirable because of biosafety considerations. Previously, several mutations significantly decreasing efficiency of RSF1010 mobilization have been selected. Nevertheless, construction of the RSF1010 derivative lacking all known loci involved in the conjugal transfer has not been reported yet.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Novel non-mobilizable derivatives of RSF1010 lacking all known DNA sequences involved in the mobilization process have been obtained due to the exploiting of λRed-driven recombination between the plasmid and a constructed <it>in vitro </it>linear DNA fragment. To provide auto-regulated transcription of the essential replication gene, <it>repB</it>, the plasmid loci <it>oriT</it>, <it>mobC </it>and <it>mobA </it>were substituted by the DNA fragment containing P_{<it>lac</it>UV5}→<it>lacI</it>. Mobilization of the obtained RSFmob plasmid was not detected in standard tests. The derivative of RSFmob with increased copy number has been obtained after <it>lacI </it>elimination. High stability of both constructed plasmids has been demonstrated in <it>Escherichia coli </it>and <it>Pantoea ananatis</it>. Design of RSFmob allows easy substitution of P_{<it>lac</it>UV5}by any desirable promoter for construction of novel derivatives with changed copy number or host range.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Novel non-mobilizable derivatives of RSF1010 lacking all known DNA sequences involved in the mobilization process and stably maintained at least in <it>E. coli </it>and <it>P. ananatis </it>have been constructed. The obtained plasmids became the progenitors of new cloning vectors answering all biosafety requirements of genetically modified organisms used in scale-up production.</p

Undoing disparities in faculty workloads: A randomized trial experiment.

We conducted a randomized control study to improve equity in how work is taken up, assigned and rewarded in academic departments. We used a four-part intervention targeting routine work practices, department conditions, and the readiness of faculty to intervene to shape more equitable outcomes over an 18-month period. Our goal was to (a) increase the number of routine work practices that department faculty could enact to ensure equity, (b) enhance conditions within the department known to positively enhance equity, and (c) improve the action readiness of department faculty to ensure equity in division of labor. Post intervention faculty in participating departments were more likely than before the intervention to report work practices and conditions that support equity and action readiness in their department, and that teaching and service work in their department is fair. Participating departments were significantly more likely than control departments to report practices and conditions that support equity and greater action readiness to address issues of workload equity in their department. Finally, participating department faculty were more likely than control department faculty to report increased self-advocacy and were more likely than control department faculty to report that the distribution of teaching and service work in their department is fair

Construction of stably maintained non-mobilizable derivatives of RSF1010 lacking all known elements essential for mobilization-1

<p><b>Copyright information:</b></p><p>Taken from "Construction of stably maintained non-mobilizable derivatives of RSF1010 lacking all known elements essential for mobilization"</p><p>http://www.biomedcentral.com/1472-6750/7/80</p><p>BMC Biotechnology 2007;7():80-80.</p><p>Published online 21 Nov 2007</p><p>PMCID:PMC2200642.</p><p></p>e were analyzed. 1, 2, 3 – 0.5, 2.0 and 5.0 μl of the DNA probe isolated from clone 1 of MG1655/RSF1010; 4, 5 – 2.0 μl of the DNA probes isolated from clones 2 and 3 of MG1655/RSF1010; 6, 7, 8 – 2.0 μl of the DNA probes isolated from 3 independent clones of MG1655/RSFmob; 9, 10, 11 – 2.0 μl of the DNA probes isolated from 3 independent clones of MG1655/RSFmob-I. Relative copy number was calculated as the ratio of the DNA amounts in the upper bands (5.9 kb EcoRV-EcoRV fragment). Electrophoretic patterns for stationary phase are represented as an example