The blatant barriers are down. Women are now routinely chief scientists on major cruises, lead field parties to all continents, and have risen to leadership positions in professional organizations, academic departments, and funding agencies. Nonetheless, barriers remain. Women continue to be under-represented in the Earth, ocean, and atmospheric sciences

Bell, Robin E

Kastens, Kim A

DigitalCommons@USU

Utah State University DigitalCommons@USU ADVANCE Library Collection Gender Equity and Diversity 1-1-2004 Righting the Balance: Gender Diversity in the Geosciences Robin E. Bell Kim A. Kastens Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/advance  Part of the Law and Gender Commons, and the Other Education Commons Recommended Citation Bell, Robin E. and Kastens, Kim A., "Righting the Balance: Gender Diversity in the Geosciences" (2004). ADVANCE Library Collection. Paper 47. https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/advance/47 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Gender Equity and Diversity at DigitalCommons@USU. It has been accepted for inclusion in ADVANCE Library Collection by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@USU. For more information, please contact digitalcommons@usu.edu. EOS FORUM •••••••••••••••••• II.I_~~~ , . Righting the Balance: Gender Diversity in the Geosciences The blatant barriers are down. Women are now routinely chief scientists on major cruises, lead field part ies to all continents, and have risen to leadership positions in professional o rganizations, academic departments, and funding agencies. Nonetheless, barriers remain. Women continue to be under-represented in the Earth, ocean, and atmosph.eric sciences. Let's do the numbers: As of 1997, women received 41 % o f all Ph.D.s in science and engineering, but only 29% of the doctorates in the Earth,atmospheric,and oceanographic sciences (NSF,i999a] .Women were 23% of employed Ph.D.s across all fields of sc ience, but only accounted for 13% in the geosciences. Women's salaries also lag: the median salary for all Ph.D. geoscientists was $60,000; for women, the figure is $47,000 [NSF, 1999bJ. The growing number of women students is a step in the right direction, but only a step. 'What must be done to attain gender parity? Woiie many studies have addressed the insti-tutional innuences on the careers o f women scientists (e.g., Cole and Zuckemlan, 1987;Mrr, 19991, there has been scant attention to how women's careers are played out in specific discipl ines. Solving the problem of gender imbalance in the geosciences requires understanding o f the particular obstacles women face in our field.As is true in science, a problem to be so lved is both a Challenge and an opportun ity to progress. The under-representation o f women offers £arth science departments, universities and research centers, funding agencies,and p ro-fessional organizations like AGU opportunities for constructive action. Opportunities for Departments: Balance Demographics A study by the Commission on the Status of Women at Columbia University, New York, examined women's progress through the aca-demic pipeline (Applegate et 01., 2001 ] . From 1990 to 2000, the representation of women in the natural sc iences rose from 8% to 11 %, w hile the percentage of women in the gradu-ate student population grew from 20% to 33%. The picture at Columbia mirrors national _ C"trends in the physical sciences [Long,2oo1}, but the Columbia study provides more detailed info rmation, highligh ting the points where women are no t progressing through the aca-d emic pipeline at the same rate as men. . Specifically; women are under-represented in the applicant pools for faculty posi tions, and few women are hired into the tenured faculty. The Columbia study showed that once they are in the applicant pool, women compete Second Intemational Symposium well and are' hired at an equitable rate.111e chokepoint is the relatively small number o f . women who are applying for entry-level jobs. -The reasons for this are not clea r: It may be due to the greater percentage of \'lumen relative to men who leave the scientific workforce, the greater percentage of women who seek employment in industry (Long,20011 , the reluctance o f women to relocate [Shauman and Xie, 1996]. o r the tendency of women to be part of a duaJ..career family;and hence a dual-job search fam ily [Sonnert and Holton, 1995J. Although women are being tenured at a rate equiva lent to that o f men at Columbia, a demographic imbalance persists because of external hires into the tenured ranks. Fully half of all new appointments to tenure come from ou tside Columbia. These external hires are significantly less likely to be female than are cand idates promoted from within the university.The imbalance is particu larly noticeable when departments hire what administrators call ~targets of opportunity" and the rest o f us caU"stars."Over the decade studied, II male and no female scientists were hired as "stars" in the natural sciences at Columbia. This ar.",,:ysis indicates two po:nts in th,; pipeline to be fixed. As producers of Ph.D.s and post-<iocs, departments should seize the opportunity to encourage young women sci-entists to pursue the academic lifeAs consumers of young Ph.Ds, departments have the oppo r-tunity to actively recru it the good young women scientists, to convince then'l that applying for academic jobs will not be a pos-sibly humiliating waste o f time, but an opening to great opportunities. The most convincing argument wou ld be to make it the truth ,At the second point , departments should make aggressive efforts to recruit female -ta rgets o f opportuniti To aid these effortS, women should be strongly encouraged to visit institutions for sabbaticals and as visiting scientists.The con-. nectio,ns made during such visits often lead to recruit ing efforts at all levels. t": Opportunities for Universities and Research Centers: Transparency and Open Distn'bution of Funds To win the ganie,you have to know the rules--the real rules. Women are often not included in the informal nenvork in which information about promotion possib ilities and job openings is exchanged [Ragins and SundsIrom,I9891·Consequentiy;W'eii--clcx:umen ted, widely disseminated information on promo-tion and advancement has been identified as an important element in creating a positive cli-mate for women scientists.increasing the trans-parency o f promotion and review procedures is a challenge to universities and research centers. Recent experience at Lamont-Doherty indicates that implementing and communi-cating well-defined criteria for promotion Berkeley, California I February 10· 12. 2004 Papers for oral and poster presentations are being solicited For detailed informatio n, including submitting and in areas related to flu id flow and chemical transport in the formatting your extended abstracts (up to 4-5 vadose zone and grou~dwater in fractured rock: pages, inc luding figures) in electronic form, please visit the Symposium website: • Re<ent advances in modeling ,unsaturated flow and transport prCKeSSeS http://www·esd .lbl.gov/fluidsinrock 'Field and laboratory experiments • Microbiological proc!sses Deadline for submitting the abstracts is • Coupled prOCHHS and geothermal resources September 30, 2003. Published proceedings of - NAPL transport in fractured rock extended abstracts (including a CO) will be • Geochemistry and chemical transport available at the Symposium. • Nuclear waste disposal • Oil and gas reservoirs in fractured rock Participants ca n rE!9ister through the Symposium • Magma flow website. Registration fee is $250,due on January - Optimization of fractured rock investigations 10,2004 (5300 thereafter). Student registration is . • Environmental justice $125 (SI SO thereafter). Space is limited to 230 people. A closing session will discuss emerging issues in rece nt fl uid flow and transport studies. Several participants in the If you have any questions regarding the Symposium will be asked to present their views on 'hot ' Symposium, please contact Boris Faybishenko at issues of the day and suggest directions for future research. bfayb@lbl.gov. requires a signi ficant investment of time and effort. Promotion criteria must be defined, all scientists must be info rmed of these cri teria, and provisions must be made for provid in s: regular written and oral feedback to junior scien tists The MIT (I999J report indicated that science departments \\lith undocumented hiring or advancement procedures also tended to give women department members inequitable access to institu tional resources. Clearly, this hand icaps women in their research and cre-ates an additional impediment to advancemen t. Access to match ing funds fo r proposals, insti-tutionally supported fellowships and research assistan ts, funding fo r new instrumentation, start-up packages,and seed fund ing for new projects has been identified as one of the major sources of gender inequity by both the Zuckerman et al. (1 99 11 study and the MIT report. An open,peer-reviewed process for distributing internal discretionary funds fo r new project development will reduce this discrepancy. Opportunities for Funding Agencies: Easing the Financial Burdens of Fieldwork Across the sciences, the academic workplace is now a more congenial environment fo r women and men with families to work pro-ductively. Many institutions such as Lamon t-Doherty have developed clear family leave policies and invested in childcare facilities. But the geosdeuces oller: require extended fieldwork in remote locations, which raises unique issues for parents. In oceanography; polar sc iences, and marine geosciences, data collection and experimentation require that scientists spend weeks to months on research vessels in remote locations. Fieldwork, a major att raction to graduate students, becomes {nc.reasingly difficult for early and mid-career scientists, particularly women and men with children. This critical component in the career o f a young sc ientist inevitably increases Ihe tension be[\veen career and fami ly. Providing financia l support for parents con-ducting extensive fieldwork:fami ly field pay," wou ld go part of the way toward reducing this tension. In the marine sciences, the cost of sea pay (-$SO/day) is routinely budgeted to cover the hardships o f the sea-going expe-rience.lne funding agencies have an oppor-tunity to help scientists balance the demands o f fieldwork and fam ily by accepting family field pay as an allowable expense on field p rogram budgets. Examples of potentially useful expenditures for family field pay·indude temporary babysitting services, extended hou rs of child care, transpo rtation costs to bring a family member back for home visits, o r even suppo rt fo r taking a babysitter into the field . Opportunities for Professional Organizations AGU annually documents the employment patterns and demographic characteristics of recent Ph.D.s in Earth and environmental sci-ences. Many studies have been conducted on the· status of \,'omen in science at allle .... els. \Vhile knowledge of the status of women is necessary, it is not su fficient. Just as we can· nOI understand climate change by merely measuring the temperature over a decade, we cannot understand how to increase Ihe contriiJution of wome!) in th~ geosciences without understanding the fluxes and cont rol points in the system. Professional organizations such as AGU and the Geological Society o f America shou ld develop projects to monito r the career patterns of scientists, both men and women. beyond graduate school and the VOLUME 84 NUMBER 31 5 AUGUST 2 fi rst job. A study could involve longiludini tracking cohorts o f geoscientists through graduate school to 20 years post-Ph.D. Accompanying this should be a study to iden tify critical poi nts in the advancemer or attril ion o f women sc ien tists. Such a stt could address the question o f why warne take industry jobs at a rate greater than m [Long,2001] .The cu rrent hypothesis---tha women prefer the security o f industrial el ronment-is based on speculat ion, not d. Conducting flux studies and identifying t1 deCision points in the advancement of scief will provide fundamenta l data for designi successful programs to enhance diversity the geosciences. The Future The scientific challenges facing the ge<:6cier and the realization that research budgets never grow as Qu ickly as research opportun make it imperative that the Earth and envi mental sciences use all of the resources c able to them,including the growing numt o f women scientists. These scientists have training, background,and will to advance frontiers o f research in our fields. Ensurio, that they wi lf'have the opportunity to do: is the responsibility o f us all. Acknowledgments We thank Jonathan Co le, provost and dE o f f.1cl!it ies at Co lumbia University: This i5 Lamont cont ribu tion #649 1. References Applegate, J, L Drain ing, N. Gajee,J Howard, K. ' lens,J Metcalfe,and D. Partridge,Advancemel women through the academic ranks of the CoIUl University Graduate School of Arts and Scien· \Alhere are the leaks in the pipeline?, TIle Commission on the Status of Women Report,4 pp., Columbia University. N.Y, 2001. Cole, J R. and H. Zuckerman, Marriage, molherh and research performance in science, Sci Am 2,119-125, 1987. long,J. S., Ed., From Scarcity to VISibility: f:!ende, Differences in rhe Careers of Doctoral ScientiSl and Engineers, National Research Council,3lt National Academy Press, Wash ington D.C.,,2()( MIT,A Study of the Status of Women Faculty in S ence at Mff: How a Committee on \.fumen Fa( Came to Be EstoO/ished by the Dean of the ~ of Science, ~Iassach uset ts Institute of Technol. Boston, Mass., 1999. NSF. Di .... ision of Science Resource Studies, Char, teris/ies of Doctoral Sdetrlists and Engineers ir United States: / 997, National Science founda Arlington,Va., 1999a. NSF. I-i-bmen"Hinorin'es, and Persons with Disabit in Science and Engineering: 1998; calculated f Appendix T.Jbtc 5-10, National Science Founda Arlington,Va.,I999b. . Ragins, 8. R., and E.. Sundstrom, Gend~i and po'I - in organizations: A longitudinal perspective, Psychological Bull., 105,5 1-88, 1989. Shauman. K.A., and Y. Xie, Geographic mobility . scientists: $ex differences and fam ily conslrai Demograph); 33, 4S$---168, 1996. . Sonnert,G.,and G. Holton, Gender Differences in . eflce Careers: The Project Access Study, 187 pp .. gers,The State Universit);New Bnmswick, NJ., : Zuckerman, H.,J.Cole, and J, Bu tler, (Eds.), The • er Circle: Humcn in the Sciefltific Community,: pp.,WWNorton & CompanY,N.Y, 1991 . - ROBIN E. BEll and KIM A. KAsrF.Ns. Lamont· Doherty Earth Observatory, Columbia Universil} Pil iisuo1t::S, n".,:; ~::'~iiK C:.:':E, Columb]a Univer.o:t New York,N.Y.; ROBERTA B.MIu.ER, Center for International E.:nth Sc ience Information Networl Columbia University, Palisades, N.Y;JOHN C. Mum Earth Institute of Cotumbia University. New York N.V; and Sn :PHANtE PARMAN, Barnard College, New York. N.Y. Call for Nominations The Norman L. Bowen Award is given annually for outstanding contributions to ',elcallology, geochemistr/ , or petrology. The contribut ion may be: ( I) a single :: 'Jt.::t2;i1.ding paper published in any journal: l2r a se ries of papers which, tak~n :cg~(j;e r. constitute an outstanding contribution; or {3J any orher contribution that t l Selection Comm:ttee considers worthy. Special consideration is given to nominees who have not prev.iously received an AGU medal For consideration for the 2003 award, nominations must be received by I October 2003. and should be sent to, Rebecca Lange 2534 c.c. Little Building Department of Geological Sciences University of Michigan Ann Arbor, MI4SI09 1063 USA n.e nominalion file should indude: (II a nominating letter (rom a colleague, (2) a CV (or the candidate, (3) a list of publications for the candidate, (4) three letters of recommendation (no more or less) from colleagues: that are neither from the candidate's current institution nor from the candidate's Ph,D. institution. 292 

Righting the Balance: Gender Diversity in the Geosciences

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Righting the Balance: Gender Diversity in the Geosciences

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