A recent report that charged the University of California with not hiring enough women faculty members received widespread attention in the press and on other UC campuses.

The findings, which debuted in The New York Times, pointed out that in 1993-94, women made up 37 percent of new faculty hires throughout the UC system and by 2003-04, women were 36 percent of the new hires.

Released in May, the report, Unprecedented Urgency: Gender Discrimination in Faculty Hiring at the University of California, was written by four UC Davis professors — Martha West, professor of law; Gyöngy Laky, professor of textiles and clothing; Kari Lokke, professor of comparative literature; and Kyaw Tha Paw U, professor of atmospheric science.

West said that when more than 45 percent of all doctorates in 2003 were awarded to women, "it is appalling" that UC continues to fall short in the hiring of women faculty.

Drawing upon statistical information from the UC Office of the President, the study noted that nearly all UC campuses have failed to increase the percentage of female faculty hires above the 37 percent mark reached in the 1993-94 academic year. However, it does point out, the UC's hiring of women stagnated last year after three years of steady growth.

Gender equity is a hot topic within the faculty ranks and in the public. The report also drew attention from the San Francisco Chronicle, the San Jose Mercury News and The Sacramento Bee, among others.

West, the lead author, said she and her colleagues were "encouraged by the support of faculty members on other UC campuses" who agree with the need to hire more faculty women at a time when the number of doctorates earned by women is increasing nationwide.

She believes that comments from UC President Robert Dynes and other top administrators reflect the institution's commitment to increase the hires of faculty women.

And she noted that UC Berkeley Chancellor Robert Birgeneau told the San Francisco Chronicle that this issue "'touches at the core of the university's excellence. If we are going to be a great university, we have to access as much of the talent pool as possible.'"

'Diversifying the faculty'

Debate has swirled around the findings.

Sheila O'Rourke, executive director for academic advancement for the UC system, has pointed out that while the percentage remained flat this year, the long-term trends are positive. And she noted that 4 of the 10 chancellors in the system are women.

Barbara Horwitz, UC Davis' vice provost for academic personnel, said that while she cannot explain trends elsewhere in the UC system, it is clear that UC Davis is working to close the gap.

To that end, she said, the campus has implemented a number of measures recommended by a 2001 gender equity task force on which both Horwitz and West served. The result is that the hiring of women at UC Davis increased to 40.4 percent in 2000-01; 40.5 percent in 2001-02; 42.2 percent in 2002-03; and 36.2 percent in 2003-04.

"If we look at the last three years, we hired 300 tenure track faculty, of which 118 were women," said Horwitz, adding that this calculates to 39.3 percent of such faculty hired, nearly the 40 percent figure recommended by the gender equity report.

The gender gap issue is extremely complex, say UC officials.

To begin, Horwitz said, the pool to hire from is considerably smaller, not all aspiring women faculty members wish to work at a research university, not all have the credentials considered adequate for the UC, and the pools of eligible women vary considerably with discipline.

For example, the fields of engineering, math and the physical sciences have the smallest pools while education and some areas of the humanities may have the largest, she said.

"Still, the campus has taken seriously the importance of diversifying the faculty," said Horwitz, "and has put into place processes that facilitate the diversification of the pools and the final selections. This is not to say that we should rest on our laurels. We need to always keep in mind that diversity and excellence are inseparable."

One reason for the drop in the hiring of women after the first year of the study (1993-94) is that the UC Board of Regents — and then the state's voters — barred the use of race- or gender-based affirmative action in hiring and admissions, and the percentage of new hires who were women dropped to 25 percent.

Monitoring the situation

West says the under-representation of women is not isolated among a few fields, and that UC Davis and its sister campuses have significant goals to hire more women faculty in virtually every school and college.

And she notes her "surprise" at the difficulty for women to be "accepted on equitable terms" with men in research universities.

She noted that Virginia Valian, a psychology professor at Hunter College of City University of New York, wrote in her book, Why So Slow, that "gender schemas die a very slow death, and, unfortunately, unless we can counteract these gender presumptions that both women and men hold, women will continue to suffer from the accumulated disadvantages they experience as they seek academic careers.'"

The work is not done for West and her co-authors.

"We will continue to monitor the hiring of women faculty throughout the UC system," she said. "Campuses are required to report their hire data to UCOP each year after the July 1 cut-off date."

By next October, she added, they will know more about whether the hiring of faculty women continues to improve, or "if more action on this issue is needed."