Access & Disparities

Despite recent progress, women do not have equal access to educational opportunities. Socio-economic and racial disparities persist, particularly for immigrants and women of color. More effort needs to be focused on improving access to college preparatory and post-secondary education for low-income girls. Efforts need to include comprehensive sex education and teen pregnancy prevention as well as extended and flexible degree programs for single mothers. More focus is needed on making “hard sciences” (physics, chemistry, engineering) and technology more appealing to girls both in the classroom and as part of after-school activities.

Expert Profile

Location:

United States

40° 40' 5.4012" N, 73° 58' 48.234" W

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Lorna Duphiney Edmundson, Ed.D., President Emerita of Wilson College, is recognized as an effective leader, fundraiser, and facilitator of sustainable growth and change in higher education. Dr. Edmundson helps educational institutions build on their distinctions; strengthen finances and planning; create ethnic, racial and gender equity; encourage women and students of color to pursue the sciences; diversify and internationalize campuses; and forge international partnerships. She served as President of Wilson College from 2001-2011 and has held leadership roles at Columbia University, the American University of Paris, Marymount College, Trinity College, and Colby Sawyer College. Dr. Edmundson was honored with the Athena International Leadership Award, an Honorary Degree from Rhode Island College, and an Honorary, Lifetime Membership in Rotary International. She is featured among Asian and U.S. leaders in Women at the Top, by Cheung and Halpern.

Location

Brooklyn, NY 11215

United States

40° 40' 5.4012" N, 73° 58' 48.234" W

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Mildred Garcia, President, CSU Fullerton

Mildred García, Ed.D., is the incoming president of California State University, Fullerton, and currently serves in that capacity at CSU Dominguez Hills, where she has been since 2007. She is the first Latina president of the CSU system. During her tenure, García has cut costs, boosted enrollment, increased student graduation rates and expanded fundraising. She facilitated the first endowed professorship, the <i>Wallis Annenberg Endowed Professor for Innovation in STEM Education</i>.</p><p>García is a scholar in the field of higher education, and her research and publications have concentrated on equity in higher education and its impact on policy practice.

Associated Issues & Expertise:

Expert Profile

Location:

United States

33° 52' 26.6628" N, 117° 54' 9.486" W

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Mildred García, Ed.D., is the incoming president of California State University, Fullerton, and currently serves in that capacity at CSU Dominguez Hills, where she has been since 2007. She is the first Latina president of the CSU system. During her tenure, García has cut costs, boosted enrollment, increased student graduation rates and expanded fundraising. She facilitated the first endowed professorship, the Wallis Annenberg Endowed Professor for Innovation in STEM Education.

García is a scholar in the field of higher education, and her research and publications have concentrated on equity in higher education and its impact on policy practice. She is a much sought-after speaker at national and international conferences, and serves on the boards of many higher education organizations.

Location

Fullerton, CA 92834

United States

33° 52' 26.6628" N, 117° 54' 9.486" W

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Associated Issues & Expertise:

Expert Profile

Location:

United States

40° 53' 23.3556" N, 74° 11' 41.5212" W

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Dario A. Cortes, Ph.D., is President of Berkeley College, an accredited college offering Associate and Baccalaureate degree programs in eight locations in New Jersey and New York, as well as Berkeley College Online. Berkeley College was established in 1931. Dr. Cortes is an accomplished author, lecturer, and conference leader. He has held increasingly senior-level positions including President and Executive Director of the American School Foundation, A.C. (ASF), Mexico City. He was Vice President for Academic Affairs at the Fashion Institute of Technology, SUNY; Dean at Fairleigh Dickinson University and Associate Dean of Graduate Studies and Research at the University of Maryland College Park.

He serves on numerous community and non-profit boards including the New Jersey Council of Presidents; the Boys & Girls Club of Paterson and Passaic, NJ; and Hispanic Education Technology Services.

Location

Woodland Park, NJ 07424

United States

40° 53' 23.3556" N, 74° 11' 41.5212" W

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Associated Issues & Expertise:

Who Are the Next Generation's Leaders in Technology, Science, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM)?

Teaser:

In the next five years, STEM jobs are projected to grow twice as quickly as jobs in all other fields according to the U.S. Bureau of Statistics. While all jobs are expected to grow by 10.4 percent, STEM jobs are expected to increase by 21.4 percent. Similarly, 80 percent of jobs in the next decade will require technical skills.

Editorial:

From the Huffington Post:

By this measure, future STEM jobs represent a huge opportunity to today's students. But to put these numbers into perspective, of the 3.8 million ninth graders in the U.S., only 233,000 end up choosing a STEM degree in college, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. This means only 6 percent of ninth graders will become STEM graduates. And of these graduates, women will be even more underrepresented in most STEM fields.

These are alarming statistics. How do we get more young boys and girls to be interested in STEM-related fields? It isn't an easy task. Schools do not always adequately prepare students for these rigorous subjects, and college programs are designed to weed out the less persistent. Nationally, only 41 percent of initial White and Asian American STEM majors who begin a degree in STEM-related fields complete their degree in less than six years.

In addition, societal pressures continue to loom over girls who might otherwise consider the STEM fields. A couple of years ago, I met amazing parents, both of whom had a background in engineering and hoped their 10 year-old daughter would follow in their footsteps. They encouraged her to take an after school science/robotics program. When she got there, she found she was outnumbered 6:1 by boys in the class. As the only girl, she came home crying much of the time because she was teased and told that geeky girls are not welcome in the boys' club. Ironically, by the time young adults are entering college programs in STEM fields, many complain about the lack of gender diversity.

[...]

Source:

Huffington Post

URL:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ivo-lukas/girls-stem_b_1342471.html

Date:

March 14, 2012

Affiliate:

Women and Education: Making Inequity Visible

Teaser:

Kathy Krendl, President of Otterbein University, argues that today's woman is not only faced with many barriers -- fewer educational opportunities, lower wage prospects, higher unemployment numbers -- but is also faced with a tangible lack of resources.

Editorial:

From the Huffington Post:

Better opportunities for women start with education. In Ohio, less than one in four women have a bachelor's degree. Ohio ranks 39th out of 50 states for the percentage of women with four or more years of college, according to the American Community Survey three-year estimates. Statistics forAfrican-American women are even worse. Less than 15 percent of African American women 25 and older have earned a bachelor's degree or higher in Ohio.

There is a direct correlation between educational attainment and poverty. Despite women losing 83.8 percent of the public positions eliminated between July 2009 and January 2011, The National Women's Law Center found the hardest hit demographic remains women without a high school diploma. Roughly 15 percent of all women without a high school diploma are unemployed, according to the Department of Labor. The unemployment rate of women who hold a bachelor's degree is 4.7 percent. We must do a better job of informing women about the benefits of an education and providing them access to achieve their academic goals.

But even when women achieve their academic goals, the workplace doesn't reward them with adequate pay. In Ohio, women are worth only 74 cents to a man's dollar, according to a report issued by the Central Ohio Leadership Census. That places Ohio 35th nationally. And of the 11 million Americans who earned $100,000 or more between 2006-2008, only 302,000 individuals achieved that level of income in Ohio. Less than 1.8 percent of women who worked full time achieved that level of pay compared to 7.6 percent of men. It is shameful and disturbing that our society continues to discriminate against and devalue the contributions made by women.

Such unexamined prejudice also contributes to the fact that women and girls are now the majority of individuals living in poverty in every state, including the District of Columbia. More than ever before, women and their families are showing up at local food pantries and struggling to make ends meet. We must confront the reality of 850,000 women and girls across this state who experience regular food insecurity and are unsure when -- and whether -- there will be a next meal.

[...]

Source:

Huffington Post

URL:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kathy-krendl/women-and-education_b_1321916.html

Date:

March 6, 2012

Affiliate:

Women and Graduate Management Education

Submitted by asklar on Mon, 03/05/2012 - 11:36am

Data from the Graduate Management Admissions Council indicates that more women are working towards MBAs than ever before.

According to the GMAC, women accounted for 41 percent of the close to 259,000 people who took the Graduate Management Admission Test in 2011, which is a requirement for most MBA programs. The number of exams taken by women was 106,800, marking the sixth consecutive year of growth for women test-takers. This was also the third year in a row that over 100,000 women took the exam.

In the United States, women took nearly 46,000 exams -- the largest number out of any country in the world. The greatest percentage of women who took the GMAT, however, was in China, where 64 percent, or about 33,000, of those who sat for the test were women.

Nevertheless, the GMAC research also found that female MBAs who graduated from 2000 to 2011 and are working full-time earned just 81 percent of what their male counterparts did.

URL:

http://img.gmac.com/mediaroomresources/pdfs/women_and_graduate_management_education-gmac-28Feb2012.pdf

More women seeking MBAs, but pay gap persists

Teaser:

The number of women looking to attend business school hit a record high last year, but that doesn’t mean they’ll find an equitable workplace when they get out.

Editorial:

From MSNBC:

Women last year accounted for 41 percent of the 258,192 people taking the Graduate Management Admission Test, or GMAT, which is a requirement for most MBA programs. That represents the sixth consecutive year of growth in women taking the test, the Graduate Management Admissions Council said this week. The number of men taking the exam fell for a third year in a row to 151,392.

In the United States, 39 percent of test takers were women, but in east Asia, women led the way. In China 64 percent of test takers were women. Overall about 117,000 test takers were Americans, compared with about 58,000 who were from east and southwast Asia.

In the United States “we’re not seeing the women in business schools that would be expected,” given that women now make up half the U.S. workforce, said Michelle Sparkman Renz, director of research for the council. It’s unclear why more women aren’t flocking to U.S. business schools, but clearly the corporate world has yet to embrace women in management.

[...]

Source:

MSNBC

URL:

http://lifeinc.today.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/03/01/10542160-more-women-seeking-mbas-but-pay-gap-persists

Date:

March 5, 2012

Affiliate:

Gender Equality Explorer

Submitted by asklar on Mon, 03/05/2012 - 2:18am

GENDER EQUALITY Explorer provides free, 24/7, user-friendly access to data disaggregated by gender from the U.S. Census Bureau collected through the American Community Survey.

URL:

http://genderequalityexplorer.org/

Blame biological clock for dearth of women in math: study

Teaser:

Women are shunning academic careers in math-intensive fields because the lifestyle is incompatible with motherhood, researchers at Cornell University found in a study to be published next month in American Scientist Magazine.

Editorial:

From Reuters:

Universities have long been criticized for hiring and evaluation policies that discriminate against women, but the findings of this new study point to the female biological clock as a main reason why so few women end up as professors in fields such as math, engineering, physics and computer science.

A woman who wants a family looks at the rigorous path to a tenured position and considers how old she will be before she can start a family and how little time she will have to raise her children. Many of those women opt for a more flexible career.

"Universities have been largely inflexible about anything other than the standard time table, which is you kill yourself for years and only then would you consider getting pregnant," said Wendy Williams, a human development professor at Cornell who co-authored the study with her husband, Stephen Ceci.

Williams and Ceci analyzed data about the academic careers of men and women with and without children. Before women became mothers, they had careers equivalent to or more successful than their male peers. But once children entered the equation, the dynamic changed.

Women in other academic fields such as the humanities and social sciences face similar hurdles and often leave academia as well. But because there are so many women in those Ph.D. programs, enough ultimately stay to amount to a critical mass of female professors.

In math-heavy fields, however, women make up a tiny minority of the graduate students. So when the rare few who make it through a Ph.D. program leave because universities are insensitive to their needs as mothers, the net result is virtually no women represented on faculty rosters, the study said.

[...]

Source:

Reuters

URL:

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/02/17/us-women-math-idUSTRE81G17V20120217

Date:

February 21, 2012

Affiliate:

Associated Issues & Expertise:

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NCRW is a network of leading university and community based research, policy, and advocacy centers with a growing global reach dedicated to advancing rights and opportunities for women and girls. We also have a Corporate Circle comprised of senior diversity professionals from leading U.S. and global member companies and a Presidents Circle of college and university leaders who share our commitment. NCRW harnesses the collective power of its network to provide knowledge, analysis, and thought leadership on issues ranging from reducing women’s poverty to building a critical mass of women’s leadership across sectors.

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