Higher Education

While women have made enormous strides in higher education, progress has been uneven. Women now receive a majority of undergraduate degrees but disparities remain, particularly at graduate, doctoral and post-doctoral levels. Colleges and universities still reflect inequities based on race, ability, geography and income. And more efforts must focus on advancing women and women of color into tenured and leadership positions with institutions of higher learning. There is growing concern about the rising cost of higher education and how to improve quality and access. The financial crisis of 2008-09 has shrunk many endowment funds and reduced the number of scholarships available as well as making state and community colleges more competitive and less accessible. The effects of corporatization on college campuses are also a source of concern for the quality and independence of scholarship, including for women’s studies and other inter-disciplinary programs.

Military academies report more sexual assaults

Teaser:

The Defense Department said the nation’s military service academies had received 65 reports of sexual assault during the 2010-2011 academic year, the highest total since the Pentagon began maintaining data in 2004.

Editorial:

From the article:

...

On Tuesday, the Defense Department said the nation’s military service academies had received 65 reports of sexual assault during the 2010-2011 academic year, the highest total since the Pentagon began maintaining data in 2004.

The academies reported 41 such assaults in the 2009-2010 academic year.

It’s unclear whether those figures represent a step in the wrong direction, with assaults actually on the rise, or a step in the right direction, with more victims willing to come forward to report assaults. The Defense Department said it “does not have the ability to conclusively identify the reasons for this increase in reporting behavior.”

...

Source:

Washington Post

URL:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/checkpoint-washington/post/military-academies-report-more-sexual-assaults/2011/12/27/gIQADaT7KP_blog.html

Date:

December 28, 2011

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Women moving into college athletic deprtments

Teaser:

In 2005, at age 49, Arizona State University hired Lisa Love as vice president for athletics, the highest-ranking job in the department. Six years later she is one of just five women to occupy the top athletics administrative position at a Division I-A school.

Editorial:

From the article:

Some believe the lack of women serving as athletic directors is about to change, with qualified women rising up the ranks. Others believe it would have changed already if not for qualified women — and men — who are happy occupying the No. 2 spot and who have no desire to take on the far more public role of athletic director.

Still others believe it's as simple as not having enough university presidents and chancellors willing to hire a woman to lead a major athletic department.

"I think it's a long journey that we've been taking for more than 40 years where half the population has said, 'Treat me fairly,'" said Chris Voelz, a former women's athletic administrator at the University of Minnesota and current leadership gifts officer at Women's Sports Foundation founded by Billie Jean King. "If we were to switch positions, would the men still be pleased with the position women have? To that end we have not arrived."
...

Source:

Pittsburgh Tribune-Review

URL:

http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/sports/college/s_773711.html

Date:

December 26, 2011

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Vt. fraternity closed indefinitely over rape survey

Teaser:

The national Sigma Phi Epsilon announced, after an internal investigation and lengthy discussions with the University of Vermont, that the University of Vermont chapter, whose members are accused of circulating a survey that asked who they would like to rape, has been closed indefinitely.

Source:

USA Today

URL:

http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/story/2011-12-16/fraternity-vermont-rape-survey-closed/52016446/1

Date:

December 18, 2011

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U.S. Female Students Enter College Most Prepared for STEM Studies, According to Faculty at America's Top Research Universities in a New Bayer Survey

Teaser:

American women entering college are the best prepared academically to hit the books and successfully graduate with a STEM degree (82 percent), according to a survey of faculty from the nation’s top 200 research universities who chair STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) departments. The survey, conducted by Bayer Corporation, is the 15th by the company and the fifth to examine the underrepresentation of women, African-Americans, Hispanics and American Indians in many U.S. STEM fields.

Editorial:

From the press release:

...

Specifically, the chairs say being discouraged from a STEM career is still an issue today for both female and underrepresented minority (URM) STEM undergraduate students (59 percent) and that traditional rigorous introductory instructional approaches that “weed out” students early on from STEM studies are generally harmful and more so to URM (56 percent) and female (27 percent) students compared to majority students (i.e. Caucasian and Asian males). Yet, a majority (57 percent) of the chairs do not see a need to significantly change their introductory instructional methods in order to retain more STEM students, including women and URMs.

The Bayer Facts of Science Education XV survey polled 413 STEM department chairs at the country’s leading research universities and those that produce the most African-American, Hispanic and American Indian STEM graduates. The survey asks the chairs, who are largely male (87 percent) and Caucasian (88 percent) to shed light on the undergraduate environment in which today’s female and URM STEM students make their career decisions.

...

Source:

CSRwire press release

URL:

http://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/33452-U-S-Female-Students-Enter-College-Most-Prepared-for-STEM-Studies-According-to-Faculty-at-America-s-Top-Research-Universities-in-a-New-Bayer-Survey

Date:

December 8, 2011

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Steinem’s Wall Street Occupied as Women Still Earn Less Than Men

Teaser:

For Gloria Steinem, the international conversation that the Occupy Wall Street protests sparked about economic inequality is, at its heart, about gender.

Editorial:

From the article:

...

Start with the thousands of dollars in student loans that saddle the average U.S. college graduate. Women “are paid unequally -- so they are going to have a harder time paying back that debt,” Steinem, the 77-year-old feminist who helped start the women’s rights movement with the publication of Ms. Magazine nearly 40 years ago, said in an interview at Bloomberg News’ New York bureau. “It’s outrageous because they are kind of indentured when they graduate.”

Steinem’s comments echo a common lament among young women in the Occupy movement, which began on Sept. 17 as a demonstration against the widening wealth gap and an economic system that protestors say favors the rich. The unemployment rate for college graduates aged 20-24 rose to 9.1 percent last year from 8.7 percent in 2009, the highest on record for that demographic, according to the Project on Student Debt. Add to that the burdens of student loans, and young Americans say they don’t stand much chance.

...

Source:

Bloomberg

URL:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-12-05/steinem-s-wall-street-occupied-as-women-earn-81-cents-on-each-male-dollar.html

Date:

December 5, 2011

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Completing College: Assessing Graduation Rates At Four-Year Institutions

Submitted by asklar on Wed, 11/30/2011 - 11:10am

Current methods used by colleges and universities for predicting graduation rates fall short on accuracy because they leave out key information about the types of students the institutions enroll, according to a new report from the Higher Education Research Institute(HERI) at UCLA.

By taking into account a broader array of social, economic and psychological characteristics of incoming students, as well as an institution's mission, colleges and universities could more precisely assess how effective they are at moving students toward completion of their degrees over four, five and six years, the report's authors say.

URL:

http://heri.ucla.edu/pr-display.php?prQry=80

We know diversity in tech is a problem, but what’s the solution?

Teaser:

Women and minorities are fighting for a place in fast-growth science and engineering-driven industries, and the struggle is stoking a heated dialogue, especially at its epicenters in Silicon Valley and the emerging New York City tech hub.

Editorial:

From the article:

VentureBeat recently debunked the myths about women at the helm of technology companies and conducted a roundtable about the issue.

A new generation of chief executives of giant technology companies illustrates the point amply: Virginia Rometty at IBM, Meg Whitman at HP, Carol Bartz at Yahoo, Heather Bresch at Mylan and Ursula Burns at Xerox. Their successes alone should inspire the rising generation to believe the glass ceiling has been broken.

Yet at the same time, research from the Level Playing Field Institute suggests the persistence of hostile work environments in high tech companies for women and people of color.

Two weeks ago, allegations arose about the suppression of damaging corporate diversity stats by Apple, Google, Amazon and Facebook. And this past Sunday night a CNN Special Report focused on the efforts ofyoung black entrepreneurs to crack the venture code and the alleged color barriers of Silicon Valley, revealing some very deep chasms in perception, if not reality.

...

Source:

Venture Beat

URL:

http://venturebeat.com/2011/11/22/tech-diversity-solution/

Date:

November 23, 2011

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In other words: Communicating feminism

Teaser:

The Egyptian feminist organization, the Women and Memory Forum (WMF), published the first volume in their series of feminist translations, “Reader on Gender and Political Science,” in 2010. And they are anticipating the publication of the second, a "Reader on Feminism and Religious Studies," in the coming weeks. The inspiration for the project, according to WMF founding member Hala Kamal, came through the organization’s work in promoting women’s studies and feminism as an academic discipline in Egypt. Since its establishment in 1995, the mission of the group of women scholars has been to “produce and disseminate alternative knowledge about women in the Arab region” and to “reread Arab tradition and cultural history.”

Editorial:

From the article:

Though other institutions, such as Egypt’s National Center for Translation, have translated a number of feminist works on a case-by-case basis, the comprehensive effort to make scholarly feminist writings in English available to Arabic readers is unique.

The inspiration for the project, according to WMF founding member Hala Kamal, came through the organization’s work in promoting women’s studies and feminism as an academic discipline in Egypt. Since its establishment in 1995, the mission of the group of women scholars has been to “produce and disseminate alternative knowledge about women in the Arab region” and to “reread Arab tradition and cultural history.”

...

Source:

Almasry Alyoum

URL:

http://www.almasryalyoum.com/en/node/510846

Date:

November 3, 2011

Affiliate:

Associated Issues & Expertise:

Faculty diversity means gains for female law students, according to study

Teaser:

Editorial:

From the article:

A study of law review membership indicates that gender and racial diversity on law school faculties may translate into more opportunities for female students.

Law schools with a high percentage of full-time women and minority faculty members on average had a larger percentage of female students on their flagship law reviews during the last academic year, according to New York Law School Law Review's 2010-11 Law Review Diversity Report.

"We know that law review membership has strong implications for postgraduation success in the legal field, and wanted to determine whether the composition of a school's faculty would have any impact on the success of female and minority students on law review," said Jamie Sinclair, a 3L at New York Law School who worked on the study with classmates Dana Brodsky, Maria Cheung, Kelly Garner, Jamie Sinclair and publisher Marcey Grigsby.

The study followed a 2010 report by Ms. JD, a nonprofit organization that seeks to advance women in the legal profession. The Ms. JD report looked at the law review membership and leadership at the top 50 law schools, as ranked by U.S. News & World Report. It found that on average, women accounted for 44 percent of law review membership at those top schools.

The New York Law School Law Review survey focused on law review membership at the 20 law schools with the highest percentages of full-time female faculty, and the 20 schools with the highest percentages of full-time minority faculty. Each of those schools fell outside U.S. News' top 50.

At schools with larger percentages of female faculty members, 52 percent of law review members were women. The figure was nearly 59 percent at the schools with high percentages of minority faculty. Whereas Ms. JD found that a mere 33 percent of law reviews at the top 50 law schools had a female editor in chief, that figure was 60 percent at the schools with many female faculty members and 46 percent at schools with high percentages of minority faculty.

"Getting into law school is only half the battle — for better or for worse, grades matter a lot, and law review membership is one of the most prominent indicators of academic achievement," said Brodsky. "Our survey shows a possible connection between the overall environment a school provides and the achievement of its women and minority students."

The study also indicated that law schools outside the top 50 provide women with a greater opportunity to obtain law review membership and serve in a leadership role, she said.

Contact Karen Sloan at ksloan@alm.com.

Source:

The National Law Journal

URL:

http://www.law.com/jsp/nlj/PubArticleNLJ.jsp?id=1202522297808&Faculty_diversity_means_gains_for_female_law_students_according_to_study&slreturn=1

Date:

November 3, 2011

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New York Law School Law Review Law Review Diversity Report

Submitted by asklar on Thu, 11/03/2011 - 10:06am

In 2011, the New York Law School Law Review launched its Law Review Diversity research project examining gender and minority diversity among law review membership and leadership at ABA law schools nationwide. This research builds upon the 2010 survey conducted by Ms. JD, an organization dedicated to the success of women in law school and the legal profession.

URL:

http://www.nylslawreview.com/diversity-report/

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