Inclusion

Bag Lunch Discussion Series Women's Studies

RESEARCH

Center researchers are currently analyzing the results of the Faculty Work-Life Study, a joint project of the Center for the Education of Women and the UM Center for Research on Learning and Teaching. The survey of UM faculty included questions about climate, workload, sources of satisfaction and stress, and incorporate AAUDI questions for comparison to similar institutions.  This project also provides comparison to the 1998 FWLS.

Contingent Faculty in a Tenure Track World - CEW researchers held focus groups with full- and part-time non-tenure track (NTT) faculty at twelve research universities across the country. In total, we conducted 24 ninety-minute focus groups with a total of 343 full- and part-time NTT faculty. A report of the project is available  and a video based on the project explores the responses of focus group members. The project was funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

The National Clearinghouse on Academic Worklife  (www.academicworklife.org) combines into a single website information resources and community discussions to support those who study or participate in academic work.  Up to date articles and policy examples are available on topics ranging from family-friendly benefits, tenure attainment, and faculty satisfaction to policy development, productivity, and demographics.  An email newsletter is also available free to subscribers. This clearinghouse was developed  through a grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

The Dual Career Ladder Project, funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, resulted in several publications based on the findings of our institutional survey of U.S. institutions of higher education.  highlighting the numbers, working conditions and perceived contributions of non tenure track faculty.  These are available on the CEW website.

LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT

CEW’s Advanced Leadership Program offers middle management University of Michigan staff, recommended by their supervisors, an eight-month skill development workshop series and accompanying change management project.  This program has been offered annually for nearly 10 years. 

Focus on Leadership, addresses the need for leadership development and training for staff not yet in key middle-management positions or not yet ready for the more extensive Advanced Leadership Program.  Offered to approximately 30 individuals annually, this program offers participants an introduction to leadership concepts while it assists participants in developing an identity as a potential leader.

Emerging Leaders Iniative  CEW is currently developing an innovative nine-month program for emerging leaders (those with less than 6 years in their career fields) over the course of two years. The program will focus on women from a specific Michigan urban region, combining those from the private and the non-profit sectors.  The program combines in-person sessions, career coaching by senior leaders, and ongoing support and learning using web 2.0 tools including social media and online learning. 

PROGRAMS

CEW offers about 50 programs each term, covering topics such as careers, career change and job searching, work-life balance, leadership development, and focused programs for graduate students and post-docs.  In addition, CEW brings special events and speakers to the campus and community. 

In addition, CEW leads three support networks for University of Michigan women: Women of Color in the Academy Project and Junior Women Faculty Network for women faculty and the Women of Color Task Force for women staff.  These networks offer support, mentoring, and learning opportunities for participants.  The Task Force delivers a campus-wide career conference annually, with about 550 participants. 

CEW provides free counseling to students, faculty and staff of the University as well as to women and men in the community.  Each year over 1,000 adults are seen by CEW’s professional counselors.

RECENT PUBLICATIONS FROM CEW

Developing a Transparent Tenure Process (Resources for Deans and Chairs)

Enabling Junior Faculty Success (Resources for Deans and Chairs)

The Gender Impact of the Proposed Michigan Civil Rights Initiative. Susan Kaufmann

Post-Apartheid South Africa: Creating Critically Leaderful Schools that Make a Difference
Juliet Perumal, University of the Witwatersrand (South Africa) and CEW Visting Scholar, 2007.

How American Men's Participation in Housework and Child-care Affects Wives' Careers. 
Renge Jibu, CEW Visiting Scholar

Making the Best of Both Worlds: Findings from a National Institution-Level Survey on Non-Tenure Track Faculty

Michigan Women and the High-Tech Knowledge Economy. Susan Kaufmann

Principles for Best Practices: A Collection of Suggested Procedures for Improving Climate for Women Faculty Members.  Jean Waltman and Carol Hollenshead

MORE PUBLICATIONS

Visiting Scholar Program

The Visiting Scholar Program is an opportunity for scholars to pursue research projects relevant to women using the vast resources available through the Center for the Education of Women (CEW) and the University of Michigan. Scholars must hold a Ph.D. or equivalent degree. A scholar's stay at the Center can range from one to twelve months, as appropriate to the scholar's research needs. Visiting Scholars prepare a working paper based upon their research, which is published as part of the Center's series of occasional papers.

Robin Wright Graduate Fellowship

The Center for the Education of Women announces the Robin Wright Graduate Fellowship with a grant of up to $3,200. The fund will support research by a graduate student from the Islamic World or Africa matriculating in the Rackham Graduate School.

Events:

Spring 2010 Speaker Series Lineup:

February 23rd

Stacey Blake-Beard, PhD., Oscar Holmes, IV, Todd Jenkins, and Crystal Daugherty 

“Insights from the Intersection of National Culture and Gender: Exploring the Mentoring Experiences of Indian Women”   

Time and Place: 4:30pm – 5:50pm, with a reception following. Room M222, Simmons School of Management Building *Validated parking is available on site for $9

April 29th

Elisabeth Kelan PhD., King's College London  

“The Binary Logic and Performing Gender at Work”  

Time and Place: 4:30pm – 5:50pm, with a reception following. Room M222, Simmons School of Management Building *Validated parking is available on site for $9  

May 18th

Laura Morgan Roberts, Ph.D., Faculty Affiliate, Center for Gender in Organizations Visiting Assistant Professor, Department of Managerial Sciences, Georgia State University 

"Race, Gender and the Construction of Positive Identities at Work."   

Time and Place: 4:30pm – 5:50pm, with a reception following. Room M222, Simmons School of Management Building *Validated parking is available on site for $9

Projects:

To learn about specific projects on any of the following themes, please visit the CGO website at http://www.simmons.edu/som/centers/cgo/index.php.

Leadership

CGO is unpacking the topic of leadership to illuminate under-researched and under-recognized aspects of leadership and to give voice to the experiences and knowledge of women leaders of varied racial, class, ethnic, national, and sexual identities, largely marginalized until now. In particular, several projects on Latina leaders are underway or being developed.

Institutional Transformation/Gender Equity and Organizational Effectiveness

Rather than seeing gender as a problem that individual women confront at work, we see gender as embedded in an organization's culture. CGO helps organizations deal with these subtle gender dynamics by identifying the work practices that contribute to the bias and inequities that hinder organizational effectiveness. Recently CGO faculty edited the Reader in Gender, Work and Organization (Blackwell Publishers, forthcoming) that presents an alternative conceptual approach to gender in the workplace. by considering classic and newer topics in management education - leadership, negotiation, human resource management, organizational change, diversity, and globalization - from fresh perspectives.

Virtual Work

Given the speed and scope of technological change in workplaces, CGO is exploring the implications for gender equity and whether the embedded gender dynamics observed in more traditional organizations are replicated as organizations move into virtual work or are founded as virtual organizations.

Working with Differences

Building on the theme of addressing the intersection of race, class, sexual identity, and gender, CGO has been exploring the possibilities and challenges of building alliances among different social identity groups in order to support and sustain organizational change.

Globalization

CGO is developing both conceptual and applied work in the area of global diversity. We are also conducting focused research on the impact of globalization on the dynamics of gender, race, class, sexual identity, and ethnicity within domestic work organizations.

Kolb, Deborah M., Judith Williams, and Carol Frohlinger. 2004. Her Place at the Table: A Woman’s Guide to Negotiating Five Key Challenges to Leadership Success. Jossey-Bass.

Ely, Robin J., Erica Gabrielle Foldy, Maureen Scully, and The Center for Gender in Organizations, Simmons School of Management, eds. 2003. Reader in Gender, Work, and Organization. Blackwell Publishing.

Kolb, Deborah M., and Judith Williams. 2003. Everyday Negotiation: Navigating the Hidden Agendas in Bargaining. Jossey-  Bass.
 

Working Paper Series. Designed to disseminate recent developments in research, theorizing, and practice related to gender and organizational effectiveness.

CGO Insights. Written for both practitioners and scholars, these short, briefing notes are on topics relevant to promoting organizational effectiveness through strengthening gender equity.

CGO Speakers Bureau. Faculty give talks regularly on the themes of gender, leadership, power, negotiation, organizational change, and organizational effectiveness to diverse academic and organizational audiences.

CGO in the Media. Faculty are frequently asked by the popular press for insights and analysis on issues of women, leadership, and management. This is an important mechanism for influencing public discourse on gender, work, and organizations. CGO Consulting Services. CGO engages in consultations and action research projects with organizations interested in examining the ways in which their work norms, values, and practices are gendered and introducing changes that will foster greater equity for both men and women as well as improve organization performance.
Customized Educational Programs. CGO faculty work with the Simmons School of Management to design and deliver programs that help women understand the systemic nature of gender issues, increase their knowledge and skill in navigating their organizations with confidence, and help them to develop more successful careers. Customized programs include Executive Education courses held at Simmons School of Management and courses conducted onsite at the organizations for which they were developed.

The Ms. Foundation for Women is dedicated to building women's collective power to ignite change. We seek opportunities to both proactively and reactively inform public policy, and obtain policy wins at the local, state, tribal and national level, with the ultimate goal of transforming the systems that govern women's lives.

We also aim to change the language, beliefs and behaviors that continue to hold women's oppression in place-particularly at the intersection of race, class and gender-and to shift public debate on key issues so that the perspectives of, and impact on, low income women and women of color are visible and addressed.

We support both cross-issue organizing and organizing within four broad areas of impact:

Women's Health

Reproductive Justice organizing and advocacy
Sexuality education organizing and advocacy
Women and HIV/AIDS policy advocacy and organizational capacity building
Access to health care coverage

Ending Violence

Community-based strategies to prevent child sexual abuse and violence against women and LGBTQ people
Strategies to engage men and boys in ending violence
Public education and media literacy
Youth-driven strategies

Economic Security

Organizing for better wages and working conditions, especially in female dominated sectors
Paid leave (including paid sick days and paid family leave)
Affordable, accessible quality child care
Access to health care coverage

Building Democracy

Building the infrastructure of organizations working for a progressive vision of democracy
Amplifying the voices of women of color, with a special emphasis on the Gulf South
Voter/civic engagement
Just immigration and refugee policies
Criminal Justice reform
Media Justice

Examples of funding initiatives across these broad and interconnected issue areas include:

Katrina Women's Response Fund: The Ms. Foundation responded immediately to the destruction and massive displacement caused by Hurricane Katrina by creating the Katrina Women's Response Fund. The Fund provides strategic support to meet the immediate needs of women of color and low-income women in the Gulf Coast region and ensure that their leadership and priorities are central in both short and long-term recovery and rebuilding efforts. By making grants to organizations throughout the region, the Katrina Women's Response Fund invests in the crucial infrastructure that promotes the health, safety, and economic well-being of women, their families and communities.

The Women and AIDS Fund: The Ms. Foundation for Women created the Women and AIDS Fund (WAF)to support organizations that advocate for policies and services that meet the needs of women with HIV/AIDS. WAF remains the only national fund that supports advocacy and self-determination by and for women living with this disease. By providing grants, technical assistance and networking opportunities to community-based organizations led by and for women who are HIV-positive, we contribute to the development of model approaches for women's HIV/AIDS advocacy that can be shared across the country. Our work has also helped create a national network of HIV-positive infected and affected women, called the National Women and AIDS Collective (NWAC), who strive to influence the ways in which policies are determined at the federal level.

The Reproductive Rights Coalition and Organizing Fund: The Ms. Foundation for Women's Reproductive Rights Coalition and Organizing Fund (RRCOF) has been a strong, responsive resource for state reproductive rights organizations across the United States since 1989. RRCOF provides grantmaking, technical assistance, and networking activities to strengthen state-level infrastructures and build critical, broad-based support for reproductive rights. RRCOF aims to increase the capacity of state and local reproductive rights organizations so that they can: 1) expand and mobilize their base of support; 2) reach a broader and more diverse audience; 3) frame reproductive rights and health in a broader health and social justice context; and 4) more effectively advocate for positive - and avert restrictive - reproductive health policies and programs.

Join our movement for social justice and help to bring the experience and solutions of women and girls to the challenging issues that impact women and their communities most. Learn more about how you can show your support. 

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Stir It UP: Lessons in Community Organizing and Advocacy. Written by activist and trainer Rinku Sen, this publication examines the work of economic justice organizations funded by the Ms. Foundation and applies the lessons they learned to other community organizations. Sen also provides models and tools that any organization can use to successfully create social change and influence public policy.

Raise the Floor: Wages and Policies that Work for All of Us . Most Americans believe a job should keep you out of poverty, not keep you in it. Raise The Floor shows us how we can translate that belief into reality by raising the minimum wage. In addition to telling workers' stories, presenting original data, and proposing comprehensive policies, Raise The Floor spotlights businesses large and small that demonstrate how good wages are good business-in good economic times and bad.

Kitchen Table Entrepreneurs: How Eleven Women Escaped Poverty and Became Their Own Bosses. This publication tells the inspirational stories of eleven low-income women who have marshaled the creative energy, confidence, and capital necessary to start their own small businesses. These women, who have used their entrepreneurial skills as a route out of poverty, give an American face to an economic empowerment tool that has enjoyed great success in developing countries.

Ms. Foundation. 2009. Creating Connections, Igniting Change: Annual Report 2007-2008.

Ms. Foundation. 2009. Building Momentum to Sustain Social Change: Evaluation of the Katrina Women's Response Fund.  

Grants