>From Susan Feiner ([EMAIL PROTECTED]):
Greetings Economists: I have some good news. FIPSE (fund for the
improvement of postsecondary education) has invited the preliminary
proposal I prepared with Myra Strober and Janice Madden (and Rebecca Blank)
back as a full proposal. They received 1900 preliminary proposals, asked
275 to come back as full proposals and will fund 55 to 60. Below is a
summary of our proposed project:
Proposal Title: A World Without Women? Just Add and Stir. or Enriching
the Graduate School Experiences of Female Doctoral Candidates in
Traditionally Male Disciplines - Begining with Economics.
Abstract. This three year project calls for the establishment of a cross
campus mentoring network in which female economics professors at the rank
of associate or full professor at non-PhD granting institutions will be
trained to mentor up to three female graduate students. Each
participating department will also have a supportive senior (most likely
male) economist working as a liaison between the graduate faculty, the
mentors, the grad. students and the project directors. If funded the
project will begin in Fall, 1994 with a three day conference for mentors
and grad. program liaisons on techniques for mentoring and methods of
assessing the successes or failures of mentoring relationships. A two day
conference is planned for the begining of year two to assess project
progress. The project plan also calls for education and outreach to the
economics profession on issues relating to the chilly climate. The project
will conclude with a gala conference in which project results are shared
with interested faculty from other disciplines in which women are
traditionally underrepresented.
The project directors are: Susan Feiner, Myra Strober and Janice Madden.
They solicit support in the following areas:
1) female economists willing to serve as mentors could write letters and
send them to Feiner (Dept. of Economics, Hampton University, Hampton VA
23668) indicating your willingness to participate AND your reasons for
believing that such a project is likely to be of help.
2) female grad. students who would like to be mentored and why. be as
specific as possible.
3) phd granting institutions with three or more female grad. students who
would like to participate in this project. letters of interest would be of
great assistance in submitting the proposal.
4) help with preparing a narrative statement on the importance of mentoring.
text of the proposal follows. thanks. respond off line to
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
* * *
"A WORLD WITHOUT WOMEN?" "JUST ADD & STIR." OR
ENHANCING THE GRADUATE SCHOOL EXPERIENCES OF WOMEN PURSUING DOCTORAL
DEGREES IN TRADITIONALLY MALE DISCIPLES.
I recall very vividly my first day in class. Three seats in front of me,
three seats in back of me, and two seats on either side were left vacant.
I was a complete pariah in that social setting (the graduate school of
Harvard University)...The men were positively unable to interact with me.
(Marian Boyken Pour-El in A World Without Women. David Noble. 1992.
p.xiii)
We were shut out ... we were shown we didn't belong ... I was completely
isolated. I did not have access to the normal channels of communication,
debate and exchange in the profession - those informal networks where you
get the news, the comment, the criticism, the latest reports of what is
going on ... I had been exiled (from) the 'inner reaches' of the
profession. (Naomi Weinstein, ibid.)
Perhaps the most curious, undoubtedly the most painful, part of my
experience was the total isolation in which I found myself ... I was
clearly a serious threat to my fellow students' conception of physics as
not only a male stronghold but a male retreat. (Evelyn Fox Keller, ibid.
p.xiv)
Introduction
Despite the fact that a great many more women are enrolled in graduate
programs in traditionally male fields today than there were 20 or 30 years
ago, many of the same problems continue to confront female doctoral
candidates. Research has shown how the social/intellectual isolation
described above, combines with the derision and outright ridicule from some
male professors and graduate students to undermine female doctoral
candidates.1 The proposed model is an attempt to remedy these deficiencies
in graduate education, begining in the field of economics, through
mentoring and climate control. Dissemination within economics is built
into the aspects of the project relating to the chilly climate, while
dissemination to other traditionally male disciplines will occur during the
concluding three day conference open to professors from all disciplines.
The focus of this capstone gala conference will be the adaptation of the
stages of intervention to other disciplines. Preliminary discussions with
senior female faculty in philosophy and mathematics indicate great
enthusiasm for this project.
Problem Identification.
We propose to develop and field test a tripartite intervention - aimed at
improving the graduate school experiences of female students in
traditionally male fields - in graduate departments of economics, as
economics continues to be a thoroughly male dominated discipline.2 The
proposed project includes three sets of activities.
First, we seek funding from FIPSE to establish a cross campus mentoring
network to give female graduate students access to senior female scholars
in economics.
Second, all project participants will be active in a national educational
outreach program aimed at faculty across the economics discipline to help
them recognize and correct behaviors which discourage female
accomplishment. Outreach overlaps dissemination as we anticipate presenting
project results at various professional meetings; we also plan to provide
consulting services for departments interested in making an institutional
commitment to improving the graduate school experiences of women in
economics.
Third, to ensure the replication of the project in other traditionally male
fields we seek funding from FIPSE to conduct a national conference for
concerned professors in fields like geology, engineering, math and physics.
Summary data on sex ratios in economics reveal the extent to which women
are underrepresented in the profession. In 1989 (the last year for which
data are available), the American Economic Association (hereafter A.E.A.)
had 12,000 members (with US citizenship) of whom only 1,600 were female. At
the top tier, degree granting institutions, the number of female full
professors in economics is minuscule: Harvard, M.I.T., and Standford have
1; while Brown, Princeton, Northwestern and Yale have 0. (Rigorous
empirical testing is not needed to confirm that these numbers are not
significantly greater than zero). Unfortunately, no work directed at the
day-to-day classroom experiences of women graduate students has been
undertaken to correct two of the most daunting consequences of this
situation - limited access to mentoring combined with discouraging or even
hostile responses from a predominantly male professorate. These problems
are not confined to economics; other disciplines with low percentages of
women earning the doctoral degree report similar problems.1 Thus, the
proposed intervention can be easily adapted for use in these fields.
The importance of mentoring for graduate school success has been widely
reported. This special relationship often means the difference between
alienation and defeat on the one hand, and intellectual growth and degree
completion on the other. Yet women who seek advanced degrees in economics
often have very limited access to this relationship. The available faculty
are almost exclusively male and for a variety of reasons they may not
provide adequate mentoring to female graduate students. There is evidence
to suggest that: (1) men are often unwilling to mentor women because they
are afraid of possible sexual entanglements or allegations of sexual
impropriety; (2) they do not believe in women's abilities or chances for
success and are thus unwilling to invest their time and energy in mentoring
women; and (3) because mentors also model life styles for their students
(and most women students do not expect to have life styles similar to those
of their male professors), these men do not serve as adequate models for
women students. Consequently, female graduate students have much less
opportunity to develop mentoring relationships.
A second and equally pernicious consequence of gender imbalances in
economics in particular and the male dominated sciences in general, is the
very chilly climate for women. Indeed, in the first ever public discussion
of women's problems with tenure and sexual harassment in economics (the
International Association for Feminist Economists (I.A.F.F.E) August 8 -
10, 1993; American University, Washington DC) all of us were shocked to
discover the extent of hostile behavior directed at women. Women from
schools as prestigious as Harvard, Brown, Penn and Stanford, and from
schools noted for their progressive curricula like U. Mass Amherst and The
New School for Social Research, reported multiple and persistent forms of
discouragement. Both the general absence of senior women faculty and the
relative novelty of female graduate students were cited as sources of the
these negative behaviors. Even in the graduate programs of other
disciplines (where there are more senior women) there are still many
instances of male professors discouraging female students. The almost
complete absence of senior women in economics does, however, exacerbate the
problem. Consequently, the chilly climate accentuates the problems
confronting young young women seeking doctoral degrees in traditionally
male fields.
Project Design.
A) Cross Campus Mentoring.
Because doctoral programs in economics have so few female professors, the
proposed project will establish a cross campus mentoring program. Forty
(40) senior female faculty with established professional reputations will
serve as mentors, colleagues and role models for women in graduate
economics programs.
Female economists, primarily from teaching colleges, with a wide array of
research interests and from a variety of geographic locales will be
recruited.1 At the beginning of the project mentors will receive special
training in mentoring. These mentors are not intended to be substitute
thesis advisors. Rather, through the development of personal relationships
the mentors will guide the entry of female graduate students into the
community of professional economists.
Each mentor will work with three (3) female graduate students in each of
the forty (40) participating departments. Graduate student participants
will be sought through formal and informal networks, and special attention
will be paid to female students in graduate departments with poor records
of retention and completion for women. To help ensure the cooperation of
the forty (40) participating graduate departments, the project will recruit
a supportive senior faculty member (who, given the preponderance of men in
these departments is likely to be male) to act as liaison between the
graduate faculty, the mentors, the graduate students and the project
directors.
At the beginning of Year Two the mentors, the graduate students, and the
graduate faculty supporters will meet for a two day conference to assess
project progress, discuss problems and successes of the project, and other
issues of concern. Developments at this meeting will allow us to fine-tune
activities in Years Two and Three. Consultants will help us develop methods
for assessing the impact of the project. To include an array of Ph.D.
granting programs in the project, discipline wide announcements will be
circulated in relevant professional newsletters. The graduate directors
of the approximately 140 Ph.D. granting economics departments will be
approached individually through letters and follow-up telephone
conversations. Students and mentors will keep notebooks and logs of their
interactions. With the support of several key professional groups in
economics, including C.S.W.E.P. and I.A.F.F.E., we will seek continuation
of the project with funds from the A.E.A. and other interested groups. By
the end of the three years for which F.I.P.S.E. funding is sought, fully 40
graduate departments and 120 graduate students will have been directly and
deeply influenced by project activities.
B) Climate Change.
The activities intended to change the graduate school climate in which
female doctoral candidates find themselves are based on the belief that the
majority of male economists and graduate students would behave more
appropriately and with greater sensitivity if they knew that their words
and actions were in fact derogatory, unprofessional and often harmful to
their female peers. Consequently, the proposed project will develop an
intensive, ongoing educational campaign open to all members of the
economics profession. Project directors will: organize panels at which
project participants report on the project at national, regional and
specialist economics meetings; arrange informal discussion groups at these
meetings; and organize a consulting service available to economics
departments willing to make an institutional commitment to gender equity in
graduate economics training. While the educational outreach activities of
the project will focus on the many interrelated aspects of the graduate
school climate, special programming will be designed to address problems of
sexual harassment. Local experts at Hampton, Stanford and Penn will help
us design survey instruments for gathering the information we need to
develop climate control strategies in economics. No F.I.P.S.E. funds are
requested to support these activities.
Dissemination and Assessment.
Students in the mentoring program will be encouraged to introduce the
mentors to new and continuing female graduate students. The graduate
advisors of economics programs will be surveyed by the project directors on
a regular basis. The advice of the in-house department liaisons will be
solicited and the PD's will consider all this information in the assessment
process and the mentoring faculty will share the results of their
participation in the project with other economists. In Year Three we will
hold a national conference to provide an intensive introduction to project
methodologies for concerned faculty in other
traditionally male fields.
The Budget.
We seek funding for 40 faculty participants and 120 graduate
student participants. Support for department liaison travel will be
provided by participating (degree granting) departments. Travel stipends
of $200 per faculty mentor/graduate student team per semester are requested
to fund cross campus visits. Funds for training in mentoring are also
sought, as are consultant fees for instrument design. Other funds are
needed to secure project director Feiner's released time. PD Feiner will
be responsible for coordinating faculty/student mentoring, for monitoring
the development of these relationships, and for the coordination of the
outreach/educational program. Feiner is the founder and chair of The
Committee for Race and Gender Balance in the Economics Curriculum as well
as the Project co- Director for the NSF faculty development project
Improving Introductory Economics Education by Integrating the Latest
Scholarship on Women and Minorities. PD Myra Strober (Stanford
University) and PD Janice Madden (University of Pennsylvania) are two of
the most senior women in economics and each holds a prestigious
administrative position at a major research institution. In addition, both
Stanford and Penn have made formal institutional commitments to gender
equity in graduate education and project staff from those programs will
work closely with this project. Madden and Strober will "run interference"
for the project by soliciting the help and assistance of graduate programs.
They will devote several hours per week to the project, and during the
summer months they will work on assessment activities. For this they will
be compensated a tiny fraction of their true summer salaries. Other costs
are: long distance telephone expenses; other misc. office expenses; and
some travel to assess the progress of mentors and mentees. In Years Two
and Three travel stipends for faculty participants are sought, as are funds
for an assessment meeting for all project participants. Other costs for
materials and supplies are continuing. In Year Three we seek additional
funds to conduct a three day conference open to all professors who wish to
create projects like this in their own disciplines. Education and outreach
activities will be done as cost sharing with the project. That is, project
participants will present papers, lead discussion groups and travel as part
of the consulting service at no cost to F.I.P.S.E.
Significance.
The "masculinization of science" is now widely recognized.1 Scholars and
historians in virtually every field have identified scores of biases
connected to the gendering of modern science. Yet the in-the-flesh
problems associated with female advancement in disciplines shaped by
masculine ways of knowing, doing and teaching and by continued exclusion of
female practitioners, have received almost no attention. The proposed
project is thus a long overdue attempt to remedy these serious defects in
post-baccalaureate education.
1 Berg and Ferber. 1983. "Men and Wome Graduate Students: Who Succeeds
and Why?" J. Higher Education. 54.
2 Ferber and Tieman. 1981. "The Oldest, the Most Established and the Most
Quantitative of the Social Sciences - and the Most Dominated by Men." In
Men's Studies Modified: The Impact of Feminism on the Academic
Disciplines. ed. Dale Spender, New York: Pergammon Press.
1 The percentage of female doctoral degrees awarded in geology,
engineering, economics, mathematics and physics are, respectively: 19.9%
(271); 8.8% (4533); 19.1% (834); 19.4% (882); and 9.2% (1111). (Data
reported by NCES, 1989 - total degrees awarded reported in the
parentheses).
1 We anticipate recruiting female economists from schools that concentrate
on the BA in economics because female faculty members at the doctoral
degree granting institutions are already swamped with students. That is,
these schools may admit a fair proportion of female doctoral canditates,
but they have so few female faculty that these faculty members are truly
burdened with students. Since the mentors are not "shadow" thesis
advisors, the fact that they are from teaching schools will reinforce their
roles as guides into the profession.
1 Sandra Harding. 1986. The Science Question in Feminism. Ithica, NY:
Cornell University Press; Carolyn Merchant. 1980. The Death of Nature.
New York: Harper and Row; Brian Easlea. 1981. Science and Sexual
Oppression: Patriarchy's Confrontation with Women and Nature. London
Weidenfeld and Nicholson; Linda Schiebinger. 1989. The Mind Has No Sex?
Women in the Origins of Modern Science. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press.
