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This section includes news releases about the project and, more in general, studies on gender and diversity with particular emphasis on STEM disciplines.

  • How To Be a More Inclusive Mentor

    As colleges continue to diversify their students at a faster rate than their faculty members, some professors will mentor students from radically different backgrounds. If you want this relationship to be successful, here's some advice: Listen first, and don't make assumptions. Katie Mangan offers more tips from longtime mentors.

  • Two people negotiating salary. ERHUI1979/DIGITALVISION VECTORS/GETTY IMAGES

    How to Successfully Negotiate Your Salary

    Dan Moseson shares stories and strategies from across higher ed that include pragmatic advice along with ways to tackle some systemic problems.

  • Nonverbal Mechanisms Predict Zoom Fatigue and Explain Why Women Experience Higher Levels than Men

    Fauville et al.'s (2021) paper shows the results of the Zoom Exhaustion & Fatigue scale survey administered to 10,591 participants from a convenience sample and tested the associations between five theoretical nonverbal mechanisms and Zoom Fatigue – mirror anxiety, being physically trapped, hyper gaze from a grid of staring faces, and the cognitive load from producing and interpreting nonverbal cues. 

  • Laura Holden

    Columbus teen creates podcast encouraging girls to succeed in male-dominated STEM fields

    Laura Kate Holden, a high-school senior from Columbus, Ga., has been conducting interviews with women in STEM for a podcast she launched in the fall as part of a school chapter of GEMS (Girls in Engineering, Math and Science). Holden, who uses scientific papers to find guests from around the world, says she got the idea for the podcast after a club networking event was canceled because of the pandemic.

  • Negotiation table. Getty Images

    The Professor is in: How to Negotiate in a Pandemic

    What to expect if you’re fortunate enough to get a faculty job offer this spring.

  • CV, magnifier lens and glasses. ALAMY

    Admin 101: How to "Read" a Job Candidate's CV

    A close examination of the vita improves the prospects of fairness and success in faculty searches.

  • Computer monitor as magnet

    Why Are There So Few Women Full Professors?

    Even in the Before Times, when working mothers did not also have to oversee their own children’s education at home, parenthood significantly impacted a woman’s chances of advancing to full professor. A recent study shows that just 27 percent of academics who are mothers, compared with 48 percent of fathers, achieve tenure — to say nothing of promotion to full professor. In fact, according to the American Association of University Women, while 70 percent of tenured male professors have children, only 44 percent of tenured women do. 

  • Photo of woman working at laptop while watching children. Photo by Ketut Subiyanto, pexels.com

    Where Caregiving and Gender Intersect

    Numerous recent studies highlight the coronavirus pandemic's disproportionate blow to female academics’ productivity. Other studies highlight the pandemic’s toll on academics who are caregivers.

    A new study of thousands of professors from Ithaka S&R, out today, highlights the particular struggles of female caregivers working in academe -- and what institutions can do to help them.

    Stanford University’s Faculty Women’s Forum recently shared findings from a COVID-19-era faculty satisfaction survey. The pandemic caused “a lot more stress” for 57 percent of all respondents, more so for women, tenure-track professors, those at the lower end of the salary scale and those caring for children.

     

  • Woman climbing a ladder with award on top. Getty Images

    Teaching and Tenure: Part II

    Higher education institutions must offer multiple roads to recognition for faculty -- not just one, writes E. Gordon Gee.

  • Woman climbing a ladder with award on top. Getty Images

    Teaching and Tenure: Part I

    We need to foster the central importance of classroom instruction, and the best way to do that is to revise how we reward faculty, write Lisa M. Di Bartolomeo and Pablo García Loaeza.

  • INVINCIBLE_BULLDOG/ISTOCK/GETTY IMAGES PLUS

    Institutional Approaches to Mentoring Faculty Colleagues

    To build an inclusive climate for faculty, colleges should develop formal programs for mentoring rather than just leave it to individuals, write Joya Misra, Ember Skye Kanelee and Ethel L. Mickey.

  • Mother and child by window

    The Pandemic’s Sexist Consequences: Academe’s stark gender disparities are exacerbated by Covid-19

    Covid-19 has precipitated a caregiving crisis with profoundly gendered effects. The well-documented decrease in women’s journal submissions is an early example of the pandemic’s impact. In coming years, we’ll probably see additional consequences, including widening gender divisions in attaining tenure and an increase in the gender pay gap. These effects will be particularly stark for racially minoritized women.

  • Sphere of influence and actions from a figure in Fulweiler et al. (2021)

    COVID-19 and Beyond: Solutions for Academic Mothers

    “There is a lot of talk, but so far, to my knowledge, these discussions have largely been performative,” she said. “It seems like universities are just waiting to see what their peers are doing instead of acting, even though the evidence that women are being more impacted than men was demonstrated really early on in the pandemic.”

    More broadly, she continued, “COVID has just laid bare the inequities that have always existed in the academic system.” Prior to the pandemic, women and other marginalized groups were doing just enough to “stay in the game.” Now there are "literally not enough hours in the day to keep up, and every day that passes, we fall further behind.”

  • Slide from NAS presentation

    COVID-19: A Moment for Women in STEM?

    National Academy of Sciences panel chronicles what COVID-19 has been like for female scientists and then urges institutions to take meaningful, equity-minded action on their findings.

  • Mother at laptop with child, UTE GRABOWSKY, PHOTOTHEK VIA GETTY IMAGES

    Many Female Academics Face Big Challenges — and Covid-19 Raises the Stakes, Report Says

    A report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine found that women in STEM fields are facing challenges that have been exacerbated by the pandemic.

  • LaVonda Reed, Syracuse University

    Variances in Tenure Process Raise Gender Equity Concerns Exacerbated by COVID-19

    Amid discussions of returning to campus and trying to chart a new normal path during the COVID-19 pandemic, universities are beginning to grapple with questions surrounding faculty.

  • Between 2015 and 2020 UNC Greensboro nearly doubled its number of Black faculty members

    Race on Campus: How One Campus Nearly Doubled Its Black Faculty

    UNC-Greensboro’s success so far proves that diversifying the faculty doesn't stem from pomp and circumstance. It results from years of hard work by faculty members advocating for change in their departments and leadership that makes a real commitment.

  • Professor Jeremy Bailenson examined the psychological consequences of spending hours per day on Zoom and other popular video chat platforms. (Image credit: Getty Images)

    Four Causes of Zoom Fatigue and Their Simple Fixes

    It’s not just Zoom. Popular video chat platforms have design flaws that exhaust the human mind and body. But there are easy ways to mitigate their effects.

  • iStock image of tangled electric cables

    Faculty Members are Suffering Burnout. These Strategies Could Help

    Faculty members are anxious and burned out. Juggling work and disrupted personal lives in the midst of a pandemic, they need help if they are going to remain — and flourish — in academe. The Chronicle recently released a special report, Burned Out and Overburdened, that explores how colleges can provide support. Here is a condensed excerpt from the report.

  • Percent of women among top earners at 130 top research universities

    Academe's Sticky Pay-Parity Problems

    Women make up just 24 percent of research universities' top earners, according to a new report urging action on pay parity in academe. Women of color are just 2 percent.

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