University Committee on Women

Minutes from February 20, 2003

Jischke Honors Building

Present: Catherine Fox, Ingrid Lilligren, Cheryl Abrams, Jackie Litt, Margie Tabor, Lyn Van DePol, Diane Debinski, Penny Rice, Georgia Hale, Lauri Dusselier, Pat Miller, Susan Carlson, Liz Beck, Chuck Glatz, Connie Post, Dianne Bystrom

Guests: President Gregory Geoffroy, Tahira Hira

I. Minutes of meeting on 1/15/03 approved

II. Issues/concerns brought forward:
Mural topic: Penny Rice reported that no debriefing regarding the mural has taken place nor will it. The wall is now completely painted over. Rice is familiar with the way this would be handled at Indiana University and will bring forward a proposal to the university for the creation of a community response team. There was a question about SART on campus—is this the vehicle for dealing with this? Since the wall incident was not filed as a formal complaint, no investigation was made.

III. Subcommittee Reports

Arrival of Children
Susan Carlson reported that the President's Cabinet met Monday and is comfortable with the document going forward to Board of Regents Office. President Geoffroy is eager to move ahead with policy (with augmented answers). And will also talk with UNI & U of I Provosts on Tuesday. The policy may not go to Board of Regents until May. (Update: Beck, on behalf of UCW, sent a memo to the Board Office in support of the proposal.)

College of Engineering
Jackie Litt has interviewed 14 women (Litt) work/family balance, integration/isolation in department, staying/leaving issues, and general climate issues. She will collaborate with another sociologist to do formal qualitative analysis. Glatz is doing the quantitative analysis. Litt hopes to have a report by the end of the year.

Institutional Data
Beck is on a committee convened by Mark Childister & Gebre Tesfagiorgis to determine issues that are being addressed regarding the collection, analysis and reporting of the annual data for women and minorities. The committee is also discussing where the information should be reported and who will be responsible for making and following up on recommendations that come out of the data.

Faculty Recruitment and Retention
Jackie Litt reported that the committee is grappling with the definition of minority. Among these issues is the separation of U.S. racial minorities from international minorities and the need to add back LGBT faculty. The President’s Committee on Diversity will commission campus climate survey including racial, gender and sexual preference. Task Force on Women and Minorities will work with them.

Women in Leadership
Beck reported that the Consortium on Women in Leadership has a subcommittee getting ready to finalize a proposal to go to the Provost that recommends active support and promotion of women in leadership opportunities both on campus and off campus—such as the SLIC program, reinstituting the Administrative Internship Program for women and minorities, and the Bryn Mawr Women in Leadership summer program.

Title IX
Calli Sanders has been hired as the Senior Women’s Administrator for the Department of Athletics. The February 15 women’s basketball game and the National Women and Girls in Sport Day was well attended considering that there was a major snow/ice storm that affected the celebration ceremony. The UCW co sponsored the reception prior to the game.

Status of Women
Debinski reported that her committee is working on an Advance Grant.

April Retreat
The members believed an end of year retreat with committee reports and dinner was a good idea in late April. The date and location will be announced later. (The retreat will be 6:00-8:00 on Wednesday, April 23 at the Gateway. There will be a social period beginning at 5:30.)

Meeting with Dr. Geoffroy
Geoffroy has expressed appreciation for work of the UCW and noted 30 years of service. "Change doesn’t occur without some prodding or pushing…" One of our most important roles in his view. He cited the following issues as critical.

i) Arrival of children policy is moving along; back to Board of Regents within a few weeks. One thing we can do is notify Regents of our (UCW) interest in the approval of that policy.

ii) Broad issue is to continue to work to improve environment on campus for everyone, being supportive and able to address problems, ensure success.

iii) Greater attrition among women assistant professors verses men; overall we are not doing a good job if we lose people we want to keep.

iv) Challenge of recruiting women into areas where women are significantly underrepresented (engineering and agriculture) and recruit more women into leadership positions. DEO’s are key are key steps to Associate and Assistant Dean’s positions. What do major universities do? Recruitment: extremely pro-active in developing a rich pool; leadership recruitment by succession planning - moving them progressively upwards, identify women faculty and work with Provost Office to help them move along and gain skills.

v) Question from Litt - what is the role of departments vis-a-vis institutional change—how seen? Geoffroy: Top-down management will not work. Participating change model—effective leaders can make change; function of leadership is to provide direction but needs to be developed and supported by group—work with individuals.

vi) Question from Debinski-Advance Grant for institutional change: is it possible to bring women to campus as full professors? Geoffroy - in general we hire DEO’s inside, external could bring change. For higher positions the balance shifts to external candidates.

vii) Question from Litt - Cluster hiring? Geoffroy - He is aware of this practice and knows this works really well with women and minorities. "We have enough flexibility with the university budgets to do these things."
viii) Question from Beck - What can you tell us about the budget? Geoffroy - cloudy, legislature is setting funding targets, governor's proposal favorable for full funding of our requested salary increases but disappointing part is no support for capital projects. Senate Appropriations Committee wants to cut funding to the Regents Institutions.

viii) Question from Post - In light of budget woes will there be more collaborative projects among Regents Institutions? Geoffroy—where they make sense.