Committee on the Status of Women: minutes of meeting

2005 Annual Meeting (Washington, D.C.)
Saturday, October 29, 2005
7 - 8:45 a.m.
Members in attendance
Heather Hadlock (Stanford U), chair
Dorothea Link (U of Georgia)
Honey Meconi (Eastman School of Music, U of Rochester)
James Parakilas (Bates College)
Judith Peraino (Cornell U)
Sindhu Revuluri (Princeton U), student member
Nina Treadwell (UC-Santa Cruz)
Richard Will (UVA)

I.  Welcome and Introductions

II.  Post-mortem on 2005 Open Meeting (discussion)
About 80 people attended our  panel discussion on “Gender Issues in Graduate Pedagogy,” with special focus on “seminar culture.” Panelists Gordon Haramaki (UCLA), Mitchell Morris (UCLA), Judith Peraino (Cornell), and Richard Will (UVA) briefly shared experiences as leaders/students in seminars. We then broke out into 6 discussion groups of 10-15 people; groups reported back at the end of the session. We were thrilled with the turn-out and the attendees’ participation in a long and lively discussion. (See notes from the Open Meeting.)
This session was publicized on the AMS-List and the AMS Student website.

III. Plans for 2006 Open Meeting in Los Angeles (discussion)
Our 2006 panel will address Job Searches and Interviews

TIMELINE for planning:
Announce topic in Newsletter Report (due to Pres/editor Dec 04)
Deadline to list topic and participants in AMS Program?
Deadline for NEWSLETTER with program?

2007 panel (Quebec) might address Mentoring:
Are women better served by male or female mentors? How satisfied are men and women with the mentoring they receive as students and pre-tenured faculty?
How important is it to have a mentor who is “the same” (gender, race, sexual orientation) as the protégé/e?
Does every young scholar still need a “doctor-father” to shepherd her/him through fellowship applications, first publications, and first job search?  How necessary is it to have a mentor whose identity is “unmarked” (i.e, not of color, not female, not openly gay, not adhering to a particular “-ism”)?  Does this vary by field or sub-discipline? By institution?  What makes the difference between fields, sub-disciplines, institutions?
Where does a young scholar find potential mentors?  In and outside of one’s department? at different stages of one’s career?
What is the balance of responsibility between mentor and protégé/e – is “being mentored” an active or a passive process? What are the most important actions on each side?

IV. DRAFT membership survey (2005-06) – Report (HH)
In 2005-06 the Committee on Membership and Professional Development (CMPD) will survey AMS members’ gender, ethnicity, education level, employment level, and income.
If we use the online service “SurveyMonkey”, an annual subscription would allow the AMS to prepare short surveys on more focused topics and distribute the survey links via e-mail.     
We asked the survey designer to measure women’s status in the profession:

1) The perceived “glass ceiling”: how true is it that women are roughly equal to men in the student and untenured ranks, but outnumbered at the tenured level?
Survey will provide data on gender/rank/salary
Follow up with Elaine Sisman re: Columbia study

2) Productivity: do women publish less than their male peers? if so, why? 
Survey has question re: submitting/publishing work.

3) Mentoring: are women better served by male or female mentors? How satisfied are men and women with the mentoring they receive as students and pre-tenured faculty? Survey has open-response questions; this could be a good topic for a mini-survey or online “focus group.”

4) Other topics for mini-surveys or focus groups?
Sexual harassment; hostile environment; perception of scholarly bias (from advisor); illegal questions in interviews

DISCUSS:  What could we do with this information? Prospective projects for 2006?

V.        PROJECTS for 2005 (BRAINSTORM/DISCUSS)
a.  Mid-career issues:
working toward tenure – collaborate with Committee on Career Related Issues? Build webpage featuring sample tenure files from different kinds of institutions? Testimonials? Advice?
work-life issues
teaching/mentoring

b. Pilot project with local chapter/s? -  i.e. sponsoring local forums/discussions pre-AMS in fall 06, on topic of our 2006 Open Meeting.

c. Mandates to “encourage research about women and gender” and “provide a forum for issues in feminist scholarship” in today’s “post-feminist” academic culture.
Local chapter meetings – roundtables, panels. New England/New York had a Lydia/Carolyn/Suzanne roundtable on “Drastic/Gnostic”.

Jim talked about Lewis Lockwood Prize Committee.  Book published in early stage of career (10 years from degree). 9 submissions, 8 by men.  Gender issues came up: do men self-nominate more than women? Do publishers nominate books by men more? time to degree; short-term jobs early in the career eating up time?

Closing.