Recommendation 1: Foster Accountability
Discussion of the problem: Accountability for gender equity is not always
integral to regular administrative structures at our universities. We have
relied in large part on volunteer groups, task forces, offices of human
resources, and equal opportunity/ affirmative action officers to advocate
for the cause of women and to monitor policies and programs affecting women
on their respective campuses. As particularly significant issues have
surfaced, we have responded by creating new positions, programs, or
committees. Women's Studies programs, women's health programs, rape crisis
programs, women's centers, and commissions and councils on women, all came
into being to solve problems of gender inequity.
These offices and programs have played, and will continue to play, important
roles in making our institutions more nearly equitable places for women to
be educated and employed. They are also generally understaffed and
underfunded in relation to their mandates, and located on the periphery of
the organizational structure of authority. They are therefore able to
provide encouragement, information, and technical assistance to others, but
are not positioned to exercise sole responsibility for institutional change.
It is time to realign responsibility and authority for gender equity so it
is more than an add-on. Members of the faculty, department chairs, and deans
need to be accountable for equity in curriculum, pedagogy, and academic
advising. Supervisors need to be accountable for equity in hiring, workplace
behavior, and career development opportunities. Student aid offices need to
be accountable for equity in student need assessment, aid packages, and
work-study assignments. In short, the institutional procedures already in
place for establishing expectations, creating and implementing work plans,
and reporting on results must be invoked to achieve the goals for gender
equity.
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Vision for the Year 2000
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Student evaluations of courses and instructors include measures of gender
equity in course content and classroom environment. Heads of departments,
schools, and colleges use these evaluations both to identify and reward
superior achievement, and to identify and intervene in undesirable
practices.
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Self-evaluation, peer review, and supervisory review of faculty teaching
includes assessment of gender balance in course content and gender-inclusive
pedagogical practices.
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Job descriptions and performance evaluations for all officers, managers,
and supervisors include responsibilities for monitoring and fostering gender
equity efforts.
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Annual reports issued by organizational units assess initiatives toward
gender equity and establish equity-related goals for the coming year.
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Offices and committees responsible for initiating, promulgating, and
implementing institutional policies periodically review and revise such
policies to assure their optimal contribution to gender equity.
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The president of the university reports annually to the governing board
and to the state legislature on the status of women at the university.
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Recommendation 3: Implement Diversity Initiatives
Discussion of the problem: Environments receptive to difference are
environments receptive to women, and vice versa. The more diverse an
institution, the more open to a variety of cultural values and practices,
the more likely it is to be a place in whose work women can participate
fully. Our universities are in various ways attempting to become more
diverse and more sustainably pluralistic communities, although with mixed
success to date. New England Land Grant University Women welcome and support
these endeavors, which promote equity for women of color, for women with disabilities,
for women of all sexual/affectional preferences, indeed for
all women.
The full benefit of diversity depends upon our universities' taking the
broadest possible view of it. Initiatives should therefore include not only
efforts on behalf of the current Affirmative Action populations, but also of
other groups for whom Equal Opportunity at our universities has yet to
become a reality, such as working class people, recent immigrant groups,
gay/lesbian/bisexual/transgendered persons, and underrepresented ethnic
populations historically significant in our own states, such as
Franco-Americans and Portuguese-Americans.
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Vision for the Year 2000
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University facilities and programs are invitingly accessible to persons
with disabilities.
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There are critical masses of women, persons of color, persons with
disabilities, and other underrepresented populations in all units and ranks,
and in leadership positions, among students, staff, and faculty.
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There are equal numbers of men and women in the underrepresented groups.
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Women and other Affirmative Action populations are represented in all
bodies of university governance in proportion to their numbers among the
governed.
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The university budget for student services/student activities is devoted
to the interests and needs of non-traditional students in proportion to
their numbers in the student body.
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The university has demonstrated innovation in significantly incorporating
international students and staff, and their families, into university life.
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The retention rates among underrepresented groups are not lower than
those of other students and employees.
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The office responsible for oversight of the university's equal
opportunity policies and affirmative action plans has the resources and the
authority necessary to carry out its charge, and is regarded by the campus
community as a highly effective compliance office.
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Recommendation 4: Promote Family-Friendly Policies
Discussion of the problem: Employers who fail to acknowledge the economic
importance and social burden of work for family and community discriminate
against women. Single or married women whose family members require care
often experience demands and stresses which are typically much greater than
those experienced by their male peers. Far fewer women than men can choose
to have children without interrupting or retarding their career development
by several years. Women are also often called on to provide care for elderly
parents. Because of such differentials, opportunities for advancement which
require full-time devotion to the job are open to most otherwise qualified
men, but to few otherwise qualified women.
Society has chosen to reward those who postpone or interrupt a career to
serve in the armed forces by making it easier for them to resume a career
after their period of service. Veteran's education benefits and preferential
hiring are a form of compensation for contributions to society. Work for
family and community deserves similar consideration.
Our universities can choose to value as job-related assets the experience
gained by working women with families. We can promote opportunities for
women to participate and to advance in the workforce by enhancing childcare
services, liberalizing family leave provisions, facilitating flexible work
arrangements, and instituting provisions for slowing or temporarily stopping
the tenure process. Such investments make our universities fit workplaces
for people with families.
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Vision for the Year 2000
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University childcare includes drop-in, evening, after-school, and
school-vacation programs. Fees for services are charged on a sliding scale.
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Student health insurance includes year-round benefits for dependents.
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University supervisors make extraordinary efforts to accommodate employee
requests for flextime, job sharing, reduced work schedules, work from home,
or family leave. When such accommodation is impossible within the
limitations of the employing unit, the central office of human resources
stands ready to assist in meeting the employee's need to reconcile demands
of work and family.
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Tenure policies make available to all probationary faculty both family
leave, during which the tenure clock stops, and reduction from full-time to
part-time status, during which the clock slows proportionately. Faculty who
exercise such options are not penalized by their peers for having extended
the probationary period.
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University employees are encouraged to take time during the day to attend
their children's school functions or to volunteer in their children's
schools.
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The university has established an effective program of relocation
assistance for domestic partners of new employees.
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University benefits formerly restricted to legally married spouses of
employees extend to all established domestic partners.
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The university supports families and personal life with training for
supervisors on work-family issues, periodic work-family surveys, workshops
and support groups on work-family issues, and designated work- family staff.
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Recommendation
5: Encourage Women's Academic and Career Development
Discussion of the problem: After more than twenty years of affirmative
actions, women are still found in disproportionate numbers in low-paid and
low-status jobs and specialties. There are still major penalties for being
female: many programs and colleges in our institutions that have a high
proportion of female students and faculty also have lower pay and less
institutional clout.
To achieve equal pay, prestige, job satisfaction, and autonomy, women
students and employees need access to education, credentials, mentors, and
evaluative procedures that are truly gender-neutral. Strategies for change
must be based on a comprehensive understanding of the factors that hinder
women's personal and professional development within our male-dominated
disciplines and places of work.
Our universities must change in many ways to provide each and every woman
true equality of opportunity. Supervisors must embrace the notion that the
university's mission and their own department's productivity are enhanced by
encouraging the personal and professional development of all employees.
Departments and disciplines must change curricula, pedagogies, and workplace
practices so that women students and faculty can translate entry-level
access and ability into satisfying careers. Teacher preparation programs
must collaborate with schools to liberate the aspirations of young women and
men and of current and future teachers. And our Cooperative Extension
programs must carry these models of gender equity into every community in
our states.
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Vision for the Year 2000
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All members of the university community have equitable access to
information: all employees have library privileges equal to those of
faculty, all employees have equal access to the Internet, and all employees
are guaranteed full access to information affecting their employment.
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All members of the university community have equal access to educational
benefits: supervisors do not deny flexible scheduling to accommodate
coursework without compelling reasons demonstrated in writing, and
educational pursuits are recognized as positive work contributions in annual
performance evaluations.
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All members of the university community have equal access to important
communities and conversations: release time for university service is
guaranteed, all employees have clear and prompt access to decision-makers,
and differences in male and female socialization no longer disempower women
in classrooms, committees, disciplines, and offices.
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The university has created effective approaches to meeting professional
development needs, and funding available to support professional development
is equitably allotted to women.
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University institutes for public policy, curricula for teacher
preparation and enhancement, Cooperative Extension services, and other
programs of research, teaching, and public service exercise visible
leadership in the promotion of gender equity in other institutions of the
States we serve, as part of their explicit or implicit mission to maximize
the development of human potential.
Recommendation 8: End Sexual Harassment
and Violence Against Women
Discussion of the problem: As long as women remain at unequal risk for
violence and intimidation at their places of study and work, our campuses
discriminate against women. While some progress has been achieved in
providing support services to survivors of rape, sexual harassment, and
dating and domestic assault, much more is required to demonstrate that our
universities are fully committed to change the fundamental social and
physical conditions that sustain violence against women. Many women express
dissatisfaction with existing methods of prevention and redress. On some
campuses, even basic services for survivors (such as an easily accessible,
effective, and visibly confidential advocate) are lacking; whereas on other
campuses, several offices need better coordination to insure continued
progress.
In too many cases, women remain silenced about violent or intimidating
behavior by superiors, peers, and partners. Some women are driven out of the
university by a spuriously evenhanded approach, which rarely results in
real sanctions for the perpetrators or real justice for the survivors. When
accountability for women's safety is marginalized in Equal Opportunity or
other offices outside the regular reporting structures, the result is often
to forestall legal remedies that women off campus can pursue if they are
attacked in their homes, workplaces, or in public spaces.
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Vision for the Year 2000
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A visible and confidential support system, clear consequences for
behavior, and vocal commitment to anti-violence policies from president and
vice presidents have made it possible for women on our campuses to report
assault and harassment and to seek redress. The university truly exemplifies
a zero tolerance of sexual harassment and violence against women.
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The university withdraws recognition and support from groups shown to be
implicated at rates higher than the general campus population in acts of
sexual harassment or violence against women.
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The university ensures the safety of survivors during periods of
investigation. Individuals found responsible for violent acts are
disciplined, usually by termination of association with the university. If
circumstances do not warrant such termination, disciplinary measures imposed
include curfews, escorts, increased supervision, designation of off-limit
sites, and other restrictions on freedom of movement, as appropriate to the
protection of the survivor and of others similarly situated.
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Criteria for evaluation of administrators and supervisors include items
to test women's satisfaction with the university's response to the problem
of sexual harassment and violence. Women students and employees report
satisfaction with university grievance, public safety, and judicial
mechanisms they have used.
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Administrators and supervisors about whom dissatisfaction is reported are
held responsible for providing themselves and staffs with training and
professional development on issues of violence against women and sexual
harassment. Failure to achieve acceptable levels of satisfaction among
supervisees within a reasonable period of time is grounds for disciplinary
action.
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The university has instituted a process in which all administrators,
faculty, graduate teaching assistants, staff, and students are trained in
issues of sexual harassment and violence, paying particular attention to
groups that are particularly vulnerable, such as graduate students and
support staff.
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Recommendation 9: Correct Inequities in Hiring, Promotion, Tenure,Compensation,
and Working Conditions for Women Employees
Discussion of the problem: A survey of the distribution of women employees
at our institutions indicates that they are conspicuously underrepresented
in many of the organizational units. Women's opportunities for career
advancement are inequitably restricted, as evidenced by their
disproportionate under-representation in positions of administrative and
supervisory responsibility, and by their disproportionate overrepresentation
in positions of lower rank or status, less compensation, and less job
security. Faculty and other professional women are less well paid than their
male counterparts, and faculty women are less likely to achieve tenure or,
having achieved tenure, to be promoted to full professor. Non-exempt staff
positions tend to be highly sex- segregated. In the segments of the
workforce in which women predominate, such as clerical and office workers,
opportunities for career advancement are severely limited. Far too many
women report being intimidated or silenced, when they have spoken out
against these facts of university life; they also report profound distrust
or dissatisfaction with available grievance and other conflict resolution
mechanisms.
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Vision for the Year 2000
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Employees in all ranks report that they have satisfactory access to
opportunities for career advancement.
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Equity monies are allocated in each collective bargaining process to
address gender inequities in earnings.
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There are no significant gender differences in achievement of tenure or
in years in rank for members of the faculty.
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Peer review and evaluation of faculty teaching and research gives
equitable recognition to the substance and methodologies of work in Women's
Studies.
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Employees express satisfaction with the grievance or other conflict
resolution mechanisms they have utilized.
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No employees report reluctance to utilize available grievance or other
conflict resolution mechanisms.
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Wage levels of non-exempt staff are based upon considerations of
comparable worth.
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A sophisticated analysis of salaries, taking into account such factors as
the market value of a discipline or professional expertise, highest degree
earned, position or rank, and years in position or rank, suggests that
gender is not a factor.
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The university hires an outside firm specializing in public institution
compensation studies to undertake a salary and wage analysis every three
years.
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