Doctoral Education and the Faculty of the Future

12. First a Glass Ceiling, Now a Glass Cliff? The Changing Picture for Women in Science and Higher Education Careers

12 First a Glass Ceiling, Now a Glass Cliff? The Changing Picture for Women in Science and Higher Education Careers M. R. C. Greenwood Fifty years ago very few women chose careers in academic science or as leaders in higher education. Almost without exception, pictures and reports of major scientific events or societies depicted men—and mostly Caucasian men. Consequently there were few role models or exemplars for young women to emulate. Of course, there were some extraordinary exceptions such as physicist Marie Curie, astronomer Maria Mitchell, and, more recently, Nobel Prize–winning biologist Rosalyn Yalow. It is hardly surprising then that most women scientists at the full professorial level, now in their midfifties, sixties, or older, can easily recount experiences of being actively discouraged from pursuing an academic scientific career. With the advent of the women’s movement, the use of affirmative action, and the enforcement of antidiscrimination laws, this next generation of educated women faces a greatly changed environment with respect to entry-level access to several fields in science. Today, more women than men receive baccalaureate degrees overall and although the production of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics baccalaureate degrees is low in the United States compared with many other countries, on a per-capita basis women are obtaining approximately 50 percent of these degrees. Thus, it can be argued that concern for the advancement of women in science and engineering is shifting from one of access to science careers to one of placement, 176 Doctoral Education and the Faculty of the Future followed by upward mobility leading to success. The question now is, Will access lead to success at the highest levels of the scientific pyramid or will obstacles—perceived or real—impede maximum use of the valuable , now critical, talent pool represented by the educated and scientifically credentialed women in the United States? Assessing the Current Status In the fall of 2006, the National Academies of Science (NAS) released a report titled Beyond Bias and Barriers: Fulfilling the Potential of Women in Academic Science and Engineering (National Academy of Sciences et al. 2006a). Donna Shalala, president of the University of Miami and previously the secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services , chaired the committee that prepared this report, and the committee included many prominent scientists. The report focused much of its work on the recruitment, retention, and advancement of faculty women— some of whom move on to administration and management. It made many useful recommendations for improving outcomes for scientifically talented women, and in addition served as a repository and synthesis of much of the important work on bias and unintended consequences. The United States is facing a competitiveness challenge unlike any we have faced before. Friedman (2000) discusses this challenge in detail in the popular book The World Is Flat. In a world where brains, not brawn, will determine our collective future, we must ensure that we can draw on and maximize the talent that we now know resides in the pool of well-educated women. Since World War II, and particularly since the end of the Cold War, our nation’s technological prowess and our national investments in fundamental research—with their huge economic benefits—have led to a national complacency, and an unwillingness to believe that we could be “beaten” by any other country or coalition of countries. But as another compelling NAS report Rising above the Gathering Storm has so clearly detailed (National Academies of Sciences et al. 2000b), the time to recognize our vulnerabilities and to act proactively has come. The report has already had a substantial effect nationally. Senators Lamar Alexander and Jeff Bingaman commissioned the report in a bipartisan effort, in collaboration with the House Science Committee, to identify critical actions that federal policymakers could take to keep the United States competitive, prosperous, and secure in the twenty-first century. Furthermore, the report urges an implementation strategy. Numerous reports demonstrate that U.S. students are performing at an unacceptable level in most international comparisons, such as First a Glass Ceiling, Now a Glass Cliff? 177 the PISA 2003 study and the third international mathematics and science study (TIMSS)(Lemke et al. 2004; National Center for Education Statistics 1997). And at the college level, there is a growing shortage of students with degrees in science, engineering, and technology (National Science Board 2006). At the...