Women's Scientific Society Recognition Facilitated by AWIS
Dear friends of women in science,
AWIS, under the leadership of Phoebe Leboy, has used a grant to study how scientific societies recognize women and whether there are ways to make their discovery as important scientists easier and more effective. Alice Popejoy, shown below, is a recent collaborator with Phoebe and others. She has summarized this project for the AWIS newsletter and given us permission to put some of the material on this site. This is an important topic and I hope you'll click through (here) and read the entire update from AWIS. I also hope that you'll take on nominating women in your own societies whenever you can.
cheers,
Laura
Making Strides in Research Recognition for Women
Improving the workplace culture in STEM fields is a cornerstone of AWIS' mission, not only to promote a hospitable environment for women, but also to make the scientific enterprise an attractive place for all Americans to thrive and innovate. Part of success in an academic career is being recognized appropriately for one's research achievements, and we know anecdotally that women do not receive adequate recognition. Two years ago, AWIS received a National Science Foundation (NSF) ADVANCE grant to investigate this claim, and the data we have uncovered reveal a compelling case.
Initially partnering with seven large and prestigious scientific societies, we examined the rate at which women received awards for scholarship and service, compared to the estimated pool of eligible female candidates in each discipline. Not only do women receive too few awards for academic achievements in their respective disciplines based on the number of senior eligible women in the field, they also receive a disproportionately large number of awards for service, mentoring and teaching - domains usually perceived as strengths of women.
Working with committed representatives and leaders in scientific disciplinary societies across STEM fields, we have identified practices that perpetuate the trend of recognizing women for traditionally "female" roles such as teachers and mentors. For example, gendered wording in awards solicitations might discourage potential female nominees, and holding informal selection committee evaluations rather than a rigorous review of established award criteria may lead to biased decisions. By raising awareness about implicit bias and best practices for awards selection committees, AWIS and our society partners have been able to increase the proportion of women winning scholarly awards in just one year. The AWARDS Webcasts, highlighting research on awards practices and ways to mitigate the effects of implicit bias on selection committee decisions, are available on our website at http://www.awis.org/awards and we welcome everyone who wants to learn more about this topic to review the 30-minute series.
This month, AWIS invited 11 additional professional societies from varied disciplines including ecology, physics, economics, psychology, astronomy, entomology, genetics, and botany to join the AWARDS Project and learn from the original seven society leaders about their successes and challenges to implementing change over the last two years.
It's horrifying that the awards for scientific merit are lower in percent even than professorships! That graph is very important for us to stare at, and then take action.
KR
Hello Laura,
I think any award would help any woman who will be judged by men for anything, myself. I was interested that AWIS found the more formal the proceeding, the more likely women were to win the award. These old boy network informal choices really disadvantage the women, because it's men the committee thinks of by knee jerk reaction.
Michiko
Hi Sara and Cathryn,
It's interesting to hear that awards do matter in decisions at R1 universities. I am not so sure they do at liberal arts colleges, although I suspect they don't hurt. It looks like, not surprisingly, women get more service awards and fewer scientific merit awards. So let's especially emphasize nominating women for the merit ones where we can.
cheers,
Laura
Hi Laura,
I think we need more women on selection panels. I've been the only woman on several, and it's like talking to the wall, no one responds when I suggest a woman's name. I need an ally or two to get anywhere. So if anyone out there can volunteer to help choose award recipients, do it!
MP
Hi Laura,
I agree with Sara. I wish people would just evaluate your papers but these awards have an inordinate effect on your career. I hope that AWIS will spread this method through the whole world of scientific societies. And yes, I'm going to try to nominate some women in my own society.
CKL
Dear Laura,
I think this is one of the best ways we could help women move up in R1 schools. These awards really matter in the promotion to full prof, to endowed chairs, even to lab space! Great idea, kudos to Phoebe and Alice and their collaborators at AWIS.
SRM
