Few but Special Women in Higher Ed IT
Eric Stoller wrote on October 20 about a panel he heard at #EDUCAUSE10 meeting on the Recruitment, Retention, and Advancement of Women in Higher Education IT (information technologies). Because recently and some time ago we've been discussing the culture of Computer Science, it struck a chord with me. He said he went to the session on women and heard a panel of very lively and interesting women Chief Information Officers. He commented, "Honestly, I could have listened to them all day long. The entire room was listening as they poured out stories of inspiration, struggle, mentorship, and the future."
Then Stoller said because CIO badges were color coded, he looked around to see how many male CIOs had attended this session to get some ideas for diversifying their sites. Almost none, it turns out. Their attitude is "who cares?" And furthermore, as he looked around, he noticed that the women:men ratio in the room was about 4 to 1. But at the whole conference, men far outnumbered women. So again, we see that the women in IT see their dearth as a problem, but the men do not. How can we get their attention? Maybe Stoller's blog will help, but what else can be done?
A Dynamite?
B We have to tie it to funding from their administrations in some way. Make the administrations answer to NIH and NSF for diversity so they will be accountable for letting CS and IT add only males to their staff.
C Lawsuit anyone?
D Ignore it and go into some other field.
cheers,
Laura (posted on Oct 26)
Yes, Laura and SciFemXX, it's true that women near the top in Info Tech hierarchy tend to be passed over and not promoted. More glass ceiling stuff. It's pretty disheartening to have to teach the ropes to one supervisor after another.
Hi SciFemXX,
Yes, the male leader with a lot of strong women at the next layer down applies here at Pomona. I'm not sure if that is a good sign, though. If the leader should leave, I'd bet they might recruit a new man from outside to lead the unit, which is what they did last time the position was open when a man left.
cheers,
Laura
This one puzzles me because where I am, the director of IT is a man but a lot of the high level employees are women. Does anyone else find that at their sites? Maybe this time, it is only a matter of time for IT? I understand that CS training programs are in disarray, so I'm concerned about that. But maybe we have a lot of strong women who could be CIOs in the next round of promotions?
OK ex CS, you convinced me the answer is D, Now to rearrange everything before it's too late. Oh, no, there's nothing else I like as much as CS. Expletive deleted.
What would happen if every woman in CS and IT got up and left the field? Would anyone care? I suspect people outside of the field, in organizations and funding agencies would care a lot more than the guys I know, but they COULD be activated by a mass exodus, perhaps??
I'll choose B, but I'm getting so tired that D is getting more tempting every day. I don't know why, but some of these guys always say the right things, but then I see them snickering in the corner and I know it's more naked females. I don't have a single good idea for how to fix it. Maybe A was the right answer.
I go for A and if not that then C. I'm tired of talk. We need the courts to stand up and fight for us or there will be none left.
Hi Scifeminista,
I know men who do care, but to get the attention of those who do not, certainly reward structure can help. I think NSF has been working to make such issues a part of almost every review, but NIH has not. Now that leadership at NSF is changing, let's hope the pressure continues. But we need some local pressure too. Hmcbride mentioned that one leader at the site can be the one who makes change happen (referring to Jill Ker Conway's autobiography) and I think that's true in my experience too. Maybe we can all help by working to get the data more widely known/seen at our own places, in hopes a leader in place will be moved to act on the discrepancies. I do think CS/IT seems to be an especially problematical field right now, though. An anti-woman atmosphere is rampant and seems to be growing rather than shrinking.
cheers,
Laura
We were talking about money on the statistics topic, and that's probably the secret to making men care here too. If they got a bonus for every woman recruited, or if there was an important national ranking based heavily on diversity that would help. They don't care, intrinsically, so an external reward/punishment system is needed to get their attention.
