University Determinants of Women's Academic Career Success

The policy theory driving this work is that women faculty will be more successful in universities that have more gender progressive policies.  However, at the current time, there is no source of systematic and comprehensive data about universities that would allow testing of this general hypothesis, or any of the more specific ones that can be derived from it.  The objective of this 5-year CAREER project is to develop data and methodology to incorporate university factors into the analysis of the academic recruitment, retention, and advancement of female scientists and engineers.  The research will: 1) develop a longitudinal contextual database of faculty recruitment, retention, and advancement-related personnel practices in Research Extensive Universities; 2) describe and characterize faculty-related personnel practices in this academic sector; 3) link the contextual database to individual-level data; and 4) develop statistical models to test academic career trajectories within and between academic institutions. 

Specific Questions

• What are the university policies and practices that affect women’s recruitment, retention, and advancement in academic careers, and how do they vary in their timing, intensity, and function?
• Among the Research Extensive universities, what is the range of such policies and practices?
• How have these policies and practices varied over time to create changing opportunities for success?
• How can the measurement of policies and practices be used to rank universities in terms of their ability to foster women’s success?
• In what ways and how do the policies and practices of universities affect the career success of academic faculty, especially women?
• Using findings from the study, what are the most effective policies for improving faculty equity in universities?