Study: JMU short on female professors

There nearly are 23 times more female full-time undergraduate students than female faculty in the College of Science and Mathematics. But, the college is recruiting more female professors in order to better represent the female student population, according to the administration.

In comparison, there are five times the number of male full-time undergraduate students than male faculty in the College of Science and Mathematics, according to the 2003-'04 Statistical Summary.

This means that females comprise approximately 58 percent of the students within the College of Science and Mathematics, yet only represent about 25 percent of the faculty, according to the summary.

Among the nation's top 50 research universities about 47 percent of the students graduating with a degree in chemistry were women, but only about 12 percent of the faculty were female, according to a recent study on diversity from Now.org, which can be found at now.org/issues/diverse/diversity_report.pdf.

David Brakke, dean of the College of Science and Mathematics, said, at JMU, 65 to 70 percent of those studying chemistry are female, but females comprise about 36 percent of the faculty.

The study also states that those female students without female faculty as role models are more likely to drop out or pursue a career outside their major.

Although JMU's numbers significantly are better than the nationwide average, efforts still are being made to improve, he said.

Brakke said the shortage of female representation in the college's faculty is a problem.

"JMU is doing well," he said. "Our female students are doing well. But, we could do even better, and we are trying."

The college is in the process of interviewing new instructors to teach next year. Brakke said he is hoping to hire five or six female faculty members for next year and further close the gap in the gender ratio of faculty.

Of all potential employees interviewed so far, Brakke said about 50 percent were female. Among those are a female candidate for head of the biology department and a female astronomer for the physics department.

Geology and physics are the two programs with the worst female-to-male ratio at JMU.

According to records obtained from Sandra Delawder, an administrative assistant in the geology department, geology has 37 female and 39 male majors.

Records from Ioana Niculescu, a physics professor, show the physics department has 16 female and 63 male majors. Both only have one female faculty member out of 11 total in geology and 12 total in physics.

Niculescu the lone female JMU physicist, who was an undergraduate student in Romania said of her early studies, "In Romania, about half of my physics professors were female. It never occurred to me having female professors would ever be a problem until I came to the [United States]."

Niculescu said the problem was that not many women in America are encouraged to get a doctorate in physics. This shortage of female physicists has caused pressure from the college to hire women, she said.

She also believes that more female faculty are needed because "somebody like [the female students] might help."

Senior geology major Melissa Orndorff agreed. "I think it would be good if we had more female faculty as role models."

Geology professor Cindy Kearns said she has no problem working in her male-dominated field.

"Maybe it has to do with geologist's personalities, but to every female geologist I've ever known, this doesn't seem to be a problem," she said.

Sociology professor Mary Lou Wylie said she hears very little complaints from students regarding the male-to-female faculty ratio.

Despite a lack of complaints, Wylie still helped establish a faculty group on campus called Women in Science a few years ago. She said this group hopes to create courses that would integrate women's issues into science.

Budget crunches have restrained the group's activities, but it is hoping to expand soon and offer more classes.