University Senate Hears Update on Female Faculty Advancement
At its March 8 meeting, the Columbia University Senate's Commission on the Status of Women discussed the underrepresentation of women in tenure track positions at the Medical Center.
A year after its report on the stalled progress of women into the tenured ranks of the medical faculty, the Senate Commission on the Status of Women was back on March 8 with news of the publication of the study’s key findings in a February 2019 special issue of British medical journal The Lancet that addressed the underrepresentation of women in science, medicine and global health.
Reporting for the Commission were the chair, Jeanine D’Armiento (P&S), and Susan Witte (SW), one of her co-authors on the Lancet piece, which was called "Achieving women's equity in academic medicine: challenging the standards." The other co-authors are Lamont-Doherty administrator Kuheli Dutt, biostatistics professor Melanie Wall, and Senate director Geraldine McAllister.
The Senate commission’s research found that while the fraction of female faculty in the Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons increased from 40 percent to 46 percent from academic year 2007-08 to 2016-17, the increase was almost entirely in the non-tenure-track ranks, where women now comprise a majority. The portion of tenured women barely moved, from 18.2 percent to 18.8 percent during a decade when the overall tenured cohort at P&S grew 26 percent, from 198 to 250. During the same time span the overall proportion of female tenure-track faculty actually declined.
At the Senate meeting, D’Armiento identified the shortage of women in leadership positions as a key factor in the persistently low tenure numbers. Women made up only 11 percent (3/27) of department chairs, 28 percent of division chiefs and 13 percent of center directors at the time of last year’s report. D’Armiento noted the recent addition of one female chair (Cory Abate-Shen in Pharmacology) and one chief (Magdalena Sobieszczyk in the Division of Infectious Diseases in the Department of Medicine).
D’Armiento and Witte both reported a special feeling about being part of this Lancet issue, which covered gender equity across a wide range of health-related subjects, with contributions from all over the world. “It’s very exciting to see Columbia University and our experience as part of this world issue where we’re looking quite seriously at how to address these issues and we have a voice and a position there,” said Witte. “And I guess I want to encourage us to look for those kinds of opportunities as often as we can to be able to make those contributions.”
Sen. Anne Taylor, Vice Dean for Academic Affairs at P&S, responded to the Commission update, reporting that a faculty committee has been reviewing last year’s study and other research over the past nine months. It has presented recommendations to Lee Goldman, chief executive of Columbia University Irving Medical Center and dean of P&S, which will go before the CUIMC Faculty Council and, eventually, the Senate.
In other business, General Studies senators Lisa Rosen-Metsch (the dean) and Jonathan Criswell (a student) offered heartfelt tributes to former GS Dean and longtime professor Peter Awn, who died February 18.
External Relations Committee members Eli Noam (Ten., Bus.), James Piacentini (Stu., Architecture), and Megan Mroczkowski (NT, P&S) announced the establishment of a board to organize town hall meetings on controversial issues. They were delivering on a promise made in last year’s unanimous Resolution in Support of Freedom of Expression on Campus, which affirmed that the First Amendment applies not only to the public sphere, but also to the Columbia campus. Mroczkowski will chair the new board, for which she has also drafted by-laws.
IT Committee co-chair Julia Hirschberg (Ten., SEAS) expressed a sense of foreboding about early planning for a new online business and expense reporting system, cautioning against a repeat of the troubled rollout of Accounting and Reporting at Columbia (ARC) in 2012. She appealed for help to the senior administrators in the room, Provost John Coatsworth and Senior Executive Vice President Gerald Rosberg.
Law School professor Merritt Fox gave his annual update to the Senate on the work of the Advisory Committee on Socially Responsible Investing, which he chairs. ACSRI, founded in 2000 under President George Rupp, reviews proxy resolutions and other shareholder proposals intended to make Columbia’s portfolio more socially responsible, and advises the Trustees about how to respond. In recent years it has also addressed several proposals to divest the University’s portfolio of fossil fuels holdings. There have been no new divestment proposals this year.
The previous plenary, on February 8, lasted only 24 minutes and had one significant agenda item, a report from newly elected Student Affairs Committee co-chair Zoha Qamar (SEAS/Undergrad) on a successful student campaign to persuade the administration to take responsibility for maintaining supplies of feminine sanitary products in Morningside campus bathrooms.
The Senate meets next on April 5 at the Nursing School, 560 W. 168th Street. Anyone with CUID is welcome.
Tom Mathewson is manager of the University Senate. His column is editorially independent of Columbia News. For more information about the Senate, go to senate.columbia.edu.