The central topic of discussion at the faculty senate’s committee meeting on the status of women was that of men being tenured earlier and more often compared to women faculty members.
            The meeting was held on Tuesday, October 16. Members of the committee on the status of women or CSW, including co-chairs Sine Anahita and Jane Weber, discussed topics representing current and past issues.
             Family-friendly improvement (including housing), why women aren’t becoming tenured as often as male faculty and the treatment of female adjuncts were some of the subjects circulating the desk during the hour-long meeting. Anahita was particularly concerned with the family-friendly policies of UAF, due to a letter from a prior faculty member who was not able to receive faculty housing (along with her husband and child).
            “…We hope to work with staff council and ASUAF to introduce parallel resolutions so that the university knows that all UAF governance bodies support the effort to improve the situation for families here,” said Anahita, via email.
            Anahita said that the CSW had conducted a study about two years ago, which focused on the quality of life amongst faculty members. In this study, an interesting fact arose: that male faculty was being tenured and promoted on an average of two years earlier than those women working at UAF. The CSW is compiling questions for a quantitative study in order to figure out why this is true.
            “As a sociologist who studies inequalities, I am especially interested in knowing about the decision-making process faculty undergo as they decide when to go up for tenure and promotion,” Anahita said.
            Members of the CSW are planning on using a system called survey monkey in order to conduct the new survey. Survey monkey is a software program that allows one to collect quantitative data through surveys conducted online.
            “We have been thinking of adding a qualitative component—interviewing faculty, for example. However, qualitative studies are very time-consuming and expensive compared to quantitative studies like our proposed survey,” Anahita said.
            Although acquiring this qualitative data is more difficult, Anahita stated that the CSW conducted interviews last year with a few of the female faculty members who left UAF.
            “At some point this year, I hope we can analyze the data we obtained and write a short report about why women faculty leave based on this exit interview data,” Anahita said.
            The CSW is hoping that their proposal for this new study results in approval from the provosts, enabling them to conduct research in order to support the promotion of women working at UAF. Anahita also wants to place more emphasis on other issued in the future.
            “At the next meeting, we will discuss introducing a resolution into faculty senate to urge the university to adopt broad family-friendly policies,” Anahita said.