University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Chancellor's Committee on the Status of Women

Meeting Minutes

12:00-1:00 p.m., 500 Swanlund Administration Building

I. Announcements

A. Welcome to all members and Peg Rawles, the new Associate Chancellor.

II. Old Business

A. Approval of minutes of the April 18, 2006 meeting.

III. New Business

A. Peg Rawles discussed the details regarding the University's policy on same-sex couples.

B. Peg Rawles inquired if the University is responsible for paying for an employee's family.

C. Carol Livingstone informed that in the case of state-funded employees, the state is responsible
     for the payments and not the University. However, in case of non-state-funded employees, an
     increased cost has to be borne by the University and funding mechanisms like research grants,
     etc. contribute towards payment of these benefits for such employees. These mechanisms have
     an overhead charge that takes care of the payment of benefits.

D. Peg Rawles inquired if spouses were covered by the University as well.

E. Cheryl Bullock requested Pat Morey to share an update on the same-sex couples policy
    with the committee.

F. Pat Morey informed the committee that the per-person actual cost to the state was less since
    not many people were likely to take advantage of the reimbursement policies. She also informed
    the committee that on the day after the governor announced this policy, the Family Forum
    declared that they had enough signatures on a petition to put in a referendum. This referendum
    was to change the constitution of the state to see marriage as a right between just a man and a
    woman. In other states, such referendums have been used to cancel out the partner benefits for
    same-sex couples. Pat Morey also apprised the committee that this particular referendum was
    advisory in nature and the entire matter was very ironic.

G. Discussion on Dale Bauer's research on 'Academic Housework': Cheryl Bullock informed
    the committee that Dale Bauer was going to talk about her research.

1. Dale Bauer informed the committee that she had been working on this topic for
    a long time. Her interests centered on studying the kinds of reactions students
    gave to feminist professors in their anonymous teaching evaluations at the end
    of semesters. She conducted a rhetorical analysis of the qualitative comments
    made by the students and gave the evaluations a context.

2. Dale Bauer informed that these comments were not from her classes and usually
    were taken from required courses in order to comprehend the proceedings in a
    mandatory class in the English Department. From her article called "The Other
    'F' Word," she quoted some responses to apprise the committee of the classroom
    climate. She reiterated that she was interested in understanding the assumptions
    made by the students about the neutrality or objectivity of the classroom climate
    and especially those by the first-year students. Her first essay revolved around
    this issue itself.

3. Dale Bauer talked about her essay in the book, Anti-feminism in the Academy,
    where she discussed issues pertaining to tenure decisions, promotions, childcare,
    domestic partner issues, etc. Sometimes tensions of the classrooms can be
    reflected in the anonymous feedback and can then influence promotion decisions.
    Dale Bauer informed that she has given talks and served on committees that have
    urged universities to analyze these evaluations more qualitatively than
    quantitatively.

4. Cheryl Bullock expressed her agreement with Dale Bauer's argument and
    reiterated that though ICES was a great evaluation tool, it should not be
    considered as the only tool for teaching evaluation.

5. Dale Bauer apprised the committee of her current research, which was
    concentrated on gender imbalance in the academic and service workloads in
    Women Studies exclusively and conducted a literature analysis for the same too.
    Her focus was to examine the reasons why women were coaxed to take on
    'academic housework,' and she qualitatively analyzed the double workload taken
    on by professors of Women Studies in the country. Women professors were
    often stalled at the associate professor level since they were overloaded with
    university service load.

6. Dale Bauer informed the committee about another essay she wrote on the two
    different kinds of labor done by faculty, namely volunteering and contracting.
    People responded to service loads in two different modes. People who
    volunteered saw the good of the group in their services, and the second attitude
    was more insidious in nature and considered this service as business contracting.
    According to Dale's research, this division of service load was much gendered.
    There was another group which believed that the individual productivity of the
    research counted more and would not offer their services for group work, and
    Dale termed this behavior as 'cultivated chronic unfitness for service.' These
    people chose not to be involved.

7. Carol Livingstone added that 'strategic incompetence' was another term for
    such kind of an attitude towards service loads.

8. Dale Bauer informed that there existed a constant tension between the volunteers
    and the business contractors and she was interested to explore the gender aspect
    embedded in this attitudinal difference. In her experience, usually the service load
    fell most heavily on newly promoted associate professors, and although men were
    a part of this group, the situation was still much gendered. Individuals' promotions
    were based on individual productivity and thus the culture of the university and
    research activities needed to change. Thus, she informed that her research has
    been geared towards bringing focus to the qualitative and quantitative differences
    in the workloads of women faculty.

9. Pat Morey recounted her experiences from a workshop organized by the Center
    for Democracy in a Multiracial Society (CDMS) that she attended in fall 2005.
    She informed the committee that members from the African American Studies,
    Latina/Latino Studies and Native American Studies programs also expressed
    similar problems which were exacerbated by racial parameters as well. She also
    informed that this attitude trickled down to the levels of the students as well.
    Students expected more from the women and faculty of color, and they ended
    up doing twice the work compared to other faculty members in terms of engaging
    with the students. Such functions proved to be invaluable for the students, and
    they probably would not have fared that well in the absence of this kind of
    mentoring.

10. Dale Bauer informed that in her experience this had been a very prominent
      retention issue concerning faculty of color. Such faculty members were
      overused in the present service climate.

11. Carol Livingstone apprised the committee that some years back an analysis
      was done on the participation by women and men in different college committees
      and women were over-represented.

12. Dale Bauer reiterated that the present reward structure needed to be changed.

13. Carol Livingstone highlighted the fact that some of these committees were
      seen as training forums for executive positions, but some people on faculty
      committees did not wish to move up on the administrative ladder. It might also
      be possible that these volunteers wished to take up administrative tasks in the
      future.

14. Dale Bauer informed that that could surely have been the case. However,
      frequently these volunteers were assistant professors and were required to
      take up a double workload. Activities like mentoring required so much time
      and effort and most of the 'academic housework' of these women went
      unrecognized. She reiterated that the committee should strive towards giving
      such work some recognition and recommending changes in reward structures,
      etc.

15. Peg Rawles complimented Dale Bauer on her research and expressed that
      the term 'academic housework' was a very descriptive and apt term.

16. Dale Bauer informed that she borrowed it from Arlie Hochschild's,
      The Second Shift, which was about dual career couples that performed double
      work. She thought that it applied for single appointed faculty members also.
      She suggested that women faculty should keep a record of all their activities,
      such as student meetings, committees they serve on, phone calls, numbers of
      letters of recommendations, etc. and do this labor-intensive counting. This
      would help to have more accountability from the institution.

17. Cheryl Bullock reiterated that documenting such information is extremely
       important. She also found some similarities between her engineering study and
       Dale's research. Namely, that women felt compelled to serve on committees
       and also, the student evaluations reflected that women faculty were criticized
       for entertaining questions after class and were not considered to be well-
       versed in their field of study. Ironically, on the other hand, the male professors
       were less likely to open the class for discussion and were considered
       'distinguished'.

18. Dale Bauer informed that there were four national points about the contextual
      prejudice against women in the classroom, especially by first-year students.
      Firstly, students expressed discontent on the discussion of any kinds of women's
      issues in any other class except a Women's Studies class. Secondly, students
      often overestimated the time devoted to women's issues in a classroom. Thirdly,
      women faculty encountered more opposition to raising women's issues
      compared to their male counterparts. Lastly, students allowed women faculty a
      narrower range of acceptable behavior both inside and outside of classrooms
      that included dress, teaching style and overall presentation.

19. Carol Livingstone inquired if Dale Bauer had noticed any difference between
      the comments given by students from public and private institutions.

20. Dale Bauer informed that she had not studied private institutions in such detail.
      However, she was aware that women faculty received a similar response in
      their teaching evaluations in those institutions as well. She was also aware of
      incidents where feminist comments were used against faculty members who
      were consequently not tenured.

21. Cheryl Bullock inquired if these institutions were more traditional in their
      approach and that was the reason for such practices.

22. Dale Bauer informed that in many of the schools that she knew about, tenure
      decisions were made by a board of trustees and the processes were entirely
      different from a public institution. The comments could be interpreted in both
      positive and negative ways and there was not consistency in the way these
      comments were analyzed across the country.

23. Cheryl Bullock informed the committee that at the University of Illinois, the
      professors only viewed the qualitative comments. The Center for Teaching
      Excellence offered a mid-course focus group session and the professor can
      choose if s/he wanted to share the results and these did not have such punitive
      impacts.

24. Dale Bauer asked Carol Livingstone about what happened after the service
      load study on committee participation.

25. Carol Livingstone informed that it was submitted to the Board of Trustees
      and was placed on the web for sometime. However, she was not sure if any
      concrete steps were taken after the submission of the report.

26. Peg Rawles informed that the Provost felt that there was a need to review
      everything that influenced promotion decisions in consultation with the faculty
      members. She suggested that Ruth Watkins and Linda Katehi would
      welcome Dale Bauer's findings and observations.

27. Dale Bauer apprised the committee that she was serving on the strategic
      plan committee of LAS and they were very concerned about a flexible
      reward system.

28. Peg Rawles highlighted that issues of service (though not about gender) were
      also raised by the faculty within Cooperative Extension of the University.

29. Carol Livingstone raised her concerns if service was counted since it
      was external service and not internal.

30. Peg Rawles informed that the campus promotion and tenure committee
      was very serious about incorporating each criterion into their decision-
      making.

31. Joyce Wright informed the committee that in the Library, service aspect
      was very strong.

32. Cheryl Bullock suggested that John Ory, the director of Center for
      Teaching Excellence, should be involved with the campus committee process
      as he was very knowledgeable about these issues.

33. Dale Bauer expressed that the faculty would respond very enthusiastically
      in this matter.

34. Peg Rawles apprised the committee that one of the other thrusts of the
      Campus Promotion and Tenure Committee was to find ways to evaluate the
      multi-disciplinary work done at the University.

35. Cheryl Bullock thanked Dale Bauer for sharing her work with the committee.
      She informed the committee that a draft of the report would be sent out in the
      next 5-6 weeks for the members to give their feedback.

IV. Other Items