University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Chancellor's Committee on the Status of Women

Meeting Minutes

2:00-3:00 p.m., 400 Swanlund Administration Building

I. Announcements

A. Welcome to all members.

II. Old Business

A. Approval of minutes of the November 18, 2005 meeting after a few edits.

III. New Business

A. UIUC campus profile:  Cheryl Bullock introduced Carol Livingstone who is the
     Associate Provost and the Director of the Division of Management Information.

1. Carol Livingstone apprised the committee that the web site of the Division of
    Management Information has extensive data by college, school and department
    for every unit on campus under the on Campus Profile section. Carol Livingstone
    shared the headcount and staffing data and certain relevant computational studies
    with the committee. She also informed that there was a separate section on
    women in all these categories too, where the percentage of women in various
    colleges, departments and schools was shown which helped to ascertain
    women's representation.

2. Carol Livingstone reiterated that these figures were available online for all
    departments. It became clear from these figures that there were very few women
    in engineering and aviation departments, and many more in education, social work,
    etc. which was also in tune with the traditional trends. Carol Livingstone pointed
    out that one area where an anomaly was exhibited was the College of Veterinary
    Medicine, which like many other medical fields has increasingly had greater female
    representation. Carol Livingstone also pointed out that we do not have a separate
    medical school on our campus and our existing school is a part of the medical
    school of the University of Illinois at Chicago. She emphasized that nationwide
    trends show that women were dominating the medical field currently.

3. Victoria Gonzalez raised her concerns about the rapidly changing number of
    full female professors in law school from year to year.

4. Carol Livingstone informed that since the law department is a small one, minor
    changes in the faculty counts would result in big fluctuations in the percentage
    shares. Carol Livingstone asked the committee to be careful of the numbers
    because some units were very small and the percentage distribution could be
    misleading in assessing the situation accurately. Comparisons between schools
    should also be made very carefully because the mix of disciplines across
    universities might vary. This may lead to inaccurate deductions by comparing
    percentage distributions directly. However, these figures help us to identify
    overall trends also.

5. Carol Livingstone apprised the committee on the student enrollment figures
    collected in fall 2005 which also exhibited very interesting trends.

6. Cheryl Bullock inquired about the difference between a professional law student
    and a graduate law student.

7. Carol Livingstone clarified that professional law students were those that were
    pursuing a Joint Degree (JD) and graduate law students pursue degrees like
    LL.M.

8. Carol Livingstone informed the committee that nationwide, the percentage of
    women enrolling in undergraduate programs was higher than men and we were
    one of the few schools that have fewer women enrolling at the undergraduate
    level (46.7 percent of the total). This could be attributed to our large engineering
    program that skews the figures to some extent.

9. Kristine Campbell told the committee that at the admissions stage also, there were
    more male applicants than female for the undergraduate programs.

10. Carol Livingstone suggested that with the online application system being
      introduced, it might be possible that male applicants were more comfortable
      filing online applications than their female counterparts.

11. Alice Dilts informed the committee that two female floors in the resident halls
      were going to be changed to male floors from next year and increased male
      housing space was a clear indication of more male students being admitted than
      female.

12. Cheryl Bullock inquired about the reasons why the College of Veterinary
      Medicine had been able to increase female participation.

13. Carol Livingstone told the committee that she was not aware if the College
      of Veterinary Medicine had actively gone out to seek for more women, but it
      was her belief that overall, women across the country were feeling more
      empowered to attend professional colleges and make a mark for themselves in
      the traditionally male domains.

14. Joyce Wright inquired about the funding and scholarship opportunities that
      were available in the College of Veterinary Medicine.

15. Carol Livingstone apprised the committee that the College of Veterinary
      Medicine was one of the most expensive programs on campus and had very
      meager sources of financial aid. At the graduate and professional level,
      students primarily resort to loans.

16. Cheryl Bullock pointed out that the percentage of women has increased in the
      College of Engineering too over the years since they have been actively trying to
      recruit female professors.

17. Carol Livingstone emphasized that there was significant competition being faced
      by the College of Engineering and coupled with that, there were issues of
      attracting people to the Champaign-Urbana area. In case of a traveling partner,
      this process becomes even more difficult.

18. Dale Bauer inquired about any programs supported by the University for dual
      career or hiring.

19. Carol Livingstone informed that the University has a Spousal Hiring program
      where spouses of people who were actively being recruited, would be
      interviewed to look for positions for them also. There also exists a funding
      program where the hiring unit and the Provost's Office, would pay one third of
      the appointment cost each, on an indefinite basis. However, currently there is
      no track of couples who are not hired through this program and maybe with
      banner the process of maintaining statistics would become easier. We lack a
      good system of making cross-links to find out about partners.

20. Cheryl Bullock inquired about the benefits of recording information such as
      campus profile.

21. Carol Livingstone told the committee that by publishing these statistics, it
      makes it more visible and helps in making certain budget decisions also.

22. Dale Bauer inquired about salary information across these categories.

23. Carol Livingstone informed that her division also carries out a salary study
      annually and analyze salary equity concerns between men and women by
      each department. The results are then shared with the department heads. An
      attempt is made to conduct this study every year but it is not always possible.

24. Cheryl Bullock inquired about the significant changes from last year's study.

25. Carol Livingstone informed the committee that they had been unable to
      conduct this study last year. The budget decisions had been made before they
      were able to conduct the study and the previous reports on gender equity
      were available online.

26. Dale Bauer inquired about the procedure to file a grievance concerning gender
      equity.

27. Carol Livingstone informed the committee that there exists a formal procedure
      for equity grievance and she was not aware of the details. However, the process
      involved identification of people in comparable jobs who were being paid more
      and then depending on the percentage of difference, grievances were granted.
      There also exists a formal procedure where a campus committee is involved.
      Salary information is public and is available in the library. Usually faculty/staff
      members contact her to provide them the information on other people's salary
      having comparable jobs.

28. Pat Morey inquired if Carol Livingstone's office conducted any analysis of this
      information or simply compiled statistical information.

29. Carol Livingstone informed that the equity study is the maximum analysis that
      is done by the division, and mostly they concentrate on gathering data.

30. Pat Morey raised her concerns about the relationship between the more
      recent student trends and other programs like the Title 9.

31. Carol Livingstone inquired about what these kinds of programs were.

32. Pat Morey informed that other programs include women sports, etc.

33. Carol Livingstone told that since the number of women athletes was very
      small compared to the total number of students, the impact would be minimal.

34. Cheryl Bullock requested to throw more light on the details regarding these
      Title 9 programs, as she was not aware of them.

35. Carol Livingstone informed the committee that Title 9 was a part of the
      Civil Rights Act and it required the school to spend the same amount of
      money on women's sports as men's sports.

36. Pat Morey told the committee that more than the budget requirements, the
      attractiveness of having more women athletes in a school has increased. It
      had been discussed earlier in this committee to relate these changing trends to
      some of the social movements on campus also.

B. Next Semester's Meeting Times: Cheryl Bullock informed the committee that the secretary,
    Mansi Sachdev, would be sending out a grid like last semester, to decide meeting times for
    spring.

IV. Other Items

A. Cheryl Bullock informed the committee that she had thought of two organizations to come and
     give a talk on this committee, namely the Secretariat, to talk about the mentoring program and
     someone from the women's sports unit. She also asked the committee members for their
     suggestions on speakers from across the campus units.

B. Kathleen Pecknold inquired about the questions that the committee wished to ask regarding
     women sports.

C. Pat Morey suggested that Jesse 'Tony' Clements takes care of intramural sports and she is in
     the process of finding out whether Title 9 speaks to intramural sports or not. It was also
     suggested that if the committee wished to target Varsity sports, then the athletic director would
     be a better choice. Pat Morey informed that the campus recreation unit dealt with females who
     were interested in athletics more than varsity athletics.

D. Cheryl Bullock asked the committee to suggest speakers from the Secretariat.

E. Kathleen Pecknold suggested that Terri Palumbo would be the right person.

F. Cheryl Bullock asked the committee members for suggestions on specific topics that they
    were interested in and would like the committee to take up during the next semester.

G. Pat Morey suggested that Sue Rankin had recently completed a survey on the campus climate
     for LGBT and a committee was going to review her report. She was hired to do this survey,
     the participation gathered on this campus was very high, and she could be requested to share
     her results with the committee.

H. Kathleen Pecknold suggested that James Warren Hall and Mary Ellen O'Shaughnessey were
     co-chairs of that committee and they could be contacted for the same too.

I. Kristine Campbell suggested that the College of Engineering could also be contacted to find out
   about their mentoring programs.

J. Kathleen Pecknold informed that Susan Larson was taking care of this program currently.

K. Pat Morey suggested that since Gender and Women Studies was now a major, it could be
     interesting to get an update on their progress.

L. Cheryl Bullock informed that she was a member of the advisory committee and she offered to
    give an update.

M. Carol Livingstone informed the committee that a campus unit conducts a workshop on
      negotiating skills specifically for women graduate students. The Chemistry Department
      conducts such a workshop annually for their own department and it might be possible to
      make this a campus wide event. Part of the appeal of having this limited to departments is
      that it makes the students more comfortable.

N. Cheryl Bullock requested Carol Livingstone to provide her with any contact information in the
     Department of Chemistry.

O. Carol Livingstone informed that Vera Mainz takes care of this event and it would be interesting
     to know if they could extend this to other campus units as well.

P. Victoria Gonzalez inquired if there had been any study done to assess the performance of
    students who had participated in such an event.

Q. Carol Livingstone informed that she was not sure about the results.