American University Student Newspaper Demands Increased Opportunities for Women and Women of Color in Tenure Process

The AU student newspaper, The Eagle, published an Opinion on November 16, 2018, asking the AU administration to give women and women of color more opportunities to succeed in the tenure process. AU student Samantha McAllister wrote:

“In research that analyzed two million articles from JSTOR in the hard sciences, social sciences, law, history, philosophy and education fields, 22 percent of all authors were female. Since scholarship is an essential part of the tenure process, it can be more of a challenge for women to be published due to discriminatory ideas about their research quality.

Teaching and service to the university are also factors when applying for tenure. Within teaching, there is room for discrimination. It is not out of the question for male students to have sexist ideas about their female professors that skew student teaching evaluations.”

McAllister concluded:

“Women and women of color need appropriate understanding throughout their academic careers of the unique difficulties of entering a space that has been dominated by older, white men in the United States. The perspectives that women bring, and their ability to model success to their female students, are absolutely necessary. The University must recommit itself to truly hiring, and tenuring, women.”

To read the full article on The Eagle‘s website, click here.

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