The Committee next examined some resources that may generally affect professional development. Here, the committee sought to assess whether male and female faculty were similarly engaged in their departments and institutions. There is a body of literature suggesting that women are isolated and marginalized. The former refers to not being part of the community in the department, institution, and more broadly (but not examined here), the scientific community. The latter refers to how much decision-making power women have on campus. In the wake of the 1999 MIT report, a number of universities conducted climate surveys on campus, discovering in some cases that female faculty face what is often termed a “chilly climate.” For example, a 2003 climate survey of assistant, associate, and full professors by the University of California, Berkeley, found that women did not feel very included (Figure 4-5).
To examine isolation, our faculty survey collected data on mentoring, collaborative research, and interaction with colleagues. To examine marginalization,
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we asked about participation in several types of committees (see Appendixes 4-4 through 4-8). We compared the number of women in the department with the number of women on search committees for hiring, on tenure and promotion committees, and engaged in other forms of university service.