We investigated next whether gender differences exist at the juncture of promotion from associate professor to full professor. Of 411 departments responding to the survey, 70 percent indicated that they had considered a case of promotions to full professor during 2 academic years (2002-2003 and 2003-2004). Over all the fields, 90 percent of men and 88 percent of women proposed for full professor were promoted (see p. 120 for an explanation of the use of summary survey data.). The difference between rates for men and women was not statistically significant, nor were any of the discipline-specific differences shown in Table 5-5.
Most of the 504 cases reported involved public institutions (402), rather than private institutions (106). For individual departments that reported some decisions, the median response was one promotion decision (mean = 2), with a range from 1 to 16 decisions. Disaggregated by gender, 74 cases involved female faculty and 433 cases involved male faculty. In 1 case, the gender was not reported. In addition, among the 508 total cases, the outcome was not reported in 3 cases.
Disaggregated by discipline, female faculty were considered for promotion to full professor in 24 percent of the cases in biology, 14 percent in chemistry, 18 percent in civil engineering, 17 percent in electrical engineering, 9 percent in mathematics, and 7 percent in physics. During the period covered by the faculty survey, the percentage of women among associate professors in the different disciplines was 28 percent in biology, 18 percent in chemistry, 15 percent in civil engineering, 13 percent in electrical engineering, 15 percent in mathematics, and 8 percent in physics. It appears that women are proposed for promotion to the highest academic rank at approximately the same rates at which they are represented among associate professors.