2008 Woodie Awards
Study shows female faculty feel more isolated
Issue date: 4/26/07 Section: News
Alan Wheeler
Daily Nebraskan
(U. Nebraska)
(U-WIRE) LINCOLN, Neb. -Some studies have shown that women faculty members generally feel less job satisfaction throughout their career than men do.
Typically, the reasons given are frustrations with salaries, workload and spouses not carrying their share of the domestic work, such as child care and household chores.
A study released last week at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, however, presented a different cause: isolation and alienation on the job.
According to the study, which was based on a survey of 962 full-time faculty members at an unnamed - but selective - university, 48 percent of male faculty members said they were "very happy" with their jobs, but only 35 percent of women gave the same response.
The researchers found that many female faculty members felt less integrated into the university.
Ali Moeller, president of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln Faculty Senate, said she understands how alienation could take place.
"Often men golf together, play cards or have sports in common that creates a sense of community among men that women do not typically share," Moeller wrote in an e-mail.
She said women have a tendency to form communities surrounding the work place rather than outside activities like sports.
"This does lead to the perception that the men hang together, and women are not invited, which can lead to isolation," she wrote.
Administrators and other faculty members might be unaware of the ways women faculty might feel excluded, said Margaret Jacobs, director of the Women's and Gender Studies.
"When a woman faculty joins a new department or unit or committee, is she properly introduced? When faculty elect members of their department to serve on special committees, are women routinely passed over?" Jacobs asked.
Moeller said she has had similar experiences on the Faculty Senate.
"As president of the (Faculty) Senate at UNL who attended the Board of Regents meetings regularly," Moeller wrote, "I was the only woman in the room. I did not feel 'isolated,' but it did make me aware of the lack of women in these roles."
Jacobs said the university could take steps to reduce these feelings.
"Hiring more women faculty and others from under-represented groups would be one significant step in reducing this sense of isolation," Jacobs said.
Daily Nebraskan
(U. Nebraska)
(U-WIRE) LINCOLN, Neb. -Some studies have shown that women faculty members generally feel less job satisfaction throughout their career than men do.
Typically, the reasons given are frustrations with salaries, workload and spouses not carrying their share of the domestic work, such as child care and household chores.
A study released last week at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, however, presented a different cause: isolation and alienation on the job.
According to the study, which was based on a survey of 962 full-time faculty members at an unnamed - but selective - university, 48 percent of male faculty members said they were "very happy" with their jobs, but only 35 percent of women gave the same response.
The researchers found that many female faculty members felt less integrated into the university.
Ali Moeller, president of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln Faculty Senate, said she understands how alienation could take place.
"Often men golf together, play cards or have sports in common that creates a sense of community among men that women do not typically share," Moeller wrote in an e-mail.
She said women have a tendency to form communities surrounding the work place rather than outside activities like sports.
"This does lead to the perception that the men hang together, and women are not invited, which can lead to isolation," she wrote.
Administrators and other faculty members might be unaware of the ways women faculty might feel excluded, said Margaret Jacobs, director of the Women's and Gender Studies.
"When a woman faculty joins a new department or unit or committee, is she properly introduced? When faculty elect members of their department to serve on special committees, are women routinely passed over?" Jacobs asked.
Moeller said she has had similar experiences on the Faculty Senate.
"As president of the (Faculty) Senate at UNL who attended the Board of Regents meetings regularly," Moeller wrote, "I was the only woman in the room. I did not feel 'isolated,' but it did make me aware of the lack of women in these roles."
Jacobs said the university could take steps to reduce these feelings.
"Hiring more women faculty and others from under-represented groups would be one significant step in reducing this sense of isolation," Jacobs said.
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