BY CYNTHIA LEE
UCLA Today Staff

Two years after University of California President Richard C. Atkinson initiated a series of steps to bring more women into faculty ranks, there are encouraging signs of progress in the latest employment statistics.

The percentage of women among new faculty hires systemwide increased from 25% in 1999-00 to 30% in 2000-01, according to administrators.

And preliminary data for 2001-02 show continued progress — with women projected to make up 33% of new UC faculty hires.

While senior UC women faculty and administrators attending a recent summit in Oakland cheered the gains, they also gathered last month to outline new strategies to improve the recruitment and retention of more women faculty. And they found a listening ear for their concerns.

“This was the first time that senior women faculty and administrators have come together to articulate the concerns of UC faculty women directly to the president,” said UCLA’s Associate Vice Chancellor of Faculty Diversity Rosina Becerra.

“He was very open to hearing what we had to say. I felt that he is truly committed to doing everything possible to increase the proportion of women faculty in the university,” the associate vice chancellor said.

Becerra attended the summit along with three UCLA professors: Carole Goldberg of law, Anne Peplau of psychology and Judith Siegel of public health, all of whom serve on campuswide committees studying gender equity issues.

UCLA is also slowly gaining on the gender gap, Becerra pointed out. The proportion of UCLA’s new hires who are women increased 2% from the previous year to 26% in 2000-01. And the percen-tage of women that make up full-time ladder rank faculty at UCLA has gone from 22% five years ago to 24% currently.

“We are increasing slowly,” Becerra said. Because women now make up nearly half of the nationwide pool of graduates with new doctorates, she said, “I think we’ll be looking at some substantial gains over the next five years.”

But the problems, which UC campuses share in common, are complex, especially in addressing the critical gap that exists within certain disciplines, such as engineering, mathematics and the sciences in general.

To succeed in the sciences, for example, Becerra explained, “it’s not enough to complete a degree. Usually you have to put in a year or two as a postdoctoral scholar.” With whom you do your postdoctoral work and what kind of research you do are critical factors in getting an academic appointment, she said.

“We have to develop ave-nues in this area so that women can get the kind of mentoring and opportunities to work with senior faculty that will lead to good academic careers,” she said.
Increasing hiring at the assis-tant professor level to fill faculty ranks may be another way of bringing more women into UCLA, Becerra explained.

Atkinson told participants that he wants to find innovative and fair ways to break down barriers encountered by women in academia and to provide national leadership in developing solutions.

Said UCLA’s Goldberg: “I believe the summit accomplished many good things, foremost among them, bringing together dedicated and creative women from all the campuses to share and generate ideas for improving gender equity.”

For more information on the summit, visit www.ucop.edu/pressummit.