STATUS OF WOMEN

STATUS OF WOMEN

UW-SUPERIOR

AND

UW-SYSTEM

1999

Status of Women at UW-Superior

SECTION I: OVERVIEW OF UW-SUPERIOR FOCUS GROUPS:

Among women students, classified staff, academic staff, and faculty, there are reports of continued discrimination against and a chilly climate for women at UW-Superior. The discrimination can be subtle or obvious, and is systemic in nature. There is the perception of a lack of interest in and concern for change around these issues within the Administration.

SECTION II: HISTORY OF THE FOCUS GROUPS

In the Spring of 1998 the Women’s Studies Consortium of the UW-System approached President Katherine Lyall over concerns for the status of women on campuses. While the Consortium is largely made up of faculty and is primarily concerned with curriculum matters, it also concerns itself with a variety of issues concerning women students and campus matters affecting women. It was the Consortium’s perception and message to President Lyall that the status of women, after making good strides forward in the 1980's, had been slipping over the last decade. President Lyall was asked to look into the matter.

In the Fall of 1998 a Committee on the Status of Women with all campuses represented was convened and began its work, which was to examine the status of women (quantitatively and qualitatively) on all the campuses and Extension. One method for gathering data was to hold focus groups on each campus, one for students and one for staff. The concerns identified at each meeting were to be compiled and confidentiality as to the campus and identity of the person were to be guarded. The System-wide report on the Status of Women is due out this Fall.

At UW-Superior the Women’s Studies Committee took up a similar discussion and decided to do its own campus review. Representatives of the Committee began to hold campus focus group meetings for students and for staff on these matters in January of 1999. Initial meetings were held prior to the System “Status” Committee visit to campus (in April 1999) and then reconvened later in the Spring in order to compile a report just for this campus. These meetings were held with the support and encouragement of the Chancellor and Vice Chancellor but women still requested confidentiality and anonymity. The later meetings were held in separate groups because the previous meetings had felt too big and too broad, and because some women thought that specific concerns of groups were not being heard. Therefore, the report has been written so that concerns of each group are delineated. Those attending the meetings did not say that they spoke for all women within their group but they did seem to represent a cross-section of their group.

The report was compiled over the summer and reviewed by students and staff involved after they returned this Fall (1999). It is organized into five sections: Section I is a brief overview, followed by Section II that contains this statement on the writing of this Report, Section III covers the points each group had to say, Section IV summarizes and pulls out the themes, and Section V gives recommendations.

SECTION III: ITEMS FROM EACH FOCUS GROUP

STUDENTS

Female Students perceive that:

1. 1. There are too few female role models, especially in some departments where there are no females. Often, female students would prefer to go to a female within a department to discuss a difficulty (personal or curricular or departmental) and feel there is no one to meet with who can understand their concerns.

1. 2. Male professors still abound who treat them stereo typically, rewarding traditional gender consistent roles (flirtatious, cringing, self-effacing) and punishing certain gender inconsistent behavior (such as confidence, questioning, self-assertion).

1. 3. All females are assumed heterosexual and non-heterosexual behaviors and perspectives are marginalized, if recognized at all. Homophobic attitudes and jokes are condoned. Homosexual materials and research are not seen as legitimate areas of study or discourse.

1. 4. Nontraditional female students feel their concerns are ignored. For example, it is difficult for women(with family responsibilities and/or who commute) and who are dependent on the campus-based computer technology to deal with courses where work is primarily distributed by web and where assignments require Internet or E-mail participation. Nor does every student have a word processor nor can they stay around on campus or come early to use campus computers - when they are available and if they are operating.

1. 5. Lack of reasonable accommodations by professors for women who are pregnant or with babies (such as final exam arrangements due to an expected delivery date). Day care closes too early for students with night classes making child care coverage more difficult. If a child is attending day care on campus the child must be moved to a different arrangement before late afternoon and evening classes begin.

6. There was strong concern expressed that the Affirmative Action Officer is not an advocate for female students (many direct experiences and anecdotal examples were discussed where concerns were not taken seriously or the situation was turned around so that it was the student’s behavior that was put at fault) and that she is not interested in really working for change in the climate/environment.

7. The campus faculty and administration are not perceived as understanding that there are problems for women, as a group, on campus and therefore assume that there is no need to move forward (some said ‘catch up’).

8. Women students feel that their voices and their work are not taken as seriously or seen as legitimate as men’s opinions and work.

9. Need for a broader range of health services for women, such as gynecological health services, and for services year round now that students are here in January and throughout the summer.

1. Being classified is the most demeaning of levels on campus - sometimes there is a sense that no one respects them and everyone talks down to them, students included, since that is what is modeled. Harassment of them is a regular part of this position.

1. It is further demeaning that they must “get permission” to attend events rather than figure out how to have their responsibilities covered. For example, despite the availability of phone mail, some faculty (especially department chairs) refuse to answer their own phones and insist on having the office covered during “all campus” events.

1. Equal opportunity is an empty phrase and that there is class discrimination against them. Going to Affirmative Action with a complaint is not seen as an effective venue for changing the system or specific situations.

1. Opinions of classified personnel are not sought nor are they listened to when voiced.

1. Pregnancy and maternity leave require the use of sick leave, meaning that it is not there later when retirement comes. Since pregnancy and infant care are not an illness but serve important and healthy functions, another form of coverage ought to be sought.

1. Because on campus pay for students is so low and hours are limited, many students will not take work-study positions even though they are often convenient and preferable. The policy hurts classified staff since work-study students frequently help female classified with their loads. (Women mentioned workload and environment [physical, emotional] as a bigger issue than pay.)

1. For many classified office workers physical conditions are often too hot or too cold and furniture and computers are frequently “hand-me-downs”; IE; classified staff work daily, year round and highly utilize computers to do important work that keeps the university functioning, yet their work conditions are a low priority.

1. Women are clustered in the lower levels and paid barely above minimum wage. (They see the two new male hires [former student]) in Student Services as being given preferential treatment and pay). Equity adjustments are needed for the academic staff as well as for classified staff.

1. Maternity leave is not treated appropriately. Female academic staff resent having to use up sick days and would like to see a new policy that recognized the need for early parental care without penalizing their status and pay and retirement.

1. Day care on campus is not up to expectations; it needs to have longer hours, accommodate more children, and have more staff. Training of the day care staff was mentioned as a concern; they are seen as under-trained.

1. There is an unnecessary divide between teaching academic staff and faculty and that more needs to be done to include academic staff when inviting faculty to participate in activities.

1. Teaching academic staffs’ views are not sought and they would like to be asked, acknowledged, recognized, and appreciated for their major role in the university.

1. Women at all levels at UW-S are not respected and treated well. UW-Superior is seen as still a “traditional” environment and women are exploited. People who ought to be responsive to the need for change at all levels are not seen as providing the necessary direction or impetus.

1. While female students make up approximately 60% of the students, the education of women is not even considered; that is, Higher Education was organized around male students and nothing has shifted.

1. Women need mentoring, at all levels and also across levels, so that they can become more “empowered” through learning, group discussions, and working together on similar issues and concern.

1. There needs to be an ongoing or “standing” committee on women’s issues so that these types of concerns and ideas can be made more salient, discussed, and acted upon.

1. Male faculty are insensitive to women’s concerns and issues - especially the older male faculty, in general.

1. Maternity leave is not set up well and penalizes women (and their departments) for having children and caring for them in the critical months. Maternity Leave needs to be separate from “sick leave”. The current system is seen as discriminatory.

1. Day care is inadequate, understaffed, and needs to have longer hours. Child care needs to be more fully addressed as a required service for all of the campus community and as a way to serve the greater Superior community.

1. There needs to be more thought and action given to real female career counseling on campus, beginning with incoming female freshmen and continuing through graduate students and available for Classified and Academic staff. Women need to be given the message that they can consider and achieve a graduate school education.

1. The university is archaic in its structure and how it approaches its mission. This old view of higher education is seen as the source of many of the kinds of concerns mentioned. It needs to become conscious of the systemic inequities and obstacles for full healthy participation by women at all levels and to move UW-Superior into the 21^st century. It needs to especially realize that the majority of its constituents are FEMALE.

1. Additionally, it is abysmal that in 1999 there can still be departments where there are NO female faculty and other departments where the ratio is 1:4, 1:5, etcetera, when the student majors in the department are 40-80% female!

1. There is lopsided representation of male/female interests and concerns in the curriculum and materials used in courses. There is little to no concern within (most) departments about whether the curriculum is representative of race, class, and sex/gender issues.

1. The UW-System as well as the campuses are not concerned about gender equity and both need to recognize their responsibilities to women, as has been done with minorities, as an area of diversity that is still in need of attention and advocacy.

1. Mentoring for women faculty needs to be more structured so that it actually happens and it does not fall through.

1. Financial aid requires full-time student involvement. This adversely affects parenting and family needs and is again, an example of organizing around traditional male students rather than the current student populations and their financial needs.

1. The Four-Year Plan is discriminatory and works against student-parents and those who must work while receiving a college education.

1. While the current administration is seen as working hard to improve UW-Superior in many areas, the area of how the campus environment affects women is seen as not being clearly addressed or valued. There is no effective place to take personal, class, or institutional concerns. There needs to be a Woman’s Issues Coordinator, equal to the Multi Cultural Coordinator, on campus to bring issues such as these to the forefront.

There are areas of concern and perceived discrimination that run across all levels:

*traditional male-centered values and environments that do not reflect the present representation of women on campus and their concerns and needs;

There are also concerns specific to one’s role on campus, whether student or staff, and to whether one perceived any effective mechanism and or support for addressing these specific concerns. The specific group representatives also saw and mentioned how women in other groups were being adversely affected. While the situation was not bleak in every department and area, the fact that these concerns occur at all, let alone so broadly, definitely hurts not just the women but everyone; it poisons the climate and decreases productivity and vitality. Additionally, when it is perceived broadly that there is no effective way to address these concerns - that they are ignored, dismissed, or not followed through with - morale is further undercut.

*There is broad unanimity for a structure and mechanism, such as a “Standing Committee on Women’s Issues”, that draws representatives from all levels on campus. Such a Committee could review these and other concerns and could develop recommendations for ways that a concerned and committed administration could work to improve the campus for women: to improve the climate; to decrease discrimination; to examine the systemic parts that work against equity; to listen to, acknowledge, and value the place of women on this campus. (Many ideas for how to improve the campus were brought up and discussed at the focus groups.)

*There needs to be a Women’s Issues Coordinator to work with the Committee whose position is equivalent to the Multi Cultural Coordinator and whose role would be similar: to assist administration in finding ways to improve the climate for the women at UW-Superior; to meet and work with women on campus over their concerns and ways to improve the climate; to serve as an advocate for women as appropriate; to link with UW-System Administration and campuses on these issues; to represent the University in the community, as appropriate, to improve conditions for women. It is further recommended that this person not be positioned so that she has an investment in the present structures being maintained nor that her advocacy can be compromised by her position in an academic department or their politics.

Attached is our report on The Status of Women at UW-Superior. We began the background work for this report late in the Fall semester of 1998 and have just finished having it reviewed by those who worked with us to frame these concerns. Some of the women involved have asked to remain anonymous and so no names have been mentioned. We met with students initially and then they asked to meet on their own and submit their views to us. We also met with women in classified positions, academic staff positions, and faculty positions as one group and as separate groups. While not representative of all women on campus or indicative of all situations on campus, we believe the views expressed here warrant your utmost attention and thoughtful response. Women make up the majority of people on this campus. The fact that some of them have taken the time to delineate what appear to them to be procedures that are insensitive, prejudicial, and create a chilly climate, we believe, is a sign that they think improvements are possible and that you will listen to these concerns.

The Women’s Studies Committee believes that this Report correctly reflects the concerns of many women students, academic and classified staff, and faculty. We have formally voted approval of this Report (9-8-99) and that it be presented to and discussed with both of you. Three of us will be meeting with you September 27, 1999 to review its findings and recommendations. We look forward to having a productive meeting with you.