Why initiatives to diversify faculty don't work.

Back in 1920 when American women won the right to vote, 26% of fulltime faculty were women. Today that number's up to 41%. Not much gain in most of a century, especially when you consider the breakdown of today's women faculty: 36% tenured, 23% on the tenure-track and 41% not on the tenure track.

Back in 1920 women were considered intellectually inferior and too frail for the rigors of scholarship. Today presidents who suggest such ideas don't last long in their jobs. Most academics consider themselves fair-minded. We have equal opportunity laws and many schools have made policy changes to try to level the playing field. Why aren't they working?

Dr. Cathy A. Trower is director and co-principal investigator at Collaborative on Academic Careers in Higher Education (COACHE) at Harvard University's Graduate School of Education. COACHE collects comparative data among participating schools on junior faculty satisfaction and the recruitment and retention of faculty talent.

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"Miles to Go Before We Sleep" was the title of her keynote at the annual conference of Wisconsin Women in Higher Education Leadership (WWHEL) in October, followed by workshops on obstacles and solutions. Adapted from the poem by Robert Frost, it reflects the distance between reality and vision for women in the academy. Besides, she said, "Most women I know aren't getting much sleep."

Women accounted for more than half the new doctorates in 2006, so we can't blame the pipeline. There's attrition at every stage. Many schools have had on-campus childcare, flextime and stop-the-tenure-clock provisions in place for long enough to show that such policies--while worthwhile--aren't a cure-all. Causes and solutions lie deeper in the culture.

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