UCLA
Gender Equity Committees
Progress Report
Fall 2002
In spring 2001, four committees were established at UCLA to continue efforts to understand gender equity issues that my affect our faculty. These committees were jointly appointed by the Vice Chancellor for Academic Personnel and the Chair of the Academic Senate. Full reports and recommendations from each committee will be completed during the current academic year. Here we present brief reports of our progress to date. Additional information can be found at the Gender Equity Website: http://www.apo.ucla.edu/GEC/index.html
Data Committee - Professor Roshan Bastani, Chair
Climate Committee - Professor Judith Siegel, Chair
Gender Equity Oversight Committee - Professor Anne Peplau, Chair
Data
Committee - Professor Roshan Bastani, Chair
This committee was charged with improving
UCLA's collection of quantitative data bearing on gender equity in faculty
compensation and career progress. More specifically, the committee was asked to
provide advice about the development of a new academic personnel database. The
new database would enable not only one-time cross-sectional analyses, but also
longitudinal analyses of salary and advancement patterns over time. Currently,
such information is not available in a readily usable form, and this has been a
persistent problem for efforts to assess equity among our faculty.
The Data Committee has focused on
defining and describing the content and characteristics of what might be
considered a comprehensive or "ideal" academic personnel database.
The Data Committee believes that this database should have two major
components.
First and most obviously, it should
include detailed information about each faculty member's academic series, rank,
step, salary and advancement history. These data should be collected and
preserved in a manner that would easily permit longitudinal analyses. Currently,
information on such outcomes is
not available in longitudinal form.
Second, the committee believes that, in
order to achieve a comprehensive understanding of career progression, it is
essential to collect information about factors that may influence academic
advancement. Four categories of such factors were identified. These are:
Individual
characteristics, including academic and professional achievements
and experience prior to coming to UCLA and basic demographic characteristics
such as age, gender and ethnicity.
Resources
provided by the university such as space, financial support, and equipment,
which influence faculty members' performance and advancement.
Responsibilities represent workload from faculty members' teaching, service, and other obligations.
Individual performance, which consists of faculty members' productivity in research and other creative activities.
Information on most these factors is not currently captured in any academic database. The committee will make recommendations about how such information might be obtained and included in UCLA's new academic database, and also about priorities for this data collection. The Data Committee expects to complete its final report by the end of Fall Quarter, 2002.
Climate
Committee - Professor Judith Siegel, Chair
This
committee was charged with investigating qualitative aspects of faculty life on
campus, with an emphasis on gender equity in areas such as academic advancement,
access to resources, and relations among colleagues.
The committee began its work in Spring of 2001.
The
two major activities of the committee have been to design and administer a
survey on academic climate and to conduct focus groups.
In late January, 2002, a 6‑page anonymous survey was mailed to all
UCLA faculty in the following series: ladder; in residence; clinical X; adjunct;
clinical; clinical instructor; research; senior lecturer; and lecturer.
Data analyses are underway to identify key dimensions of academic
climate. Comparisons are being made
between male and female faculty, tenured and untenured faculty, faculty in the
college and professional schools, and so forth.
Groups were compared only if there
were sufficient observations in a subgroup to maintain anonymity.
Simultaneously
with fielding the survey, three focus groups have been conducted with three
groups of women faculty: Assistant Professors; Full Professors‑Step VI and
above; and African American and
The Committee is integrating findings from the survey and the focus groups, and formulating recommendations and suggestions for the UCLA administration and Academic Senate. These will be presented in a final report in December of 2002.
Also see Gender Equity Climate Survey Judith M. Siegel
Health
Science Compensation Committee - Professor Julie Freischlag, Chair
The
Health Sciences Compensation Committee was charged to investigate “questions
of gender equity in relation to faculty compensation in the Schools of Medicine
and Dentistry… The goals would be to compare the situations (salary, rank,
etc.) of women and men faculty, taking into account the very different work
environments and compensation structures existing in different areas of the
There
are many complexities to salary issues in the Health Sciences, since
compensation often includes not only a base salary from the state but also
additional compensation from patient care and other activities.
The work of this committee was initially delayed by negotiations with the
Members of this committee are: Kathryn Atchison, Ines Boechat, Linda Demer, Susan Ettner, Fawzy Fawzy, Julie Freischlag (Chair), Bevra Hahn, and Lonnie Zeltzer.
Gender Equity Oversight Committee - Professor Anne Peplau, Chair
Finally, a Gender Equity Oversight Committee was appointed to oversee and coordinate the activities of the three committees. This committee is chaired by Professor Anne Peplau and currently includes the Chairs of the three other gender equity committees (Profs. Bastani, Siegel and Freischlag) along with Professors William Dignam, Carole Goldberg, and Steven Yeazell. Also members are Associate Vice Chancellors Rosina Becerra (Faculty Diversity) and Paula Lutomirski.
As our committees complete their activities and prepare final reports, we will present our work and recommendations to the UCLA administration, Academic Senate and campus community.
On
November 6 and 7, 2002, UC President Richard Atkinson will host a
"President's
Also see Gender
Equity Anne Peplau