Category Archives: collaboration & leadership

Looking back, looking ahead

Looking Backfall-leaves-3744649_1920

You may know that former WFF@H members Naveeda Khan (anthropology) and Angus Burgin (history), longtime members of the committee, stepped away last year. They are very much missed!

Additionally, Karen Fleming (biophysics) has finished up her three-year appointment as co-chair, and Anne-Elizabeth Brodsky (expository writing) will finish her term in December.

You can read our 2018-19Annual Report–featuring research and recommendations on student evaluations of teaching (SETs), the NAS report on sexual and gender harassment, and graduate student advising–here: WFF_AnnualReport2018-19_ForWeb

Looking Ahead

Karen Beemon (biology), Yi-Ping Ong (comparative thought and literature) and Todd Shepard (history; women and gender studies) are the remaining members of WFF@H.

So, YES–WFF@H definitely needs to build up its membership. Interested? Email [email protected] or Dean Wendland’s office.

Also, save the date for the Where We Stand reception! Monday, November 4, 5:30pm in Mudd Atrium. Please bring kids, friends, students, colleagues.

WFF@H Annual Report 2018-19

Screen Shot 2019-09-22 at 9.55.21 PMIt’s all here in one handy pdf – our year with the NAS report on sexual and gender harassment, ongoing discussions around graduate student mentoring, our exchanges with leadership on student evaluations of teaching (SETs).

Please share with your colleagues and leaders. Thank you!

WFF_AnnualReport2018-19_ForWeb

“Wisdom without apology”

Today, a brief excerpt from Tina Brown’s NYT op-ed “What Happens When Women Stop Leading Like Men: Jacinda Ardern, Nancy Pelosi and the power of female grace”

It’s past time for women to stop trying to cram themselves into outdated NASA spacesuits designed for an alien masculine physique. Salvation doesn’t lie in pursuing traditional male paths of ejaculatory self-elevation. In drawing on women’s wisdom without apology and pushing that wisdom forward into positions of power, we can soothe our world and, maybe, even save it.

Image: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/30/opinion/women-leadership-jacinda-ardern.html?smtyp=cur&smid=tw-nytimes

Related: Marisa Porges, “What the Failed All-Female Spacewalk Tells Us About Office Temperature: In a for-men, by-men world, the little things still really do hurt women”

Invited to speak on a manel? Not sure how to intervene in mansplaining? Advice for allies

Screen Shot 2019-03-05 at 4.58.47 PMThe journal Nature offers advice to and from male scientists in “How some men are challenging gender inequity in the lab: Offering support to female colleagues can trigger a culture change that makes science and engineering more equitable for all.”

For advice on the questions above, click on the article. To see more of David Hasselhoff, read here (note the article is form 2015) and check out our archived post.

Here I’ll excerpt from another of the six scientists quoted: Paul Walton, bioinorganic chemist at University of York, UK. His advice is all about systemic changes that rely on data and transparency to even the playing field.

. . . The first message is that equity does not come at the expense of quality. The second is that gender inequality is not just a problem for women to solve — we should all be involved. And the final message is that equity can be achieved.

As a department, we’ve applied peer-reviewed findings about unconscious bias to day-to-day activities such as meetings, awarding promotions and short-listing candidates for open positions. At the beginning, we had a gender bias in our shortlists, so we brought in colleagues to observe the hiring process. They would watch their peers, not the candidates, and then describe the ways in which the selection committee were showing unconscious bias. For example, an observer might record that one faculty member made, on average, ten positive comments for each male candidate, but only five for female candidates.

This was extraordinarily powerful in helping us to change how we behaved. The department also realized that there was a big gap between what men and women knew about the requirements for promotion. To help to fill that gap, we publish depersonalized information internally about what each person has achieved by the time they are promoted.

We have also become more transparent about pay by annually publishing the differences in median pay for men and women in various roles, including professors and technicians, and then showing how any gaps are varying with time. That was successful because we pushed to get the data and publish them.

My motivation is fairness. Women in senior roles often explain that they don’t want to be promoted on the back of gender equity efforts, because it devalues their achievements. But research has shown that for a woman to receive the same rewards as a man, she has to put in more work. Across many types of organization, I estimate that women have to put in 20–40% more effort. This means that men achieve amid a sea of disadvantage against women.

As a man, I don’t want to achieve against a background of unfairness. I want to achieve on a level playing field — so I feel that what I’ve earned is fair, too.

These problems exist for women everywhere. It doesn’t matter which country, university, discipline or culture, or what time it is.

Images: https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-trending-32789580

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Maryland SB 793 & HB 1094: proposal for JHU armed police

“We wish to see the university taking on the role of constructive partner in a complex public issue of public health and educational equity and community well-being.”

jhu-stormy

— from the open letter from faculty opposing JHU’s proposal to establish a police department

Today the Baltimore Sun has picked up the story of faculty response to the question of safety at JHU.

You can add your name to the letter here.

For more information:

Students Against a Johns Hopkins Police Force Petition: http://bit.ly/2S6I7ig

SB 793 the Community Strengthening and Safety Act: http://bit.ly/2S25v0j

Say ‘no’ to Hopkins’ private police – Op-Ed by Quinn Lester in the Baltimore Sun http://bit.ly/2S3C7Xt

Baltimore lawmakers halt proposal to create Johns Hopkins police force – Baltimore Sun http://bit.ly/2X7yx2m

Maryland lawmakers will not support Hopkins police force bill (March 2018) – The Johns Hopkins News-Letter http://bit.ly/2RYEhaN

Johns Hopkins Pushes for Armed Police on Campus – WSJ https://on.wsj.com/2S2ADws