Tenure, the Holy Grail of academia, is granted to only a relatively small number of women professors, and some say it's because of their sex.
Ceil M. Pillsbury believes she was denied tenure at the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee, or UWM, because she became pregnant soon after her first child was born. Upon returning to work, a colleague told her, "Now, no more of that. Get on with your research."The university's School of Business Administration said Pillsbury was denied tenure because she failed to meet requirements for research and publications.
Tenure is a guarantee of job security bestowed upon faculty members by their peers after a probationary period and a rigorous review. The typical probation is seven years. If a professor does not win tenure, he or she must leave or be transferred to a different area of study. But those with tenure can be asked to leave only because of budgetary cutbacks or for "cause."
Only 45 percent of the 89,502 full-time, female faculty members at the nation's colleges and universities had tenure during the 1990-91 school year, compared with 70 percent of the 225,496 men, according to the American Association of University Professors.
Bernice R. Sandler of the Center for Women Policy Studies sees a "glass ceiling" at the heights of academia that is difficult for women to penetrate.
"There is a large increase at the very bottom - lots more women who are lecturers and instructors, lots more women who are assistant professors, a good increase at the associate professor level," she said.
But Sandler said there has not been much of an increase in the number of women becoming full professors.
The American Association of University Women said female faculty members often are assigned heavier teaching loads and more introductory courses. But at tenure time, research and graduate-level teaching are more highly valued.
The AAUW said research by women also is typically downgraded. It cited studies showing that articles attributed to women are given lower grades than the identical articles when they are attributed to men.
Fifty percent of the women who apply for tenure are turned down, according to Susan Butler of the AAUW. The rejection rate for men is 20 percent to 25 percent, she said.
Still, Judith E.N. Albino, president of the University of Colorado, is somewhat optimistic about the future for women in academia.
"I guess I'm heartened by the fact that the percentage of women faculty is growing and more women are now in what had once been rigidly all-male fields," she said. She noted that five women are now in the university's electrical engineering department, whereas years ago "you were lucky if you had one woman."
Albino is the first female president of the 30 public institutions represented by the Association of American Universities.