Women in physics: an institutional perspective

1
Women in physics an institutional perspective

• Kim Budil
• Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
• Office of the Under Secretary for Science,
  Department of Energy

2
Committee on the Status of Women in Physics
Membership 2009

• Mary Hall Reno, Chair, Univ of Iowa
• Premala Chandra, Rutgers Univ
• Nancy M Haegel, Naval Postgraduate School
• Kawtar Hafidi, Argonne Natl Lab
• Apriel Hodari, CNA Corporation
• Eliane Schnirman Lessner, Natl Inst of Health
  NIH
• Lidija Sekaric, IBM T J Watson Res Ctr
• Saeqa Dil Vrtilek, Harvard-Smithsonian CFA
• Yevgeniya Zastavker, Franklin W Olin Coll of Engr

3
CSWP site visits

• 2009
• MIT
• University of Oregon
• Natl Superconducting Cyclotron Lab
• 2008
• Fermi Natl Accelerator Laboratory
• Lawrence Berkeley Natl Laboratory
• 2007
• Vanderbilt University
• Indiana University
• 2006
• JILA/Boulder
• 2005
• University of Michigan
• NIST/Gaithersburg
• NIST/Boulder
• Iowa State University
• 2004
• University of Washington

• 2003
• Purdue University
• University of Minnesota
• Duke University
• Ohio State University
• 2002
• Argonne National Lab
• University of Wisconsin
• University of Iowa
• NASA/Goddard
• 2001
• University of Maryland
• (return visit)
• 2000
• College of William Mary
• UCAR/NCAR
• Penn State University

1994 SUNY at Stony Brook University of
Texas/Austin Stanford University Harvard
University University of Rochester North
Carolina State University 1993 Michigan State
University University of New Mexico Kansas
State University 1992 RPI Williams
College University of Illinois at Urbana
Champaign 1991 University of
Pennsylvania Bryn Mawr College University of
Virginia 1990 University of Maryland

• Research facilities
• Conducted with the APS Committee on Minorities
  in Physics

4
CSWP Site visit program

• The APS has had a long-standing interest in
  improving the climate in physics departments for
  underrepresented minorities and women.
• The Committee on the Status of Women in Physics
  (CSWP) and the Committee on Minorities (COM)
  both sponsor site visit programs.
• In recent years, the visits have been expanded to
  include national labs as well as universities.
• The site visit program was initially developed to
  investigate the climate for minorities, and later
  extended to investigate the climate for women in
  physics.
• The goals of these visits are three-fold
• Identify a set of generic problems commonly
  experienced by minority and/or women physicists.
• Intervene to solve many of these generic
  problems.
• Address problems arising in the particular
  physics department or lab visited and help
  improve the climate for minorities or women (both
  students and faculty) in the facility.

5
The process

• Site visits are conducted at the request of a
  department chair or lab director.
• Once a date is agreed upon, a team will be
  assembled.
• Prior to the visit, students/employees will be
  asked to complete a confidential survey, for the
  team's use only.
• On the day of the visit, members of the site
  visit team meet with the physics department
  chair/lab director, groups of physics faculty
  members, minority or women faculty members in
  physics (or related areas), administrators
  responsible for faculty appointments or hiring,
  minority or women graduate students, and minority
  or women undergraduates. The goal of these
  meetings is to provide the site visit team with
  the quantitative and qualitative information they
  need to assess the climate for women or
  minorities in the host facility.
• The team will write a report for the department
  chair/lab director, detailing the findings of the
  visit and offering simple, practical suggestions
  on improving the climate for minorities or women.
  
• The chair/lab director is encouraged to share the
  report with the rest of the department/lab.
• One year after the visit, the department
  chair/lab director will be asked to respond in
  writing to the team, describing actions taken to
  improve the climate.

6
The site visit process has several key elements

• Site visits are only done at the request of the
  organizations leadership
• The goal is positive to improve the climate for
  women in physics
• Management is expected to actively participate
  and promote employee participation
• The survey process invites the participation of
  the entire workforce including men
• Includes the opportunity to provide anonymous
  comments to the site visit team
• Information is requested on many aspects of the
  institution

7
Preparing for the site visit is often a learning
experience

• Survey process
• Data collection for site visit team
• Workforce demographics
• Hiring processes and policies
• Career development and advancement
• Training and education opportunities
• Organization of the agenda
• Identifying members of key groups to participate
  in discussion groups
• senior staff, mid-career, new hires, post-docs,
  students, contract employees, )
• Management at various levels
• Separate groups of men and women

8
Large institutions tend to have similar
characteristics

• Scientific institutions reflect the demographics
  of the field
• They dont have a single institutional climate
• Institutions are collections of micro-climates
• Implementation of policies and procedures is not
  consistent
• Hiring is typically the purview of research
  groups rather than the institution
• Researchers tend to hire based on personal and
  professional connections
• Career development is not perceived as an active
  process but rather an outcome of excellence
• Performance reviews rely on objective measures
  and often discount the influence of the
  environment
• Requirements for career advancement are often
  unclear or not well established

9
General observations about the climate

• The senior leadership needs to own the problem
  and set expectations
• Leading by example is essential
• Everyone is accountable
• Role models matter
• Identify excellent women to take on leadership
  roles
• Not just token involvement
• The institution must make a visible commitment to
  the importance of diversity
• More than just gender
• Communication and leadership styles should not be
  required to fit a standard model
• Work-life balance is an important priority for
  all employees
• In general, actions that improve the climate for
  women tend to improve the climate for all
  employees

10
Management and supervision

• Require mandatory training for managers and
  supervisors
• Instruction on institutional policies and
  procedures
• Training on diversity issues, performance
  management, conflict resolution, career
  development, and work-life balance issues
• Ensure that the performance appraisal process is
  communicated to all employees
• Solicit performance appraisal input for
  supervisors from their direct reports.
• Establish, communicate and consistently apply
  transparent policies and procedures for all
  promotions

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Recruitment and hiring

• Create a strategic hiring plan that emphasizes
  the diversity goals of the institution
• Require open and transparent hiring processes
• Set expectations for hiring committees regarding
  diversity
• Tools to create diverse candidate pools
• Open posting and recruitment
• Require justification of candidate rejections and
  final hiring decisions
• Think creatively about hiring strategies
• Even with hiring constraints diversity can be
  pursued

12
Mentoring and career development

• Support and promote mentoring for all employees
• Train supervisors to mentor employees
• Facilitate networking opportunities
• Encourage all new hires to identify a mentor to
  help them find their way in the organization
• Establish clear guidelines for promotion and
  career advancement
• Require a discussion of career advancement as
  part of annual review process
• Establish transparent and open processes for
  promotion

13
Some final observations

• The opportunity to look at other institutions
  gave me new perspective on my home institution
• The site visit process is as important as the
  product
• National laboratories have a special
  responsibility
• Should be leading the way, establishing best
  practices
• They can be labs for developing the model
  workplace

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Conversations on gender equity site visit program

• To build on the success of the 2007 workshop,
  "Gender Equity Strengthening the Physics
  Enterprise in Universities and National
  Laboratories," the Committee on the Status of
  Women in Physics (CSWP) is offering a new type of
  site visit to university physics departments and
  national laboratories Conversations on Gender
  Equity.
• The site visit purpose is to learn what works
  best for physicists and to carry that information
  forward into future site visits and physics
  programs.
• Conversations on Gender Equity site visits foster
  dialogue between visiting discussion leaders and
  the members of departments or laboratories they
  visit. Notes generated during the visit will be
  approved by both the hosts and the discussion
  leaders, and will be used by CSWP to broadly
  disseminate these ideas (without any identifying
  information).
• Visitors are selected from members of the
  workshop steering committee, CSWP, and other
  physicists who are fully engaged in diversity
  issues. Although most of the team are working
  physicists, a few social scientists among our
  discussion leaders will contribute their
  expertise in facilitating dialogue.
• Discussion leaders will meet with students,
  faculty, the department chair or lab director and
  whomever he or she designates, and other
  interested parties. Discussion leaders will then
  facilitate a brainstorming session to examine the
  institutions culture and how that culture
  affects its climate for gender equity and
  expansion of diversity, with a goal of finding
  customized solutions.