- This program provides a forum for women to speak out on issues which concern them. Listeners will have an opportunity to participate in the program by calling the K-E-N-U open line at 8644530 Now, here's the moderator for A Feminist Perspective, KU Dean of women, Emily Taylor - Good evening and welcome to A Feminist Perspective. I'm Emily Taylor, Dean of women at KU and the moderator of this weekly series of programs. A Feminist Perspective is sponsored by the Women's Resource and Career Planning Center located in the Dean of women's office, 222 Strong Hall. Our office number is 8643552. We hope that through this program you will become familiar with some of the many resources available to you through our office. We are concerned with anything that concerns women and have gathered people and materials to help you with questions ranging from career planning and counseling to legal rights and current legislation, to medical services for women. I hope that you will call or come by soon so that we can find out what's on your mind and what kind of services you need. The goal of this program is to provide a forum for women themselves to speak publicly on issues of concern to them and help inform other women and men of the movement which is remaking the shape and substance of women's and men's lives throughout the world. The topic for discussion tonight is, Sex discrimination in American colleges and universities doesn't exist. This is the beginning of our four part series. Next week our guest panelists are going to talk on sex discrimination again, laws, court actions and executive orders affecting higher education. Two weeks from now our topic would be, Sex discrimination at the University of Kansas. And the final program in this series is, Affirmative action plans to end discrimination at the University of Kansas. We plan to bring to you for next week programs, the women who have been most actively involved in research and in doing what they can to end discrimination. So our topic tonight is a general one that we sometimes are surprised at how often it's necessary to discuss it. And that's a question of, Does discrimination actually exist in American colleges and universities? Our two guests panelists are Dr. Carol Smith and Jean Robinson. Both of whom are university people. Carol Smith has joined our staff in the Dean of women's office beginning in July. And Jean Robinson is teaching at the University of Missouri at Kansas City. So they both are career people. And there's some other interesting things we might say about you folks but I guess you could say them for yourselves. What are you trying to combine Carol and your life? - I am a working mother, a working wife and really interested professional in the area of College Administration, specifically student personnel work. - And how about you Jean? What's your lifestyle? - Well, I am a working graduate student since I'm still pursuing coursework in French here at the University of Kansas and a working life, I'm able to combine two loves of mine, which are French and classroom teaching into a pleasant career that is just beginning I think for my life. - You know the topic that we're beginning to discuss this month is one that Alan Pfeiffer who is the president of the Coronative Corporation and the recent speech that he gave said that we are so charged with emotion these days that he's surprised that anyone has the temerity to tackle it or that every time people attempt to tackle it that they end up by offending everyone and pleasing no one. So I hope that won't be what we'll get ourselves into tonight. Very clearly, higher education is very much on the defensive about this matter now. I think we could say though that no responsible person is denying that discrimination exists. At least that's what I'd say, you are too close to agree that there's not a denial of the fact of discrimination? - I would say when the subject is discussed in very broad terms, there's not a denial of discrimination. And when the question becomes very specific talking about our department or our division or our university, we hear very many denials, daily denial. - I think the people get very defensive because they don't choose to accept the fact that their institution or their department is the case may be, might possibly have overlooked something, but could have been both beneficial to them and more fair to the parties that were qualified for the position or the situation is students might be the case. It gets people very excited, it gets people very bothered and that's too bad. But at the same time, it's one of the things that as Jean said by, in generalities, it's hard to talk about it, but let's not get too close to me. You know, don't say that my department's involved - And statistics can't be denied, but if it becomes a question of questioning good faith in changing those statistics, then again the conversation changes quite radically I think. - And I'm sure that you run into as I do, people who think that this is just a movement by a group of radicals and that they didn't go away again. - Oh, I think this is so unfortunate because I think that it makes many women who otherwise would want to step forward and have their say and to become involved, be very hesitant. And this has been that the history that we've gone through in the past few years, many capable, talented. and what'd you say, women who have been discriminated against have been very hesitant to make this well-known, but to take a stand because they actually have reason to fear and in some cases it's been documented that that's a justified reason. They have reason to fear that their job might be on the line if they take a stand. They also unfortunately in some cases feel that the whole women's movement is just centered around the people and the issues that reached the front page so many times - Is it going to go away? - I hope not. - I certainly don't think so. - You're gonna give a specific evidence that makes you feel that other than the fact that obviously or concerns of equality of opportunity for all people though. - One thing that makes me think it is not going to go away is that I see an increasing awareness of discrimination that isn't far removed from the individual who's just become aware of it. But if we talk about statistics once again that in awareness includes the realization that things aren't getting better as fast as people keep telling us they are. And so that argument that it'll go away because all the inequities will be corrected within the next few years just doesn't seem to be true. - Well, I think we have some indication that at least the government is now in agreeance. We now have the laws and the resources within the government to enforce the laws that have been on the books for some time. - So in effect that phase may go away, the phase of really needing to pressure the representatives and the government to make things clearly legal or illegal. - And some of the laws haven't been on the books for very long, Infact the university grads were operating pretty largely through an executive order up until this spring but all kinds of things happened then. And of course now every year, education bill, there is a probation against sex discrimination. - And we still have some problems within higher education in terms of the classified personnel and so many of the classified personnel and the, what would you say? People, women and men working in jobs that are not of high rank are still not necessarily covered by some of the legislation - Or some of the legislation is in conflict with same legislation, like Civil Service regulations or practices. And these days of course they're all going to have to be resolved. The other reason that it's most unlikely that there's a B2B quality it's going to go away is that it's part of a much larger movement toward the equality of opportunity for all kinds of people. So we have great many potent forces, both moral and political forces that are probably working in favor of it. But we do have continuously to prove again and again the fact that the existence of a problem to those who really haven't given thought to it or who would have had, have been quite sure that they themselves have not involved or are not involved in any conscious, at least discrimination. So we might start with just some basic facts. Let's talk a little bit about what happens relatively speaking to boys and girls at the time may complete high school. Do you know, are there about the same number of boys and girls graduating from high school? - There is already a higher percentage of boys at that first big Diploma, isn't that true? That even though the numbers are quite close, more boys graduated from high school than girls, but the big separation comes at the next important Diploma than the Bachelor's degree. - I'm happy there. It's whether the choice of whether or not to pursue a bachelor's degree that seems to be the big dividing point are we told that a very high percentage of boys decide to go to school with the exact purpose of pursuing a Bachelor's degree, something 80, 90%, that's incorrect, I don't mean a Bachelor's degree for 80, 90% of the high school graduates, but something that falls under the heading of higher education post high school education. But it's true that only half of the girls who graduate from high school feel they need some additional training education that will prepare them for the job market. - And I think that's correct that this is for all levels of post high school education. The 50% or the 89%, this will include all levels, vocational training, junior colleges and somewhere. - So we're not talking about a four year decision but just the need for some program that is defined beyond high school. - There seems to be a very definite tendency on the part of women to stop at what they consider some logical point. And apparently the logical point to a great many women who could profit from post high school training that has been in the high school Diploma. I think we're about equal now on the numbers of men and women graduating from high school but certainly not equal in terms of the numbers that go on. You have any theories as to why this happens? That a large share of the well qualified students who do not go on to any kind of post high school work are girls? - I'm afraid it falls into some sort of a big category called societal expectations and quite frankly, society and the individual students involved and their career counselors, guidance counselors at the secondary school level and their parents and their ministers and all of these people, they don't have a realistic picture of what life is going to be for these young women in the next 50 years or the next 55 years after she's 18 or whatever age she graduate now. And a friend of ours, Dean Taylor, Dr. K.W Miller has been trying to tell people about the real situation in the bags for 25 years. And really a lot of the statistics haven't changed that much. - But more and more people began to notice that the gap was getting wider and wider. We had a larger percentage of women in college, even in the thirties than we have right now in the thirties, 47% of the college students were women, and now it's darren considerably down into the thirties somewhere. And we began to notice a lot of other gaps too widening gap in the salaries and occupational classifications. So it was inevitable that sooner or later it was going to come to the attention of enough people. Although I know that Mrs. Miller must've felt like a voice crying in the wilderness as she attempted to explain this to people on the way. We saw increasing numbers of women going into the labor market. There's no shortage there, is there? There common lifestyle of about half of the population. So the question of who goes on to to post high school work helps to determine what kind of occupation they're going to be able to go into. Now what happens beyond the Bachelor's degree. All those women who started the college, is there any difference in the percentages who are graduated? Do they tend to drop out more along the way? - Don't we find there's more of a tendency for the girls to finish the degree once they have begun the process than for the boys that begun as freshmen - The biggest drop out period for college women is after the first year. But if they stay beyond that very, very high percentage will then finish the Bachelor's degree. - So that when you look at the overall statistics, if the girl wants to start, she doesn't have the chance of being graduated as the young man has. Then what about the next two steps, not really, three steps? We've got the graduate education, the Bachelor, the Master's degree, and the Doctorate. And we also have professional education leading to two professional degrees in dentistry, law, medicine and the rest of, what happens to them there? - Well, the pattern seems to have been set by this time at any logical stopping point, any awarding of a degree, more women seem to decide that it is now desirable for them to stop not to pursue the follow-up degree. So the gap widens after the Bachelor's degree, widens still more after the Master's degree or a Professional degree. And at the PhD level we see the biggest difference of all. - You know what the percentage is now on the Doctorate? There seems to be a slight improvement, almost 12%. Now, in fact I have seen some figures as high as 13%. This compared with some 28% in the thirties, who 28% of the of the Doctor's degrees went to women and that was low, below 10% during that one period. And then of course we see the, and I'm sure that the new interest and the new awareness has increased the, slightly the percentage of women who are completing a Doctor's degree. And of course, I think everybody now knows the figures on non-lawyers and doctors, they're almost unchanging. You know, 1% are engineers, three and a half percent are the lawyers, 2% are the dentists, 7% of the positions, the figures have hardly changed at all. - That I think would surprise a lot of women. Don't you think there's been a lot of coverage in the newspapers within the past two years about pressure on medical schools or law schools to open their doors to women? And I have a feeling that some of us think that there are a lot of women who should be completing professional degrees about now, but no, there really is not a dramatic change in enrollments right now, is there? - Right - Enrollments, I believe maybe up in, especially in law, but are-- - Are we talking about 15% or 50%? Do you have any idea? - I don't believe it's near 50%, no. And also we're talking about the people who've just started. They will be in another two years before they could possibly be practicing the big numbers. - For example, in the field of the medicine we had National Health Act that went into effect for this class. And so we've seen a dramatic increase in the number of women admitted to the freshmen classes of medical schools this year. At least we are told that that's what's happened. We have not yet seen those figures. And certainly there's tremendous no interest in law. - Although there was something I was reading recently, was stressing that as at least the people coming into law school indicate the interest of what they would like to practice. They're not talking about Tax or Corporate law, the women, they're talking about the kind of law that would be useful to them in societal work and societal interests. And so they, it may be awhile before they're able to make an impact in some of these other areas, if indeed it's as clear cut as this one article said, that it was a-- - Because I think that's true, a lot of men now too who are entering law school, and I don't know what will happen in terms of percentages. And maybe it has been very important, but one of the ways in which professional schools have reacted to new legal requirements is simply to increase the size of their freshmen class. So you still have, you still can take a fair share of the women applicants, because I remember they've got to wanna apply and certainly were a far cry from any 50% because of the, all the societal pressures, not even to apply in the first place. You'd have to start much farther back in other words, would you not in order to be sure that you were going to have a sufficient amount of interest on the part of women even if there was no attempt to discrimination at all in the selection of students for any of the professional schools. Now, what about the teaching field in higher education? We are sometimes told that around 20%, somewhere between 20 and 22% of college faculty are women and this is an evidence that there isn't any discrimination against the hiring of women in faculty positions. Can you think of any reasonable that those figures may not tell the whole story? Does it make any difference what kind of school for instance, we're talking about? - Yes, that and also what level of faculty position we're talking about. Because in all cases if you start looking at the total picture you must break it down in terms of the numbers of professors, associate professors, assistant professors and other teaching staff. And that's the order in which women are not going. The numbers of full professors are just infinite decimal compared to the numbers of assistant professors and other teaching staff positions that are filled by women. - And I don't know that we have figures on even at the rank where most PhDs enter the department, the assistant professor. I don't know that we have figures about tenured and non-tenured positions. But I guess this is one other indication that the women do not have secure positions within major universities, that there are many untenured women who perhaps are not considered as potentially permanent members of that faculty by their university. - And also take it up to the 20%, you combine the five to 8% in the universities with the 35 or 40% in junior colleges and teachers colleges in all kinds of schools other than universities. In fact, one recent study at one of the prestige universities indicated that 1% of the full professors down to 5% of the assistant professors, the entry level for four PhDs in most cases. And it doesn't take, you have to divide those into types of colleges before you get any kind of an accurate picture of what's going on. And of course there is a question then of what the advancement they get after they get the job in the first place - What a book! - How do people get jobs and teaching jobs in colleges? - That's a large hazy zone. And that's exactly the problem that women have to find out how other people, how men get jobs and how women do or do not get jobs and know the system or make some effort to change that system. I think that it's widely accepted that many people get jobs because they hear about an opening from a friend or from an advisor. And lots of people are just writing letters of inquiry about jobs, because they have to assume that the opening may not be advertised. And this is a highly debatable way to recruit. But it seems to be the regular practice at most universities and colleges alike. - And this isn't something that's just happened overnight. It's been like this for a long, long time, that it's a word of mouth, who you know and who can recommend you. And the thing that concerns us most about potential women faculty is the factor about just not knowing that a position is available. And it hasn't helped at all by the fact that we now have somewhat of a PhD surplus, especially in some areas. - And I think that there are generally fewer people in many departments involved in hiring than a lot of the perspective job applicants realize. We know that a very high percentage, percentages of departments are chaired by men. And in many, many departments, that person has the most influence in recruiting and might have a lot of control in which letters of interest which dossier are seen by other members of that department. Or it may be a committee of again, tenured departmental members of higher rank. And the chances of women being on those committees are much, much lower when we look at the percentages of women eligible for those committees. - Even if there was a complete cross section of the department in many departments, there would be, there were no women at all. You still might not get any where we're recommended. We were told in a great many years ago in a famous book called The Academic Marketplace since you call up your own professor or perhaps an old student of yours who is now in a department somewhere else and ask if he knows any good men for the job. Even if he said he knows any good people for the job, which of course would help, you still depend on the partner who gets the call in every field. Certainly there are people who play that kind of rule. So one of the things which is being recommended now by the parody KO from evaction programs is opening up this whole area of recruitment so that people, all people who are properly qualified will know that the job is available and can submit their credentials and and their applications in case they're interested. - I think that one place where it all breaks down too often, though, is when the women have found out about the opening and they have submitted letters of application and sent their credentials perhaps, and then some myths enter into the consideration of that application. And I have heard several times the statement that a woman, a young woman was not considered for an interview because the department was looking for someone who would be there on a somewhat permanent basis, or was it? He didn't wanna go through this recruiting process again in a year or two. So they looked at the men's applications more seriously. And we have again seen studies that show that that is a myth, that women change jobs more often, are going to follow their husband to another job whenever he, a better job turns up for him. But that's a very active, they accepted me. - And another one of the myths along the same lines is that women haven't produced. This is in terms of the publisher parish expectations for faculty members. And that just, isn't true. - Now I have paused for a moment for a session identification. During this half of our program, we would welcome here, the use of our open line it's 8644530. If anyone would care to call with questions or comments, 8644530. Well, we've talked a little bit about some of the reasons behind the decline of women in higher education. There are lots of other theories that we haven't mentioned at all. And we're going to mention a couple of myself and if others occur to you, don't hesitate to interrupt me. Some of course were economic both in terms of, since this process started during the depression, there was a strong feeling that if there wasn't enough to go around, it ought to go to man. So that preference and hiring was certainly given to men at that time. We also had, at that time, you recall very low birth rate so that women were probably better able then than they are right now, or at least when they were in the forties and fifties when we had a tremendous increase the birth rate with the, back to the home law movement following the second world war. Now, of course we have a new movement away again from the large families brought on by recognition of overpopulation. So we have a lot of interrelated sets of circumstances. Also even in terms of the percentages of women we have had a tremendous influx of men after the war very naturally. And men who had put our hand to put off their education in order to serve in the Armed Forces and thereby forcing down the percentage of women in a perfectly natural way. In addition to the fact that if the family couldn't afford to send both the man and the woman, the tendency was to not to settle the man. But in the aggregate, all of the theories that have been advanced or none of the theories that have been advanced and no combination of them really is totally satisfactory in terms of you explaining what happened, let alone what's right to do about it now that people are well aware of what's happening. So let's talk about some of the other evidences we have of actual discrimination, whether it's to... when we talk about discrimination, we're not necessarily saying that it's conscious. In lots of cases, videos, and then lots of other cases, it's not a conscious process at all but does the acceptance of certain kinds of things, some of the myths that you are referring to and some other kinds of societal attitudes that don't necessarily represent sexism on the part of any individual about, you'd have to know the individual. In other words beforehand, you can't say all men or all women are, or even certain kinds of men and women. What about the salary situation now? Is that equitable? - Not at all, but that's an area that a lot of women just don't know about. It seems to me that this is something that's going to take to correct in the university situation than it does for people who are for instance, under a union contract. If you're negotiating a contract and it's, everyone's salary is right in front of you, well then certainly you can talk about whether someone is being discriminated against because of race or sex or whatever the criteria might be. But in university situation, we tend not to know anyone else's salary. It's so difficult to compare performance in credentials and it all becomes the judgment of someone else. Perhaps we don't want to challenge their judgment. And I think a lot of women are very definitely paid less at every single rank in universities across the country. A lot of those women now know that and maybe they didn't a few years ago. - And those figures, at least on a national basis are available to everyone. All one would need to do would be to take the census, the figures on the characteristics of the population or all the many educational statistics that come out of the Office of Education. And they help the Educational Welfare to find that out that as groups, they certainly are not paid equitable salaries. - And for our particular institution or that is a public institution, the budget is a matter of public record - And public institution - Yes, in public institutions. - But I have discovered that the colleges and universities are certainly not making any effort to make sure that all the employees know the facts or the salaries of other people in similar ranks or qualifications. I discovered you have to do quite a bit of library searching in my particular university to find out things like that that are public records. - No, there was not everything which is probably record is public knowledge. - Right. - But they, in at the University of Kansas, these figures are available in the library I understand so that there can be requested there. And actually the Public Information Acts are such that this information could really be withheld. But you've pointed out as some other things which may look like sex discrimination but not be provable, such things for instance as a rank that a person holds or how he or she is judged by other people directly. - In many cases, it's those people who have a higher rank who make the decision about promotion for people of lower rank. Well, if all the people of higher rank happened to be men who aren't aware of looking at women colleagues differently, than they look at their male colleagues, perhaps that's a very difficult area to increase their awareness of their own judgements. - Another factor that enters in here into the salary and promotional considerations is the very serious lack of stability that many women have had in the faculty ranks for years because they've been maintained on temporary or part-time positions, or always being hired as they say by need. And then you don't gain. You aren't able to gain an advanced rank and you're always being hurt. What ends up being full time as you're teaching full-time, but you're only a temporary instructor or a temporary assistant professor or visiting or acting. - Which means no fringe benefit. - That's right. - Or opportunity for working - The role of the Deans can't be ignored in the area of promotion too. Certainly departments are aware of influence and they know that their departmental recommendations can be vetoed by the Dean in their particular school. So attitude if, again, if the attitudes are unknown or if any plan of affirmative action seems to be unknown within the administration of that school, that might affect decisions in the departments. - Well, you see various examples of very sad things in this area. For instance, one of the very prestigious universities in the East Columbia has made a real effort in the past several years to get more women involved in their Doctoral programs. And for last year, they gave 25% of their Doctorates awarded to women. Well, that's just outstanding since the national average is around 12. But at the same time, during the past few years while they've been placing this emphasis on female doctoral students, they haven't increased the number of women on their own faculty. And, - You don't know what to think about that. - We would hope that they would be concerned about their own graduates finding jobs somewhere else, but I wonder if any of them are forced to prove themselves in a less prestigious college. - Maybe, they believe in what's really purely folklore that women with Doctorates degree only work until they marry or until they have children. We still hear that occasionally don't we? You know of any research to the contrary? - Well, I think it's been proven that actually a higher percentage of women who have earned PhDs remain in the, in university jobs for their entire professional life than men. And again, that's a complex situation. Maybe the men have more offers outside the university community, but that shouldn't be a concern for the universities that are hiring. - There was a study that was done eight years after doctors were received and four fifths of the women were still in the workforce in the university setting. And I forgot, I'm sorry I forget the percentage who had not taken any time away from their professional career. - That's a very large percentage. - Yes. - Even though they had married and had children hadn't even, the 79% hadn't interrupted in their careers at all despite other facts in their personal lives. - I think women are very hesitant to ask for a leave of absence for any reasons that have to do with having a family or wanting to drop out of the job for a year for whatever reasons there might be because she is so aware of her precarious situation on that faculty and is not going to risk a job by asking something that may be very reasonable, but it's not customary. - It's also not very surprising that only about 30% had changed jobs at one time, I'm surprised that that's about the same amount as it is for men, I'm surprised that that figure's not even higher because men get more offers. And so one would assume that an even higher proportion of men would leave, but actually the rates are very similar. So that women with Doctorates are in the labor force in just as large a proportion, if not a larger proportion than men are. When they take jobs, they do remain just as long, they do not change more often, they're not more vulnerable. Anyone hiring them would have just as good a chance of their remaining as they were doing, young men remaining that they hired. - And they have made at least equal, if not more than equal professional contributions into publications and organizations. - That's another thing which gets very much misunderstood. You cannot compare the most productive male scholars with women faculty members in general since many of them as you've pointed out, are employed in schools where publications and research are, there's not very much pressure for them and not very much opportunity for them. So you would have to prepare the pro, compare the productivity of men and women in the same kind of setting. And those comparisons have indicated that there's no difference in the amount of productivity. Not for those who consider that that's a terribly important aspect of college teaching. What have been the results of nepotism? Rules are similar kinds of institutional arrangements. They aren't all really nepotism rules. - Well, there certainly have been re-evaluated within the past 15 years. So that, now that is one area where there's been a lot of improvement made. But in many cases it comes back to being the prerogative of the Department Chairman. Since it is indeed true that people in like, every user with a like interests do tend to marry one another. Why this often becomes a problem and institutions have resolved it in a number of different ways. - I have here a study which was run by the American Association of University Women that concludes from the universities and colleges responding to their questioning, 35% of the schools replying still do not hire members of the same family. And this is usually interpreted or enforced when we're talking about hiring in the same department, but not necessarily. So, and it says such such nepotism policies are particularly evident at public institutions that have over 10,000 students, and least evident at private and women's colleges and small campuses. which kind of surprised me. I had thought that when, the university was larger or the department was larger, there'd be less concerned about two members of the same family. Once again, I think when we talk about the most prestigious universities across the nation, they will fit into this group over 10,000 public institutions. - So the situation is by no means - Oh! completely resolved, absolutely not. - And a lot of the schools also are the kind, well the situation we have here in Lawrence, where there's only one university in this town. So if this school of over 10,000 students enforces that ruling, there really isn't another university where the spouse can work without commuting. - Situation here is no regulation against... except in the same department. And I think those are departmental really than, no one can not supervise. - Yeah! - which is reasonable I presume, except that it sounds like a true old fashioned hierarchy where everybody's responsible to somebody else and not a very democratic process of determining who should be advanced and who shouldn't, or not even a very honest process where people can honestly do their best to evaluate without worrying about a personal relationships. - In a major university, in the Midwest, a big 10 school, a Vice President for academic affairs was quoted as saying, "If a husband and wife have always worked as a research team, of course we'd expect them to continue to work together". Now that's pretty unusual. "But if they're in the same department but in very different areas, that's all right too. "But if we're in the same area, we'd try to put one in a department and one in an Institute. "If there's no way around it and both are needed, then they might be hired in the same area". That was not this institution. - I would say he's more advanced than most colleges have gotten there, most universities have gotten in this respect. None of the things that we often, that often appears in affirmative action programs, and these given indication, of course there's no point in asking for some change to be made if there's nothing which needs to be changed. So one gets a pretty good idea of what things are like by looking at the the kinds of affirmative actions that are either proposed by governmental agencies or by affirmative action groups within universities. And one of them always deals with fringe benefits. So why in your opinion is that important or is it important? - I don't know if theory, if we want to talk about part-time employees at this point but that is a classic example of a large group of people who are working and who are generally excluded from fringe benefits, whether that mean medical program, medical care programs, or retirement benefits, tenure, any kind of guarantee of employment It just happens or perhaps it doesn't just happen. But it seems that a high percentage of part-time teachers at colleges and universities who are not also students are women. So these women may have been in this, working in this university for 10 or 20 or more semesters and have no more salary or secure a job security or benefits than they had the first time they became a part-time employee. - As a president of one of our large Mid-western universities told me last spring, or I guess it was a summer, that a department in his school had a woman who was with great many publications and a very fine reputation as a teacher who had been, had the title acting in front of her associate professorship for about 12 years, I believe it was. And he had that year told them they would have to decide whether they were to keep her on a permanent basis or or continue. Where do you think that women submit to that sort of thing? - It seems that there are always many people who would like to work half time, Many more people who would like to work part-time than there are openings. And if the feeling I believe is if you're offered a job, we'll say at the University of Kansas to work half time, and you say, "I'll accept", if you will incorporate some kinds of fringe benefits, even job security that perhaps is more than a semester long contract, well then the institution has always been very able to say, "No thank you, we have three other people waiting for this job who aren't making any demands". I think the part-time employees almost never get to know each other. I might be teaching at strange hours and have no group. - I think that's a key point that people haven't known that there was something that they could do. that they haven't known that it was a more widely spread problem than just their own, or just their own one friend. - Which has certainly been one of the advantages of the awareness processes of the publication of the facts and figures. And people talking about it as a result of it, a good many of these women who didn't know that there was anything they could do about it taking action against the universities or against the department or making demands since it's also built into the law of course. If there cannot be a recrimination so that if there is, then the woman has an opportunity to prove that other, the enforcement agencies just received a word the other day about a woman who had been given a, well she'd been given a permanent position, max salary for all that she had missed from the time that she should have received this position. So that the college is now in the process of attempting to negotiate with her because they owe her something, about $50,000 as a result of proven discrimination. For the same reason that we're talking about right now. I mean, the Dean has been talking about the fact that she was kept in a temporary status and refused tenure on the grounds that she was married to somebody who was also at the university. And this was the university's method of making a use of her services without actually paying her what she deserved. They, there, most kids are good. - I'm just going to say, there's a problem on the part of the university. Part-time jobs in teaching are almost never really half of a beginning salary. They're very underpaid. The department sometimes feels badly about this but it doesn't have any way to pay a higher scale. And so kind of rationalizes that by not requiring any kind of participation in departmental meetings or decision-making processes that's lessening the job of the part-time employee. Well really, that perpetuates-- - that's right the alienation and the real lack of any ability to have any input and changing it. - That's the old, so that the universities with graduate schools have you so long about re-paying you with the privilege of going to school here. And that may be a wonderful, warm thought but it really doesn't help you with your, either your ego or your food. And then in certain periods, because of the societal conditions, the shortage of household help, the shortage of childcare facilities. There are many women who would like to work on a part-time basis. And another item that we often find in affirmative action programs is their requirement that they be able to move freely from one status to another. But that they, that the fringe benefits on a prorated basis should go along with the part-time as well as full-time employment. So far, the government has acted only in a coercive way to try to force colleges to do what they should have done. Anyway, there's also the hope however in the part of a lot of people that the federal government should play a more active, positive role in providing grants and financial assistance to colleges and universities to correct in equities. Since there's, with the great shortage of money, there's no doubt that most colleges and universities would have a great deal of difficulty in actually correcting all the inequities that exist for them. - Do you have any idea on a local level whether there is this flexibility of, can a person go from a full-time faculty appointment to a part-time appointment without jeopardizing his rank and his job? And I'm talking about a non-tenured person. - I don't know that there's anything which is written out about that, but this is in subsequent programs. As we deal specifically with the University of Kansas, this is a question that you should make a note to call in and ask one of the authorities that we will have here for that program. Well, in the few minutes that are left, are there other specific items, maybe the general area of sex discrimination in colleges and universities that doesn't exist that you think we should touch upon? - Well, there's a whole area about student admission that is of great concern to people who are in the know and who care about the feminist movement. Many, many universities across the United States have not admitted women on equal par or based on the same criteria, that they have applied to men. And there are a lot of things were being done, not at this time, and within the past few years to try to make it a more equitable situation. And the students in high school will be overjoyed to hear this. - We often read that in a public school such as K U that is required to take everyone, that this solves the problem. And of course this doesn't even touch the problem of graduate school or of professional schools. - Or out of state application - Or out of state applications that deals only with an open policy for freshmen who would have never gone anywhere else to school. Cause' once they've gone to school somewhere else, then they may come and transfer students and can be accepted or rejected on the basis of their transcript. - Another group we haven't had time to discuss that we can certainly wonder about the absence of women on boards of Regents or Trustees, whatever the institution may call its ultimate governing body. And it seems that in half of the institutions polled, there are no women, or there's only one woman. And certainly that's not anywhere in keeping with percentages of women students or faculty members or residents. - True - And I think that this is another place that the faculty and the administrative staff get hurt because indeed these are the people who are having a lot of influence on the policies and the dealings, the day to day dealings of the administration of the university faculty for both faculty and staff, as well as students. - And it's the same thing like we said of all kinds of decision-making groups within the university that are poorly represented-- - Heavily male - And shouldn't be of course, on all of those. There's the question, of course of financial aid and scholarships and fellowships and lumps of evidence on an overall basis. I'm not speaking here of KU. That's what we'll deal later, but on an overall basis throughout the country of a heavy accent on the financial rates to man beyond what's given to them - As well as grants to faculty members to wants, to relieve the teaching load and to the... - In this area, there's been so much talk recently about the athletic scholarships and how much money that it puts it just directly into grants that are available only to men - With the people working on affirmative action, suggesting that the fair thing then be to make sure that those are matched not necessarily in athletics but matched in a dollar-dollar, dollar for dollar with scholarships especially for women. Our time is up, we appreciate your joining us joining us tonight. And I thank you Jean and Carol for your participation. We hope that you will join us again next Monday as we discuss the specific laws, court actions and executive orders dealing with the subject of sex discrimination in higher education. Good evening