To respond to two related postings. I feel stronly that we should
adhere to the "official" definition of affirmative action, i.e. that if
(in situations where women are under-represented on faculty) two
applicants (one male and one female) are in contention for a position,
the woman gets the offer. I was ona recent search and getting the head
of the search to committee to understand (in his gut) what this meant
was very difficult. It helps to have a department head who is truly
committed to righting iniquities.
This is not to say that there should be any
problem making an offer to a woman who is the best qualified for the job.
The reason I feel leery about hiring an under-qualified woman is that, if
she doesn't do well, it turns into a self-fulfilling prophecy and makes it
harder to hire the next (qualified) woman. (I have personally seen this
happen - a department said they'd hire a woman if she could walk and
chew gum at the same time. She could, but she couldn't do research. The
department hasn't hired a woman faculty, even under a woman head, in 15
years.) WRT time off - our university offers one year off the tenure
clock for pregnancy. Not sure if it's only for women. This is a double-
edged sword. In some departments here, women are afraid to take advantage
of this because it may seem to make their case for tenure weaker.
Muriel Lederman, Biology, VPI & SU
