Changing The Continuing Chilly Campus Climate For Faculty Women: Recommendations Based On A Case Study

A vast body of research conducted in the 1970’s and 1980’s documented a host of problems confronted by women faculty at colleges and universities nationwide: their small number, a “chilly campus climate,” low salaries, slow progress toward promotion and tenure, little power or influence, and a number of worklife issues. Subsequently, many institutions established policies to address these inequities. This qualitative case study compares the concerns expressed in 1988 by women faculty at “Sycamore State University,” a Midwestern Research I University, with those women faculty discussed in 1997, when policies apparently intended to correct discriminatory conditions and practices had been in place for almost a decade. The research, foregrounding the voices of women faculty, confronts the question of why, despite the implementation of these policies, many of their concerns remain. It also suggests strategies for meeting some of the challenges women faculty, especially those in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, still confront.