On the face of it, barriers have largely been swept aside. Women can attend graduate school. Women are allowed into observatories. Women can receive tenure at Ivy League universities. There was a time when this wasn't the case. Still more promising, the percentage of women in astronomy at the undergraduate level and entering graduate school is approaching parity. However, there was a general consensus that the fight is not yet over. Women still get discriminated against in more subtle ways. Also, there are still few women at the top level, and until equity is reached at all levels, there is still room for change.
During the discussion, a number of concrete suggestions were made and I'll simply list them here:
- There is a Women in Astronomy Database, which is a useful resource for finding women to invite as speakers, ask to apply for jobs, serve on committees, etc. This database is user-maintained however, so you need to add yourself to the database and keep your entry up-to-date. I think this resource is under-utilized, so I'm posting it here in hopes that advertising it will remind people to update their listings. I just updated mine!
- Mentoring is extremely important. MentorNet is a great place to find a mentor, but you can only use it if your institution subscribes to it. But, if you join AWIS (Association for Women in Science), you can join MentorNet through them, even if your institution does not subscribe.
- The APS (American Physical Society) has a program where if your institution invites two women to give talks, APS will pay for a third one to come.
Also, Geoff put in a plug for this blog at the beginning of the session, so now there's a whole new pile of readers, yes? What are your thoughts from the session?
3 comments :
there was also a suggestion that the CSWA organize professional development workshops (e.g., negotiation, saying no, etc.) at the AAS meetings. I personally think this is a great idea and the biggest problem would be that the interest would be larger than the capacity.
There is some great Advice for Postdocs Applying for Tenure-Track Positions in the 10/10/08 issue of AASWOMEN:
http://www.aas.org/cswa/bulletin.board/2008/10.10.08.html
The suggestion that Kelle refers to arose from a discussion of the women's professional development workshops offered yearly by the APS. I attended one and found it extremely useful; it would be great if the AAS/CSWA could offer similar programs. APS program info is here: Professional Skills Development
I thought one of the most useful comments at the session was that we really need more than an hour per AAS meeting to talk about these issues! Could we think about a CSWA "special session" or "meeting in a meeting" next summer or winter?
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