CSWA Demographics Survey of Academic Institutions

By Sukanya Chakrabarti

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The Committee on the Status of Women in Astronomy (CSWA) is conducting a demographics survey to assess the tenure and promotion rates of astronomers in primarily U.S. academic institutions, with a focus on individuals at the intersection of multiple identities. Earlier surveys by Drs. Meredith Hughes in 2013 (presentation, report), Joan Schmelz in 2003 (summarized in 2011 and 2013), Jennifer Hoffman and Meg Urry in 2003 (data, report), and a 1992 STSCI survey now provide a 30-year baseline over which we can assess possible changes in tenure and promotion rates. Motivated by the recent AAS Decadal survey and the report from the Panel on the State of the Profession and Societal Impacts, this survey also includes questions about mentoring, parental leave, and other factors that may affect tenure and promotion. The survey has been designed with input from CSWA members as well as social scientist Dr. Vicki Baker. This particular survey is focused on astronomers at academic institutions, and future surveys will also aim to assess the career trajectories of astronomers at non-academic institutions, such as national observatories. The survey has been distributed to AAS members through the AAS member list and via a chairs list to U.S. academic departments.

While there has been an improvement at the entry level in astronomy (Martinez & Chritnacht 2021) for women and people of color, improvements in the upper echelons of academia are still lacking.  Understanding the effects of parental leave on tenure and promotion is also critical to addressing the so-called “maternal-wall” problem where one sees substantial decrease in women’s participation in male-dominated STEM fields after having children (Cech & Blair-Loy 2019). Recent work has also highlighted long-term racial disparities in funding rates at the National Science Foundation (Chen et al. 2022). One may hope that the recent development of centers like the Center for the Advancement of STEM Leadership at UC-Santa Cruz to support early-career faculty and scholars of color will have a positive impact on our field in addressing these disparities. While such a center to support early-career faculty is quite new, there are now several long-running successful programs to support students of color - at the Banneker Institute, and the Lamat summer program, to name a few.  

To better understand the trends in our field for women and people of color at the faculty level, it is essential that we gather demographic data across the country. To date, we have had more than 1137 respondents to our survey. Gathering data from more astronomers will enable us to develop a more statistically sound and robust picture of tenure and promotion rates for astronomers and to potentially study the impact of various societal factors on tenure and promotion.

The survey is here, and we encourage astronomers at U.S. academic institutions to take a few minutes to fill it out by December 15, 2022.

References

Cech, E. & Blair-Loy, M., 2019, “The changing career trajectories of new parents in STEM”, Proc. National Acad of Sciences, 2019, 116(10), 4182-4187.

Chen, C., et al., 2022, 10.31219/osf.io/xb57u