Fulfilling the Potential of Women in Academic Science and Engineering Act of 2008

Date: Thursday, May 8, 2008 Time: 12:00 AM Location: Washington, DC

Opening Statement By Chairman Brian Baird

Good morning and welcome to this hearing on the discussion draft of Fulfilling the Potential of Women in Academic Science and Engineering Act of 2008. I want to thank my dear friend Ms. Johnson for bringing this important legislative proposal before the subcommittee.

According to NSF, women earned more than half of all science and engineering bachelor’s degrees in 2005, although they continue to earn only 20 percent in engineering, computer science, and physics. Similarly, while there remain considerable differences across fields, women are receiving science and engineering PhD’s in steadily increasing numbers. However, even in the life sciences where women now earn more than 50 percent of PhD’s, they hold only 30 percent of all associate and full professor faculty positions -- and that’s by far the highest number for all natural science and engineering fields.

In October of last year, we held a hearing on Women in Academic Science and Engineering to review the findings and recommendations of a National Academies panel that carefully examined the reasons why the attrition rate for women in academic science and engineering continues to be higher than for men at every step along the academic pipeline.

The panel found that most of the barriers to women in academia are not created with intent to discriminate. In fact, even policies that seem gender-neutral in theory might not be so in practice. They recommended that Federal science agencies sponsor workshops on gender bias in order to raise awareness of and provide strategies to overcome the collective effect of many small and subtle incidents of subconscious bias that are often built into academic culture. The draft bill under consideration creates a program of such workshops.

The National Academies panel also highlighted the need for better data collection, to understand the extent of gender inequity and to have a basis for evaluating policies to address the gap. The draft bill therefore requires Federal science agencies to collect detailed demographic data on the grant making process, and encourages universities to collect better data for the purposes of evaluating the gender bias workshops.

In today’s hearing we seek feedback on these and other provisions of the Fulfilling the Potential of Women in Academic Science and Engineering Act of 2008. We also welcome suggestions for other programs or language that we might consider including.

We can not afford to continue losing our best and brightest women from academic science and engineering careers. The programs in this bill are a small but critical part of what is needed to tackle the barriers that women face. But Congress has a limited role in helping to overcome what are ultimately cultural and institutional barriers. The universities, disciplinary societies, funding agencies and other stakeholders need to step up to do their part, and I am happy to see such a movement starting to take hold.

I want to thank Congresswoman Johnson once again for her tireless work to promote the role of women and minorities in science and engineering. I thank all of the witnesses for being here today and I look forward to your testimony.

Opening Statement By Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The National Academies report, Beyond Bias and Barriers, provided clear guidelines to universities, federal agencies, professional organizations and to Congress on what actions to take to reduce gender bias at the university faculty level.

As the legislation has developed, there has been a faint expression of concern over being heavy-handed with our scientists and universities.

One thing that I hope to learn from today's hearing, as well as from feedback submitted to the Science Committee, is how we can encourage university presidents and provosts to provide clear leadership in changing the culture and structure of their institutions, and deans and department chairs to take responsibility for implementing changes to recruiting, hiring, promotion, and tenure practices.

Beyond Bias and Barriers also recommended that higher education organizations form an inter-institution monitoring organization, and that scientific and professional societies help set professional and equity standards for the activities that they lead, such as awards and conferences.

I have attempted to incentivize the formation of such an inter- institution monitoring organization, through a one-time competitive grant through the Department of Education's Fund for the Improvement of Post-secondary Education. The provision was accepted into the Higher Education Act, but during conference, it was stripped out.

I am frustrated, Mr. Chairman, by the uphill battle in getting equality for women when it comes to reaching the higher echelons of scientific achievement. As stated in Beyond Bias and Barriers, "if systematic differences between male and female scientific and mathematical aptitude and ability do exist, it is clear that they cannot account for women's under-representation in academic science and engineering."

While I do not intend to be heavy-handed toward our universities, I do feel that not nearly enough is being done to educate persons of influence on the subtle gender bias that exists and is holding women back from achieving at the same level as men.

Why have our federal agencies not already developed institutional policies that are sensitive to women scientists?
Why is there no federal guideline for administrative leave for the purpose of caregiving?
Why is there no funding mechanism to provide for interim technical or administrative support during a leave of absence related to caregiving?
Why is there no centralized, federal policy to extend grant support time-tables for researchers who take a care giving leave of absence?
What are federal agencies doing to protect whistleblowers who speak out when anti-discrimination laws are not enforced?

Why is NSF's Survey of Earned Doctorates suddenly repressing data on women and minorities in science?

Mr. Chairman, for the record, I am submitting the most recent report, from 2006, entitled, 2006 Doctorate Recipients from United States Universities: Summary Report.[1] Beginning with the very first data table, A-1, the NSF suppresses data when the numbers are small – the reason given is to "protect confidentiality."

Look for yourselves. The data suppression begins on page 113, and it stretches all the way to page 174.

Mr. Chairman, any scientist worth her salt will tell you that incomplete data is not worthy of publication.

This is exactly the kind of practice that we must stop. I will fight this for as long as I am in Congress and long afterwards.

I am also submitting an article from Inside Higher Education that highlights the NSF's suppression of this critical data on women and minority Ph.D. attainment.

I am ashamed that the NSF has suppressed this data. I hope that Jaqui C. Falkenheim, the NSF project manager for the survey, or whoever at that agency decided that this was a good idea, will be told that they are wrong.

I strongly recommend that the NSF immediately return to full disclosure of data reporting – even if the numbers are embarrassingly small – so that taxpayers, including myself, can understand the complete truth about the sad state of women and minority achievement in the sciences in our nation.

With that said, I want to thank you, Mr. Chairman, and Ranking Member Ehlers, for your attention to this bill.

I thank the Diversity & Innovation Caucus for pushing this issue as well.

I thank the American Association of University Women, National Coalition for Women and Girls in Education, the Society of Women Engineers, the National Science Teachers Association, the American Chemical Society and others for supporting this bill.

The American Association of University Women and the National Coalition for Women and Girls in Education have both written support letters, and I ask your permission to also submit these for the record.

Thank you for your indulgence, Mr. Chairman.– I yield back.

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[1] An updated version of the 2006 Doctorate Recipients from United States Universities: Summary Report is available at https:// www.norc.org/projects/survey+of+earned+doctorates.htm. The version of the report Representative Johnson refers to is available at the Science and Technology Committee main office, located in Room 2321 of the Rayburn House Office Building.
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Opening Statement By Rep. Russ Carnahan

Mr. Chairman, thank you for hosting this important hearing on the role of gender in science and engineering.

While the status of women in science and engineering academia has improved over the last three decades, there are still barriers to achieving gender equity. NSF published 2006 data in Science and Engineering Indicators 2008 that demonstrated some increases in women represented in full-time senior faculty positions at all universities. However, women represent no more than 30 percent of senior faculty positions in science and engineering fields other than psychology. This is an unfortunate statistic and one that the draft legislation under the Committee's consideration today seeks to address.

One of the proposals included are workshops to increase awareness of implicit gender bias in grant review, hiring, tenure, promotion, and selection for other honors based on merit. I realize that one such workshop occurred recently at the Department of Energy and look forward to hearing Dr. Blevins' opinions about the workshop's successes and/or failures.

I would like to thank today's witnesses, Dr. Carlson, Dr. Blevins and Dr. Ginther. I look forward to hearing all of our witness's testimonies.

Witnesses

Panel

1 - Dr. Lynda T. Carlson
Director, Division of Science Resource Statistics Directorate for Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences National Science Foundation Directorate for Social, B
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2 - Dr. Linda G. Blevins
Senior Technical Advisor, Office of the Deputy Director for Science Programs Office of Science Department of Energy Office of Science Department of Energy
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3 - Dr. Donna K. Ginther
Director of the Center for Economic and Business Analysis, Institute for Policy Research Associate Professor of Economics, University of Kansas Associate Profes
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