Although the overall participation of women in higher education has increased drastically over the past decade, the number of female professors, especially in the physical sciences, has not shown any improvement.
Many researchers attribute the disparity to prejudice within tenure selection committees.
However, recent evidence suggests that discrimination may be more subtly rooted in the choice to have a family. The tenure selection process demands that each candidate publish a certain number of papers in scientific journals, and having children when developing one's career greatly detracts from the amount of time in which such research can be conducted. One controversial proposal is to give an extra year of consideration for women who have been pregnant during the tenure-selection time frame. The event is free and open to the public. For information, call x3-8844.