And there is our own Emita Hill at IU Kokomo and Hilda Richards at IU Northwest. All of this is improvement, but still not nearly the type of proportional representation that we may someday expect. There is some evidence that our women faculty teach more and get paid less. We also have found some data about which we can be pleased. Among our peer institutions, we are the highest in the percentage of our faculty who are women at the full professor and associate professor rank, and we're third of ten at the assistant professor rank.
Women earn sabbatical leaves and faculty development grants at a higher rate than men.
Forty-five percent of our key leadership staff are women. However, I don't think we should be caught up in quantifiable perspectives of our institution, alone. We must also be attentive to matters that are harder to measure but that rate high, among women, on the list of problems and barriers. For example, women often cite subtle, environmental factors that hinder their progress, such as unexamined assumptions about women's interests and attitudes or exclusion from informal networks. Several studies have also shown that when women are asked about the primary obstacle to their professional advancement, the most often cited barrier is lack of respect or not being taken seriously.