One of the most serious is that UIUC students receive inadequate exposure to and guidance from women faculty. A comparison of student-faculty ratios between men and women showed that UIUC students are roughly four times less likely to have a woman instructor than a man instructor. Although representation of faculty women on influential committees at UIUC has increased since 1993, representation on such committees is still quite low. As of 1999, women held two of the ten Swanlund Chairs, none of the other 50 endowed chairs, and five of the forty-two endowed named professorships. Administrative opportunities for women faculty at UIUC are also limited, though expanding.
Women now hold six of the seventeen dean or directorships of colleges and other major units.
This constitutes a major change from 1993 when only three out of fifteen deans and directors were women, and from 1969, when there were no women deans or directors. Yet at the department level, only ten of the seventy-eight department heads or chairs are women. While this represents an increase over 1993, when there were six women, or 1969, when only three women were department heads or chairs, it does not suggest proportional representation for women in department level administrative positions. The salary gap measures the extent of shortfall of women s salaries relative to men s salaries at a given rank. While these gaps are comparable to or even less than those at other CIC and IBHE institutions, they are still disturbing and in need of further study.