Minding the Canary in the Academy: A Case for Inclusive Transformational Leadership
By Anny Morrobel-Sosa, Dean, Allen E. Paulson College of Science and Technology
Georgia Southern University

"The canary is a source of information for all who care about the atmosphere in the mines—and a source of motivation for changing the mines to make them safer. The canary serves both as a diagnostic and an innovative function."—Lani Guinier and Gerald Torres in The Miner's Canary: Enlisting Race, Resisting Power, Transforming Democracy

I never thought of myself as a canary. I sometimes find it difficult to identify myself with any animal, but a canary? I wouldn't even have contemplated a small bird as a possible choice. But I do have other identifiers: woman, immigrant, Latina, of color, chemist, faculty, and administrator. It is as all of these that I highlight an issue that requires our attention and action: the status of minority women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematical (STEM) disciplines in the academy, particularly those in majority white institutions.

The participation and employment of women in the professions, specifically in the STEM disciplines, have been the subject of directed efforts and documented studies by public and private agencies for over thirty years. The Commission on Professionals in Science and Technology (CPST) compiled data on STEM employment trends of women from 1983-2003 (STEM Workforce Data Project No.2) and of minorities from 1994-2004 (STEM Workforce Data Project No.3). These reports indicate that employment in STEM disciplines, relative to their representation in the U.S. population, has had moderate increases by women (from 18.9% in 1983 to 26.1% in 2003), small increases by African Americans (5.5% in 1994 to 6.2% in 2004), and moderate increases by Hispanic Americans (3.7% in 1994 to 5.3% in 2004). Women in these two minority groups showed significant rates of employment in STEM disciplines in 2003, 62.5% for African American women and 35.7% for Hispanic women.

While the data compiled by CPST included employment of faculty in STEM disciplines, the annual almanac editions of The Chronicle of Higher Education provide specific data regarding employment in the academy. For example, the 2005-06 almanac edition of The Chronicle of Higher Education reports that in 2001, 21.1% of college presidencies were occupied by women, 8.7% were occupied by individuals with STEM disciplines, 6.3% were identified as black, 3.7% were identified as Hispanic, 1.2% were identified as Asian, and 1.1% were identified as American Indian. Given that most academic administrators rise through the academic ranks, it is significant to note that while 23.6% of those who held the rank of Professor were women, only 11.8% of these women (2.8% of the total men and women with that rank) identified themselves as belonging to an ethnicity or race other than white. For those women holding the rank of Associate Professor, 15.2% were minority women (5.8% of the total of men and women with that rank) and for those holding the rank of Assistant Professor, 18.8% were minority women (8.5% of the total women with that rank).

It is difficult to see myself in these statistics, but I know that I have been one of those counted since I received a BS degree in Chemistry and Physics in 1976 from the University of Puerto Rico, a majority minority university now known as a Hispanic-serving institution. When I began my graduate education at SUNY-Stony Brook, I was one of three women in an entering class of twenty-one graduate students. When I accepted my first faculty position in 1985, I became the first tenure-track female hired in the Chemistry Department at the University of Alabama since its founding in 1836. And in 1990 I joined the College of Engineering at California Polytechnic State University as only the second tenure-track female ever hired. The 'first' or 'second' designations continue to be added descriptors to my name, though it is my desire that they will not be for others.

While there have been moderate increases in certain disciplines over the last thirty years, the relative numbers of female faculty and their subsequent advancement through the ranks are still very disappointing. The plight of women faculty in the academy, particularly in STEM disciplines, was the subject of several institution-focused studies from major research universities in 1999, with the situation at MIT the most publicized of these. Surveys conducted by many universities as a result of these studies yielded similar results, namely that women faculty were experiencing a 'chilly climate' in the work environment of our institutions and documented systemic discrimination in terms of lab space, material resources, and professional development. Many felt isolated and uncomfortable with the larger cohort of white, older, heterosexual male faculty, their influence in setting expectations for professional achievement, and their patterns of socialization. The academy wastes considerable talent when the energy and enthusiasm women feel for their professional activities is compromised by the emotional toll of isolation, devaluation, and lack of continual positive reinforcement that male colleagues so willingly bestow on each other. Continued institutional attitudes such as these can and do result in significant (sometimes permanent) damage to the growth, development, and well-being of these 'canaries.'

When some universities implemented programs intended to bring already successful women into positions of greater visibility and leadership and more fully integrate them into the institutional culture, some of the resulting benefits were unanticipated. Not only did the women faculty feel better about their careers, they became even more productive. The effective institutionalization of these programs also benefited all faculty, male and female, and in disciplines beyond STEM.

Two questions remain for all of us, particularly for those in administrative/leadership positions: How do we develop leadership models to ensure that awareness of these issues is turned into constructive actions within the academy? How do we develop expansive programs that model this behavior for our students?

Previous articles in OCWW by Caryn McTighe Musil, Rusty Barcelo, and Judith S. White have outlined the objectives and issues that Campus Women Lead intends to address while in pursuit of inclusive transformational excellence in our academic communities. The evolution of demands on academic institutions in the 21st century may indeed require that we develop individuals and systems that flourish at the confluence of Richard Florida's 3T's: technology, talent, and tolerance. For the new generation of academic leaders to declare that they exhibit two principal qualities of transformational leadership—the ability to articulate clearly defined goals that speak to institutional mission/vision and the ability to manifest the organizational capacity needed to achieve them—is not sufficient. We must require that they also demonstrate inclusive engagement within both of these qualities. This is but one of the challenges that CWL will work to address: to be very mindful of the care for the canaries in our midst, for the future climate in the academy demands it.

Dr. Morrobel-Sosa can be contacted at this e-mail address: annyms@georgiasouthern.edu

References
The Chronicle of Higher Education. 2005. The 2005-06 Almanac, 52(1).

Florida, Richard. 2002. The Rise of the Creative Class: And How It's Transforming Work, Leisure, Community and Everyday Life. New York: Basic Books.

Guanier, Lani and Gerald Torres. 2002. The Miner's Canary: Enlisting Race, Resisting Power, Transforming Democracy. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 1999. A Study on the Status of Women Faculty in Science at MIT. Cambridge.

Rosser, Sue V. 2004. The Science Glass Ceiling: Academic Women Scientists and the Struggle to Succeed. New York: Routledge.

STEM Workforce Data Project No.2. 2004. Women in Science and Technology: the Sisyphean Challenge of Change. Commission on Professionals in Science and Technology: Washington, D.C.

STEM Workforce Data Project No.3. 2004. Sisyphus Revisited: Participation by Minorities in STEM Occupations, 1994-2004. Commission on Professionals in Science and Technology: Washington, D.C.

Valian, Virginia. 1998. Why So Slow: The Advancement of Women. Cambridge: MIT Press.