Faculty Gender Equity Committee

An Ombuds role is someone or an office of people who provide a confidential space to field concerns of employees and students. This role assists with conflict resolution, addressing inequities in pay for individuals, and identifying resources needed for improving inclusion and equity. The committee is working on recommendations to the Provost and Faculty Senate for establishing an Ombudsperson for the north campus. This already exists in the School of Medicine in the Office of Professional Oversight. We hope to learn from various sources and the current structure in the School of Medicine for informing our proposal. 

On an ongoing basis, the committee is advising the Office of the Provost on pay equity studies, decision making for pay increases, and advocating on behalf of faculty to sustain an annual pay increase and equity pool. 

The Developing a Service Metric for Equitable Faculty Workload and Advancement study began in July 2021 (SLU IRB #32050).

Background:
Faculty workload includes time in teaching, research, service, and administrative tasks. However, this workload distribution varies by individual faculty, discipline, college, and university depending on many factors leading to ambiguity and inequity (O'Meara, et al., 2019). Many studies to date show inequities in workload by gender and race, with women (Misra et al., 2011) and people of color (Wood et al., 2015) engaging in more service. In particular, women of color experience particular demands for service to be representatives for both women and people of color (Hurtado & Figueroa, 2013; Turner et al., 2008). Yet service continues to be undervalued in the tenure and promotion process (Kanter, 1977; O'Meara et al., 2019). The outcome of this inequity in service workload is increased stress, increased length of time to advancement, and lower retention for women and people of color, in particular (Eagan, & Garvey, 2015; Watts & Robertson, 2011). 

There are ways to mitigate inequity in faculty workload and advancements. One such step is defining, transparently, what service workload is and how it is valued by academic leadership who take part in workload assignments, promotion, and tenure processes. This study aimed to achieve this step for SLU across departments, schools, and colleges in order to guide a new workload policy and promotion and tenure guidelines. In addition, we believe our findings are generalizable to other universities who are struggling to define service workload and develop a culture within which service is assigned and valued equitably.

Approach: This study took a qualitative phenomenological approach where the focus is on description of the "everydayness" of service. Being-in an academic context and performing service activities carries particular meaning and value, as a result. Thus, we aimed to understand this from the perspective of those in academic leadership who make judgments about service activities as part of the faculty workload assignments and in reviewing promotion and tenure applications. We interviewed department chairs (n = 26) across Saint Louis University including representation from departments on north and south campus. Analysis and report writing included a team of committee members who are experts in qualitative research and an external review by a qualitative researcher.

A report of the findings will be available for review in January 2022.

The Billiken Boost Program was created by the Office of the Provost in an effort to define the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic at SLU and empower faculty achievement that is equitable and specific to the needs of individual faculty.  Click HERE for more  details of  this program, including funding opportunities.

The Gender Equity Committee has received select data from the University’s 2020 Climate Survey from Human Resources. The 2020 Climate Survey included important questions pertaining to the perceptions of equity, diversity, and inclusion on campus. The data received by the Committee includes both quantitative and qualitative data. The Committee is planning a mixed method analysis of the data for providing recommendations to the Provost and Faculty Senate and guide new initiatives to address the needs and concerns of SLU faculty and community.