Charge - February 2005

To help understand and address the under-representation of women at various academic career stages in the sciences and engineering at Harvard University, Harvard has announced the formation of a Task Force on Women in Science and Engineering. The membership of the Task Force will be drawn from the several Faculties that conduct teaching and research in science and engineering; it will be chaired by Barbara J. Grosz, Higgins Professor of Natural Sciences in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences’ Division of Engineering and Applied Sciences and Dean of Science at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study.

The Task Force is charged with identifying factors that contribute in some way to the under-representation of women at various career stages; compiling successful strategies developed by other institutions or scholars to counter these factors and tailoring them as necessary to meet Harvard’s specific challenges; formulating new programs and approaches; and, finally, recommending specific actions that the University should take to implement these strategies and track their effectiveness. This examination of issues relating to women faculty will include attention to the particular challenges and barriers faced by minority women pursuing academic careers in science and engineering.

Specifically, the Task Force, operating with the assistance of working groups focused on specific career stages, disciplines, or problems and chaired by Task Force members, will aim to accomplish the following:

• Understand factors that affect the decisions of young women, including undergraduates, interested in careers in science and engineering. Find effective ways to encourage Harvard undergraduate women to pursue such careers. Diminish obstacles to success, including practices of which faculty may or may not be aware that have the effect of discouraging aspiring women scientists. Identify methods that will enable us to track leading undergraduate women through their college years.

• Understand and address factors in graduate school and in the post-doctoral years that influence professional success—including adequate recognition and support—and affect the decisions of women to pursue academic careers. Propose actions that will diminish obstacles to success during the years of training and that will also encourage women to enter careers in academic research and teaching. Devise methods of tracking leading women at this career stage and making them visible at Harvard early in their careers.

• Work with the Task Force on Women Faculty to maximize the chances of success in increasing the numbers of women science faculty at both the junior and senior levels.

• Identify and encourage excellent women to apply for junior faculty positions; address issues in search processes and recruitment that would enhance the identification and hiring of outstanding women scientists.

• Identify and implement best practices for supporting women during their junior faculty years, ensuring equity, and maximizing chances of achieving tenure.

• Recruit and retain women senior faculty and support their research endeavors, in part by ensuring equity in equipment, lab space, secretarial and research support, access to graduate students and post-doctoral students, and salaries.

• Ensure that the awarding of named chairs, appointments to leadership positions, honorific nominations, etc., are conducted fairly and with adequate attention to problems of implicit bias.

• Ensure that senior women science faculty have opportunities to participate fully in all large-scale science initiatives, including explicit consideration for leadership roles in all such endeavors undertaken by Harvard or jointly with another institution. Support science initiatives proposed by women equitably.

• Attend to differences in culture, professional norms, and career paths among the scientific disciplines, departments, and Schools which affect differently the ability of women scientists to succeed in those fields.

The Task Force will be expected to consider and make recommendations concerning the most effective means of accomplishing the goals outlined above, taking into account best practices and proven effectiveness. While careful analysis and thoughtful deliberation will be required to ensure that the University adopts approaches that are effective and durable, it is expected that the Task Force will complete its work by the end of the 2004-05 academic year, and that its recommendations will be considered for implementation in a timely manner, with most implemented at the start of the 2005-06 academic year, or sooner if practicable.

Membership

Barbara J. Grosz, Higgins Professor of Natural Sciences in the Division of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Faculty of Arts and Sciences, and Dean of Science at the Radcliffe Institute, Chair

Catherine Dulac, Professor of Molecular and Cellular Biology, Faculty of Arts and Sciences

Susan Dymecki, Associate Professor of Genetics, Faculty of Medicine

Howard Georgi, Mallinckrodt Professor of Physics, Faculty of Arts and Sciences

Laurie H. Glimcher, Professor of Medicine and Irene Heinz Given Professor of Immunology, Faculties of Medicine and Public Health

Michael E. Greenberg, Professor of Neurobiology and Neurology, Faculty of Medicine

Paula A. Johnson, Associate Professor of Medicine, Faculty of Medicine

Elena M. Kramer, John L. Loeb Associate Professor of the Natural Sciences, Faculty of Arts and Sciences

Megan Murray, Assistant Professor of Epidemiology and Assistant Professor of Medicine, Faculties of Public Health and Medicine

Venkatesh Narayanamurti, Dean of the Division of Engineering and Applied Sciences, John A. and Elizabeth S. Armstrong Professor of Engineering and Applied Sciences, and Professor of Physics, Faculty of Arts and Sciences

Lisa Randall, Professor of Physics, Faculty of Arts and Sciences

Suzanne Walker, Professor of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics, Faculty of Medicine

Drew Faust, Dean of the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study and Lincoln Professor of History, Faculty of Arts and Sciences, ex officio

Staff

Stacie Weninger Barnes

Jacqueline Hogan