REPORT ON THE CAUT STATUS OF WOMEN CONFERENCE, OCTOBER 24-26, 2002

My report is based on my attendance at most of the conference sessions in Montreal. Please consider this document as a report, not as a piece of advocacy.

Helping New Faculty Survive the Transition

The organizers used the first session as a brain-storming session in which groups of participants discussed what they considered areas of concern affecting new women faculty as they join the ranks of academia. The group discussion generated a good number of topics, among which were the need to discover the social culture of universities; the need to ask help without appearing “weak”; the need to gather information concerning working conditions; the challenge of balancing academic obligations and family life; the challenge of balancing teaching and research; the need to set up a mentoring system; the challenges of the grant process; the need to counteract feminist backlash; spousal issues; stereotyping of women in students’ evaluations; ways of rewarding activism; the difficulty of integrating faculty associations; sexual and racial harassment; the transition from Ph.D. supervisee to thesis supervisor; the challenge of negotiating a salary and getting recognition of work achieved as a part-timer; the conflict between the requirements for tenure and maternity plans (“the biological clock”).

Solutions to some of the above problems included the following:

• Involving the faculty association in the process of an employee’s salary negotiation
• Referring to a contact in the university faculty association in the employer’s job-offering letter to the future employee
• Establishing a fair and equitable process for the negotiation of salary
• Creating a women research centre
• Organizing social events such as wine and cheese gatherings
• Creating a designated woman’s position on the Executive of the faculty association
• Involving senior women faculty as mentors of junior faculty
• Training graduate students in university matters
• Creating policies of spousal hiring

Mentoring: The Essential Process

Speakers endorsed the process of mentoring but were careful to indicate the pitfalls associated with such a process.

Mentoring involves the participation of individuals working at different levels of the academic hierarchy. This creates a power differential and can lead to political and special interest manipulation and power-broking. Mentoring is also gender-defined and the usefulness of advice varies accordingly.

For mentoring to be useful to women faculty members, speakers proposed the following:

• Creating a departmental advisor programme involving the participation of several skilled mentors
• Establishing a relationship of trust as part of the mentoring process
• Introducing new faculty members to other members, and nominating new members for positions of leadership
• Sharing information concerning university matters with new members
• Mentoring inside and outside one’s department
• Communicating “unwritten rules” to new faculty members
• Encouraging new faculty members to sit on grant committees to learn about grant preparation

Salaries and Benefits Policies

Rosemary Morgan from CAUT argued against the notion that pay equity amounts to equal pay among faculty members. Pay equity addresses differences between dissimilar jobs; it does not address the way gender difference affects salaries. Faculty associations should ensure that an employer shall not pay female faculty members less than male faculty members for work of equal value defined as the composite of skill, efforts, responsibilities, and working conditions. Historically, the occupational group reference in universities is male so that potential gender discrimination is not recognized.

Rather than refer to the legislative concept of pay equity, collective agreements should focus on equal pay for equal work as defined by human rights legislation. Faculty associations should also demand that university employers conduct a study of salaries and an employment system review to identify impediments to equality. Associations should hire an external consultant to conduct such a review. Rosemary Morgan also calls for the training of faculty who sit on tenure and promotion committees.

Susan Prentice of the University of Manitoba reported on a study she conducted of benefit policies in 47 different universities across the country, with a focus on leaves of three types:

• Pregnancy leaves: they average 17 weeks at 46% of women’s salary. These leaves tend to count toward sabbatical and tenure years.
• Adoption leaves: they tend to be treated worse than pregnancy leaves, and average 13 weeks. 41 out of 47 universities provide “some pay” and do not consider that these leaves count as much toward tenure as pregnancy leaves.
• Parental leaves: they average 14 weeks. Only 9 universities out of 47 top up Employment Insurance. In all other universities, parents must rely on EI.

S. Prentice argued that sex recognition should be written in collective agreements but that policies should also be general and make room for non-heterosexual family patterns.

Betsy Troutt of Manitoba reported on the creation of a generation gap task force to cope with generational division within the faculty members of the University of Manitoba. The task force identified gap issues such as salaries, benefits, and family leaves. Manitoba’s faculty association endorsed family leave bargaining demands that allow man and woman to balance family life and academic obligations without loss and negative effects on their careers. The policies also recognize all kinds of parenting. Arguments that were presented during contract negotiations include the following:

• Family leaves are an equity issue
• The need to balance work and family
• Recognition of the fact that federal laws on EI have grown more generous and that the change should be reflected by university policies
• Reliance on part-timers to replace members on family leave neutralizes costs. Betsy Troutt recognized the fact that such a reliance on part-timers endorses the on-going exploitation of underpaid instructors.

Barbara Hales presented a study of spousal hiring policies with an exclusive focus on American trends. She stated that 20% of American universities have spousal hiring programmes. The question of spousal hiring is associated with the problem of recruitment and retention, which institutions can either ignore or address by providing opportunities. She listed three possible approaches:

• Shared or split position: this is not an ideal solution as spouses have to share one salary, and the question of who gets tenure remains murky. However, this approach provides research time, and can be regarded as a temporary solution until one of the spouses finds a full-time position.
• Part-time position for one of the spouses
• Long-distance commuting

She did not consider the scenario that consists in letting each of the properly qualified spouses apply for separate full-time positions in the same department or the same institution.

Creating a Positive Work Environment for Women

Margaret Gillett, Professor Emerita at McGill, shared her forty-year long experience of academia with the audience. She stated that women constitute 29.9% of Canadian faculty and pointed to the fact that disparities persist at women’s expense. She recommended that women be appointed at the higher levels of universities, as women represent only 15% of Canadian academic presidents (22% in the States).

An unannounced speaker from the University of New Brunswick alerted the audience to the fact that the number of female students in engineering is decreasing. She also argued that the commercialization and corporatization of universities affect women by making feminist pedagogies and studies irrelevant to this approach.

Mercedes Rowinsky of Wilfrid Laurier argued that faculty associations run the risk of being labelled sexist if they do not address issues of salary disparities.

Women in Science and Engineering

Nancy Olivieri presented a critique of the corporatization of scientific research in academia. She stated the principle that universities must serve public interests, and argued that by contrast such terms as “the needs of society” and “innovation” are frequently equated with the particular interests of a company. She added that medical research can be predetermined by a company’s interests, and that private sectors use university/public money to develop their own products. She proposed three solutions:

• Increase public funding to universities
• Allow no company perks to researchers
• Money allocated to university researchers should be administered by an independent panel as opposed to a faculty dean or a scientific investigator.

Rose Johnstone pointed to the fact that too few women choose a university scientific career. She referred to the persistence of drop-out patterns and the absence of women at the higher academic ranks, especially at higher administrative levels. She noted, however, that changes have recently occurred in medicine, dentistry, and other sciences.

Participants from the audience emphasized the need to provide constant funding to researchers instead of relying entirely on grant competition. They also pointed to the conflict between family life and the “life-cycle grant.” Wendy Robbins indicated that the humanities are also affected by the commercialization of universities. She argued that there is a link between the SSHRC and NSRC programmes and Industry Canada.

Pension Plans and Retirement Packages

I had to leave and catch my plane and did not attend this crucial session. Karen Bamford from Mount Allison forwarded the notes she took on this session:

“Since women's pay has lagged behind men's and continues to do so, women's pensions are, and will be, appreciably lower than those of their male counterparts. Currently women's pension earnings nationally are at 60% of men's. The trend of employers' seeking more discretionary power in deciding remuneration affects women adversely, since women tend to negotiate lower starting salaries.

In a Defined Contribution Benefit Plan, one retires with a lump sum, which may be used to buy an annuity. However, the annuity market is NOT gender neutral. Since women tend to live longer, they are typically offered a rate that gives them a retirement income 10-15% lower than that of their male colleagues.

CAUT therefore recommends that Faculty Associations negotiate an annuity with gender neutral rates provided through the plan. Members shouldn't be pushed into the private market to shop for an annuity. Also, since most members are unqualified to make informed decisions about how to invest their funds, and studies show that committees make more profitable decisions than individuals, we should arrange for our insurers to establish optional group portfolios. These would logically be set up for certain age categories: e.g. people under 35; 36-45; 46-55; and over 55. Members could choose whether to make their own choices or to go with the recommendations for their age group.

A probable academic labour shortage in the next decade or so may reverse the trend for early retirement packages, and allow a renegotiation of compulsory retirement age. St. Mary's most recent contract allows members to work past 65 under certain conditions. This freedom is of particular concern to women, many of whom have late-starting or interrupted careers and therefore fewer years to build a pension.”

The conference package included useful material which I forwarded to AUFA’s SWC:

• a contact list
• a summary of Family Leave Provisions and Proposals from the U of Manitoba Faculty Association
• a record of the legal case at the Ontario Superior Court of Justice between U. Franklin, P. Grosskurth, B. van Ginkel and C. Watson AND the University of Toronto

Anne Quéma

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