Do we have something to celebrate?

Female college students began enrolling here in 1870, fifty years before women were granted the right to vote. There was great debate at the time whether women’s “delicate systems” would survive the demands of higher education. In 1875, Dr. Edward Clarke, retired professor from Harvard Medical School, published the second edition of Sex in Education and cautioned that women may use up all their essential energy on studies and jeopardize their “female apparatus.”

So my questions to you are: Have attitudes about women in higher education changed? And just what is the status of women in higher education?

More women and men are enrolling in college, but women at increasingly higher rates, according to a report by the Association of American Colleges and Universities. Snyder, Dillow and Hoffman reported in 2008 that in 1970, more men than women were enrolled (5 million to 3.5 million) and in 1980, more women than men enrolled (6.2 million to 5.9 million). In 2005, 10 million women were enrolled versus 7.5 million men.

Mind you, this does not mean there is an educational crisis. Men are still completing high school and college degrees and women’s educational success does not take opportunity away from men. Still, it is important to note that this does not mean that all men are succeeding. Not only that, but they do not have an equitable opportunity to succeed.

In 2005, of African American men between the ages of 18 and 24 years, only 74 percent completed high school. For Hispanic men in the same age range, 60 percent completed high school. The 2007 U.S. Census states that 15 percent of African American and 10 percent of Hispanic men had earned at least a bachelor’s degree, compared to 17 percent of African-American women, 12 percent of Hispanic women and 27 percent of white men and women.

This gender gap is not present in upper-income levels, where men represent over 50 percent of the dependent undergraduate students of any ethnicity. JE King, researcher for the American Council on Education, noted in 2006 that in the lowest income bracket, fewer men than women enrolled in college, no matter their ethnicity. In other words, the gender gap is found in the difference between men and women of color enrolled in higher education. Not because of race, but because of income.

All women are earning more degrees than men in the bachelor and master levels and are almost at the same rate as men in professional degrees (dental, legal and medical). Of the total number of doctorates awarded in 2006, women earned 45 percent, representing a steady and persistent increase. In 1976, women earned 23 percent of all doctorates, 35 percent in 1986, 40 percent in 1996 and 44 percent in 2001.

In 2006, women represented 25 percent of full professors, but an added complication comes from the fact that female faculty members must negotiate critical career development opportunities within their reproductive years. This “maternal wall” according to Distinguished Professor of Law Joan C. Williams, is causing many women to leave academia. In 2001, the American Association of University Professors and in 2005 the American Council on Education called for policy change to provide life and work balance in higher education. This includes flexible schedules, tenure clock pauses and offering quality childcare. These policies, according to both associations, should be offered to men as well in an effort to present better opportunities for personal and professional success.

But why should you care? In 2007 the Association of American College and Universities published College Learning for a New Global Century, and called for “multicultural institutions that better prepare students to navigate and influence complex worlds where they work and live.” Our world is not changing, it has already changed. As an institution of higher education, we share the responsibility of preparing students to navigate through their future. We share the responsibility to prepare students to contribute to the collective goals of future employers, to contribute to their community and to engage in respective, meaningful relationships with others.

Iowa State University was the first and only land-grant institution to enroll women at the acceptance of the grant, and create opportunities for women to achieve their academic and career goals when other campuses were not considering the possibility for women. The Iowa State Fact Book, 2008-2009 academic year, reports that women make up 43.7 percent of the undergraduate students, 75.5 percent of first professional students and 40.4 percent of graduate students. Female tenured faculty, as noted in the Fact Book, represent 25.1 percent of all tenured faculty and 36.7 percent of tenure-eligible faculty.

Iowa State needs to continue to provide a proper and trend-setting learning environment for students as it did in the past.

Women contribute to a culturally diverse institution and create learning opportunities for students and colleagues to engage in new paradigms of thinking. The doors of the ivory tower have been opened. Lets work collectively to keep them open for all.

– Penny J. Rice is the Director of the Margaret Sloss Women’s Center