Although Iowa State’s total number of female employees dropped in 2002, there is little to be concerned about, said Jack Girton, president-elect of the Faculty Senate.

According to the ISU diversity report prepared for the Board of Regents, Iowa State had a decrease of .07 percent of women employees from last year. Minority employees rose .06 percent from 2001.

Girton, associate professor of zoology and genetics, said the lower percentage of women is not an area of concern for the university. “[The percentage] is so small it would have to be repeated for a long time to become a trend,” he said.

The year-to-year data is not what people should be concerned about, Girton said. “You need to look at the overall trend,” he said. “Any year can have fluctuations.”

According to a Board of Regents docket memo, Iowa State has a commitment to “value, embrace and reflect human and intellectual diversity, inclusivity and dignity in the environment we create, nurture or influence to fulfill our mission and realize our aspiration.”

With this goal in mind, Iowa State has been facing obstacles in the last few years, including crippling budget cuts from the Legislature.

“Our goal [for employees] is about two times where we’re at now. I don’t know how long it will take for us to get there,” Girton said. “[Hiring and maintaining university employees] is extremely difficult when you don’t have the money to do so.”

Another obstacle Iowa State and other universities face is recruiting women.

“You can’t hire [women] if you don’t have women in the pool,” said Liz Beck, chairwoman of University Committee on Women. “Our goal is not to hire women, but to get [women] in the process and make [hiring] committees aware of women.

“We need to hire the best individuals,” said Beck, director of the Honors Program, “and many of them are women.”