The retention rates of women faculty members has become a growing concern among the ISU community, said one of Iowa State’s associate provosts.

The situation is not unique to Iowa State, but has been the focus of surveys by university committees, said Susan Carlson, also a member of the Faculty Development and Administrative Relations committee.

The University Committee on Women, a universitywide group including faculty, staff, graduate and undergraduate students, conducted a study last year to monitor the employment situation for women at Iowa State. The study showed that from 1990 to 2000, 27 percent of hired women left, while 20 percent of hired men left.

The group surveyed consisted of faculty in tenure eligible positions. The report didn’t include a demographic breakdown that included race or ethnicity; it covered only gender, Carlson said.

Carlson said the poor retention of women faculty might have to do with the different kinds of pressures that women face in the workplace.

“We do know that in their first three years [of employment], women are more likely to leave than men. Sometimes for women, although this is true for men too, it’s an issue of balancing family and work life,” she said. “Most women who come to the institution in tenure-eligible jobs are in their childbearing years. It’s an issue of trying to tend to both those parts of their lives at the same time.”

Max Wortman, president of the Faculty Senate, said women faculty are concerned with parking issues on campus and safety while walking to and from their offices.

“After 5 o’clock, students can park anywhere on campus and women sometimes have to park clear out on the periphery of campus, seven or eight blocks from their offices,” said Wortman, distinguished professor of management. “I’m very pleased that the [Government of the Student Body] has put money into better lighting on campus.”

Quality of social life is another concern, he said.

“I think this is a legitimate concern, both for males and females,” Wortman said. “We’re planning on working in conjunction with the provost office on some kind of task force that will look at some of the retention issues we’ve apparently missed in the past.”

Carlson said the university was aware of this problem before last year’s report and is taking action to retain women faculty by adopting a new policy on the arrival of children for faculty and staff.

“This policy is an attempt to create both a better working environment for the arrival of children in the family, for both men and women,” she said. “We’re also proposing paid leave for new parents, both men and women, as a way of helping them deal with the kind of stress of particularly having a young family and a full-time job at the same time.”

The proposal has been approved by President Gregory Geoffroy and former Provost Rollin Richmond and is currently awaiting approval by the Board of Regents, she said.

“The provost also has money set aside to try to accommodate partners coming to campus, because we know new faculty are happier here when their partner can find some kind of employment that’s satisfying,” she said. “If possible, we help locate on- and off-campus employment.”

Jackie Litt, former chairwoman for the University Committee on Women, said studying where former women faculty go and their reasons for leaving has been suggested to the provost’s office.

There are few women in certain departments on campus. Of the 56 departments on campus, there are only eight women heads and 14 percent of all full professors are women, said Litt, associate professor of sociology.

“We need to hire senior women who can break through some of the barriers,” she said.

The University Committee on Women wants a separate cabinet of senior women to voice concerns of women faculty to the provost and president, Litt said.

Wortman said retention of white male faculty is also down, but isn’t as low as female retention.

“This is not satisfactory from the standpoint of recruitment in the university and is not satisfactory from a retention standpoint,” he said.