BYU Employee Stats by Gender

[bsjkki]

I was surprised no one else has brought this up so, I thought, why not?  It's an interesting debate point.  Michael Austin over at By Common Consent wrote this blog post.  https://bycommonconsent.com/2016/09/16/not-even-close-faculty-gender-balance-at-the-byus/

In it he discusses BYU's employee statistics analyzed by gender.  For tenured professors it's an 80 percent men to 20 percent women ratio?  But for service/support and adjunct faculty positions it is 67 percent female.  The comments are very interesting and have a lot of anecdotal information.

One person discussed that certain companies find BYU students well educated but they have problems dealing with female bosses.  They are not equipped to deal with women authority figures or interact well with females.  Do any of you have experience with this?

Knowing these statistics, would it make you more or less likely to send your child BYU if they are female?  They will lack mentors and role members from their own gender.  Does this make a difference?  

Because of BYU's religious exemption, female employee's are grilled more about their personal marriage and family situation during the hiring process.  Without the exemption, this would be illegal.  Single men sometimes face the same extra scrutiny.  Many commentators stated it also comes down to GA roulette.

Some commentators discussed BYU refuses to provide on-site daycare as a matter of principle. Is this a family friendly policy?  Anyway, I found the whole article and comments very interesting.

 If I send my daughter to BYU because she chooses engineering over architecture, most likely she will not have a female professor.  I'm going to contemplate this new information.  My other daughter is in a male dominated field and is not at BYU and also has no female teachers in her major classes. They are actively trying to recruit women to the major and are seeking to hire more women.  Being a female in her major has proven to be more problematic that she first thought.  Her bosses have no idea how to help her navigate these extra challenges because they haven't faced them.  She works for a Mormon dominated firm.  It's interesting.

Edited September 18, 2016 by bsjkki
darn that grammar

[notHagoth7]

37 minutes ago, bsjkki said:

...One person discussed that certain companies find BYU students well educated but they have problems dealing with female bosses.  They are not equipped to deal with women authority figures or interact well with females.  Do any of you have experience with this?...

Although I attended BYU-Idaho for a while, I only attended BYU-Provo for one semester before transferring to a program elsewhere, so I can speak but little to BYU-Provo perceptions.

However, at BYU-Idaho, while working part time in the Accounts Receivable department, my two managers were men, while the other full-time people in the department (including the one who trained/supervised me) were women.

And none of my professors at either school were women.

As to women being authority figures:

In the corporate world, my favorite bosses, hands down, were women (I've worked in a number of short-term contract settings, so have had more managers than most). The female bosses I just mentioned were competent, intelligent, funny, and extremely effective at mentoring.

On the other side of the coin, 2 out of my 4 most unpleasant bosses were women. (But they just happened to be unhappy and insecure at the time...not the norm for most women I have worked with/for.)

Given the choice, I would generally opt to report to a woman.

Edited September 18, 2016 by notHagoth7

[rpn]

The stats are abysmal.   But we only will know whether or not this could be BYU discrimination when we know the number and qualifications of the women who applied at the same time for each position, compared with the men who got the jobs.

What I've read online is that qualified women may have opted themselves out from the selection process, rather than that those who applied lost out to less qualified men.

 

[Sleeper Cell]

2 hours ago, bsjkki said:

In it he discusses BYU's employee statistics analyzed by gender.  For tenured professors it's an 80 percent men to 20 percent women ratio?  But for service/support and adjunct faculty positions it is 67 percent female.  The comments are very interesting and have a lot of anecdotal information.

One person discussed that certain companies find BYU students well educated but they have problems dealing with female bosses.  They are not equipped to deal with women authority figures or interact well with females.  Do any of you have experience with this?

Knowing these statistics, would it make you more or less likely to send your child BYU if they are female?  They will lack mentors and role members from their own gender.  Does this make a difference?  ...

 If I send my daughter to BYU because she chooses engineering over architecture, most likely she will not have a female professor.  I'm going to contemplate this new information.  

Most of my undergraduate physics professors were Chinese (i.e., Chinese born and raised in China or other Asian countries).  Didn’t see a great deal of difference between Chinese physics and WASP physics.  

Since this is a major concern, why not visit BYU and other possible choices and actually talk it over with some of the professors?  Alternately, why not simply choose a school with more female engineering professors?  

BTW, what does your daughter think of your concerns?  After all, isn’t it ultimately her choice?  

[Glenn101]

Is there now a female quota or percentage that BYU should be striving for? Have there been any complaints about BYU hiring practices from disgruntled job seekers? Social media, or the like? Is there a problem, or only the perception?

 

Glenn

[Rain]

39 minutes ago, Sleeper Cell said:

Most of my undergraduate physics professors were Chinese (i.e., Chinese born and raised in China or other Asian countries).  Didn’t see a great deal of difference between Chinese physics and WASP physics.  

Since this is a major concern, why not visit BYU and other possible choices and actually talk it over with some of the professors?  Alternately, why not simply choose a school with more female engineering professors?  

BTW, what does your daughter think of your concerns?  After all, isn’t it ultimately her choice?  

You can send a child to college and have it be their choice.  I sent my daughter to a school that wasn't in my top 3 choices of universities for her. 

 

[Rain]

3 hours ago, bsjkki said:

I was surprised no one else has brought this up so, I thought, why not?  It's an interesting debate point.  Michael Austin over at By Common Consent wrote this blog post.  https://bycommonconsent.com/2016/09/16/not-even-close-faculty-gender-balance-at-the-byus/

In it he discusses BYU's employee statistics analyzed by gender.  For tenured professors it's an 80 percent men to 20 percent women ratio?  But for service/support and adjunct faculty positions it is 67 percent female.  The comments are very interesting and have a lot of anecdotal information.

One person discussed that certain companies find BYU students well educated but they have problems dealing with female bosses.  They are not equipped to deal with women authority figures or interact well with females.  Do any of you have experience with this?

Knowing these statistics, would it make you more or less likely to send your child BYU if they are female?  They will lack mentors and role members from their own gender.  Does this make a difference?  

Because of BYU's religious exemption, female employee's are grilled more about their personal marriage and family situation during the hiring process.  Without the exemption, this would be illegal.  Single men sometimes face the same extra scrutiny.  Many commentators stated it also comes down to GA roulette.

Some commentators discussed BYU refuses to provide on-site daycare as a matter of principle. Is this a family friendly policy?  Anyway, I found the whole article and comments very interesting.

 If I send my daughter to BYU because she chooses engineering over architecture, most likely she will not have a female professor.  I'm going to contemplate this new information.  My other daughter is in a male dominated field and is not at BYU and also has no female teachers in her major classes. They are actively trying to recruit women to the major and are seeking to hire more women.  Being a female in her major has proven to be more problematic that she first thought.  Her bosses have no idea how to help her navigate these extra challenges because they haven't faced them.  She works for a Mormon dominated firm.  It's interesting.

My daughter really wanted to go to BYU-I, however when she prayed about it then it wasn't right for her.  I wondered when reading about the female boss thing the other day if that had anything to do with her answers to which university to attend.  Probably will never know in this life.  Overall though the stats wouldn't have made a difference to me about sending her. 

[rpn]

Okay, I think there is a huge problem with the lack of women in tenured positions at BYU, and for that matter teaching positions, and administration.    About fifty percent of the world is women.   At least 50% of American Mormons are women.     When you see numbers this stark, it ought to cause everyone who believes that  women are an important part of the world, and critical to healthy discussion to give pause.   It should make us wonder whether BYU presidents have considered this the priority that they should be considering it.

Discussion of quotas isn't what is needed here.   Discussion and removal of the barriers to having qualified women candidates and choosing them is.

 

Edited September 18, 2016 by rpn

[bsjkki]

3 hours ago, Sleeper Cell said:

Most of my undergraduate physics professors were Chinese (i.e., Chinese born and raised in China or other Asian countries).  Didn’t see a great deal of difference between Chinese physics and WASP physics.  

Since this is a major concern, why not visit BYU and other possible choices and actually talk it over with some of the professors?  Alternately, why not simply choose a school with more female engineering professors?  

BTW, what does your daughter think of your concerns?  After all, isn’t it ultimately her choice?  

I think 'send' must be a trigger word for some people that means I'm a control freak and all agency is suspended.  Do BYU Professors mentor young females in male dominated majors?  Will they assume, the girl will drop out and get married or that her future career isn't as important as her male counterparts?  I'm asking questions.  My other daughter is not at a church school and has no female professor in her major but doesn't have religious expectations of gender roles.  She does have an absence of female mentors professionally. I think BYU could be a good fit for my other daughter but we will go on college tours.  Her academics give her many options. I was unaware before reading the article by Michael Austin, that BYU professors had such a gender imbalance.  It must be purposeful at some level.  Does that translate into acceptance into competitive academic majors for women?

[Calm]

2 hours ago, Glenn101 said:

Is there now a female quota or percentage that BYU should be striving for? Have there been any complaints about BYU hiring practices from disgruntled job seekers? Social media, or the like? Is there a problem, or only the perception?

 

Glenn

Well, back when I was in ?Electrical Engineering at the Y there were 4 females out of over 200 in the program.  I saw one of them once a week for a semester at a seminar.  I had problems because I lacked the technical background most of the guys seemed to have (I would help fellow students with their homework thinking it was mutual, but once they were done, they would take off and go home to their wives and kids while I would struggle with the stuff I was lost on by myself for a hour or two more.  And then walk home around 11 using the very well lit paths.  I eventually dropped out as not one teacher asked me how I was doing and I was too shy to step forward on my own and had no one who was willing to work with me....I can see it might be awkward telling your wife you were hanging out with an 18 year old girl, but somehow it was okay when I was helping with math or logic.

The university made a big deal about being there for its students and I saw that help and interest from professors when I switched to Psych.  I will have to ask my brother what he thought of Engineering as he was a year ahead of me...and he was one of those who asked help for math, but was too busy with family when it came to explaining how basic electrical circuits worked (I had no background as they didn't do workshop for girls back then and my dad finally taught me how to wire a plug on the day before I left for the Y).  Bad career choice for me, but it might have been fun if a professor...male or female (it was a man in Psych who pushed me to excel) had reached out and got me over the first hurdles.  It took one semester in Psych with the little extra attention to hook me up to study groups and extracurricular activities that made it smooth sailing from then on.

[Glenn101]

45 minutes ago, Calm said:

Well, back when I was in ?Electrical Engineering at the Y there were 4 females out of over 200 in the program.  I saw one of them once a week for a semester at a seminar.  I had problems because I lacked the technical background most of the guys seemed to have (I would help fellow students with their homework thinking it was mutual, but once they were done, they would take off and go home to their wives and kids while I would struggle with the stuff I was lost on by myself for a hour or two more.  And then walk home around 11 using the very well lit paths.  I eventually dropped out as not one teacher asked me how I was doing and I was too shy to step forward on my own and had no one who was willing to work with me....I can see it might be awkward telling your wife you were hanging out with an 18 year old girl, but somehow it was okay when I was helping with math or logic.

The university made a big deal about being there for its students and I saw that help and interest from professors when I switched to Psych.  I will have to ask my brother what he thought of Engineering as he was a year ahead of me...and he was one of those who asked help for math, but was too busy with family when it came to explaining how basic electrical circuits worked (I had no background as they didn't do workshop for girls back then and my dad finally taught me how to wire a plug on the day before I left for the Y).  Bad career choice for me, but it might have been fun if a professor...male or female (it was a man in Psych who pushed me to excel) had reached out and got me over the first hurdles.  It took one semester in Psych with the little extra attention to hook me up to study groups and extracurricular activities that made it smooth sailing from then on.

Your problems would seem to be fairly typical early on for women trying to break into some of the science fields. Having a strong background in physics would have helped you tremendously. For so many decades women were not encouraged to enter into fields that were traditionally dominated by males. As you noted, being too shy to ask for help did not advance your cause either. I understand that last bit very well.

Do you have any lingering regrets that you were unable to pursue your first choice for a career?

The question I was trying to ask originally though, is there any evidence of a gender bias in the hiring practices at BYU? Or is the gender disparity due to some more benign reason?

Glenn

[Calm]

I had a strong background in physics.  In fact my career choice was physics with astronomy emphasis, but my dad pressured me into EE because that was where the jobs were.  He didn't know what he was talking about...for my brothers, sure; but companies would have been begging me to come work for them I haven't quite be able to let it go yet.  Otoh, in the long run psych was more useful, plus I hooked up there with my husband.  I am very curious what life would have been like though.  I hope we can see what our choices would have led to, wouldn't change things as that would mean giving up my family, just curious.  I wouldn't mind reincarnation if I could skip puberty and go straight to 20 years old.

[sunstoned]

My dissertation was on women's selection and persistence in computer science. Women are an underrepresented population in any of the science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) fields.  What I found in my research is that in Utah the numbers of women in STEM are abysmal. In fact, the numbers of women in Utah attending collage in general are way below the national average.  Why is this?  You don't have to look any farther than the Young Women's manual to find out. Even today, the church actively discourages women from higher education.  

This is one area that the teachings of the church are really damaging. About half of the marriages in Utah end in divorce.  If you are a mormon wife who listened to the inspired words of the brethren.  You married young and did not finish your education. Than means if you are part of the fifty percent who will divorce, you will be a single parent stuck in a low paying job.  I have seen this time and time again.  

[Danzo]

1 hour ago, sunstoned said:

 

About half of the marriages in Utah end in divorce.  

CFR please. 

 

[sunstoned]

26 minutes ago, Danzo said:

CFR please. 

 

Quote

In the United States, researchers estimate that 40%–50% of all first marriages will end in divorce or permanent separation. The risk of divorce is even higher for second marriages, about 60%.Utah’s divorce rate is just slightly above the national average

http://www.divorce.usu.edu/files/uploads/lesson3.pdf

[Danzo]

1 hour ago, sunstoned said:

http://www.divorce.usu.edu/files/uploads/lesson3.pdf

I believe you are repeating a myth

". According to the National Marriage Project, the "overall divorce rate" peaked at 22.6 divorces per 1,000 marriages in 1980, 20.9 in 1990, and 18.8 in 2000."

http://www.divorcesource.com/ds/main/u-s-divorce-rates-and-statistics-1037.shtml

You should read the entire article.

Another quote 

"Someone once said that people who use statistics to make arguments use numbers the way a drunk uses a streetlight: not for illumination but for support."

"The 50 percent statistic is very misleading, if not completely wrong. "The demographics of divorce are routinely reported wrong, calculated wrong or misinterpreted," says Robert Hughes, a former professor in the Department of Human & Family Services, College of Human Environmental Science, University of Missouri-Columbia. Hughes says that for every two marriages that occurred in the 1990s there was one divorce. "This does not mean the divorce rate is 50 percent [because] the people getting married in a single year are not the same ones getting divorced," he says."

Edited September 19, 2016 by Danzo

[The Nehor]

3 hours ago, sunstoned said:

This is one area that the teachings of the church are really damaging. About half of the marriages in Utah end in divorce.  If you are a mormon wife who listened to the inspired words of the brethren.  You married young and did not finish your education. Than means if you are part of the fifty percent who will divorce, you will be a single parent stuck in a low paying job.  I have seen this time and time again.  

Greetings time traveller! Welcome to the year 2016. You will find that much has changed.

[Kenngo1969]

Here's Dan Peterson's take on the subject.  He ought to know something about faculty hiring at the Y.

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeterson/2016/09/not-even-close-faculty-gender-bias-at-the-byus.html.

Edited September 19, 2016 by Kenngo1969

[Yirgacheffe]

6 hours ago, Danzo said:

I believe you are repeating a myth

". According to the National Marriage Project, the "overall divorce rate" peaked at 22.6 divorces per 1,000 marriages in 1980, 20.9 in 1990, and 18.8 in 2000."

http://www.divorcesource.com/ds/main/u-s-divorce-rates-and-statistics-1037.shtml

You should read the entire article.

Another quote 

"Someone once said that people who use statistics to make arguments use numbers the way a drunk uses a streetlight: not for illumination but for support."

"The 50 percent statistic is very misleading, if not completely wrong. "The demographics of divorce are routinely reported wrong, calculated wrong or misinterpreted," says Robert Hughes, a former professor in the Department of Human & Family Services, College of Human Environmental Science, University of Missouri-Columbia. Hughes says that for every two marriages that occurred in the 1990s there was one divorce. "This does not mean the divorce rate is 50 percent [because] the people getting married in a single year are not the same ones getting divorced," he says."

According to this Utah is in the top ten, third place behind NY and NJ, states with the lowest divorce rates, some of the other states it's grouped with surprised me at first.  NY and NJ would not have been my first guess.

 

http://247wallst.com/special-report/2015/05/15/the-states-with-the-largest-and-smallest-divorced-populations/7/

[Storm Rider]

14 hours ago, rpn said:

Okay, I think there is a huge problem with the lack of women in tenured positions at BYU, and for that matter teaching positions, and administration.    About fifty percent of the world is women.   At least 50% of American Mormons are women.     When you see numbers this stark, it ought to cause everyone who believes that  women are an important part of the world, and critical to healthy discussion to give pause.   It should make us wonder whether BYU presidents have considered this the priority that they should be considering it.

Discussion of quotas isn't what is needed here.   Discussion and removal of the barriers to having qualified women candidates and choosing them is.

 

I am one of the few that don't think there is a problem with a lack of women in tenured positions at BYU.  I also think that using a 50% of the population ratio is irresponsible and always misleading when trying to determine who should and who should not get a job.  

I think each position should be based upon an individual's qualifications.  The best qualified for the position should get the job and if they don't I think those involved in the hiring process should be dismissed immediately.

The importance of women has nothing to do with issue i.e. you don't need a woman in a conversation or in a decision to learn or to obtain mastery of a educational field of interest.  More importantly, I reject the idea that I can only learn from those who look like me, talk like me, and are of the same gender.  Some of my very best role models have been people who are different than me and not of the same gender.  

I have had horrible bosses and great bosses and nothing that made them that way had to do with their gender.  I prefer competent, intelligent, secure bosses regardless of their gender, nationality, religious persuasion, or sexual preference.  

[Gray]

It's pretty sad that even Bob Jones U and Oral Roberts U employ more women faculty than BYU. 

[Tacenda]

Some articles below describe the condition we have here in Utah with women. I like what Dan Petersen said about there not being the pool to choose from and that is the reason BYU doesn't have enough professors. That makes sense. 

The problem might be that many women don't have the stamina to hold down a career, the household and a family at the same time (who does?). Maybe their husbands need to help more, and allow that to happen. 

And what has been said about the encouragement the young women get in the church to make motherhood the ultimate goal. Maybe they should encourage young men to be there for their wives if they choose a career too.

It's probably a mindset for sure. And when that changes, and men think that their wives who want to do other things other than a wife and mother, though just a wife and mother is enough too, for those that want both, it should be supported also.

http://www.good4utah.com/contact/nadia-crow/utah-women-under-represented-in-state-politics

http://archive.sltrib.com/story.php?ref=/sltrib/news/56422296-78/utah-women-stem-education.html.csp

http://www.ksl.com/?nid=968&sid=32036836&comments=true

[rpn]

I'm thinking that one solution to this is to allow job sharing and parttime faculty to make tenured status.  (In order for this to work, the salary/benefit would have to be competitive.   I don't know if that is true of BYU staff in general or not.  The church used to have a clause in its employment manual that said that workers were expected some measure of consecration ---  that clause is no longer in the manual.)

 

[stemelbow]

2 hours ago, Kenngo1969 said:

Here's Dan Peterson's take on the subject.  He ought to know something about faculty hiring at the Y.

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeterson/2016/09/not-even-close-faculty-gender-bias-at-the-byus.html.

His two cents on this is definitely appreciated on my end.

Quote

Which is just a way of illustrating my point that the perceived gender imbalance on the BYU faculty may or may not be a result of BYU policies that discourage the hiring of female faculty.  But I’m aware of no such policies.  If anything, in my experience BYU seeks more women for its teaching positions.  However, it can’t hire women who aren’t available for hiring.

Yep.  Difficult.  Why are there so few women?  I guess his explanation works best:

Quote

Some, obviously, will see that as very bad.  As a problem that needs to be fixed.  And it’s presumably true that, all else being equal, it would be better to have more female professors of sociology, molecular biology, accounting, and chemical engineering at BYU.  But all else wouldn’t be equal:  It’s not obvious that having fewer full time mothers in Mormon homes would be an improvement, but that would be, by definition, the inevitable result of having more women on the faculties in Provo, Rexburg, and Laie.

 

In any case, it seems that many LDS women have made the decision not to pursue academic careers.  And, perhaps it might be argued, BYU has somehow helped to socialized them into that decision.  But I’m personally aware of no effort by BYU to block them from having such careers.

I think he's right.  It's cultural.  The Culture of BYU and the Church discourages women to pursue academic careers.  Certainly women who do so aren't blocked, but the result of the culture is that few women represent BYU compared to men.  And ultimately, that's too bad.  Thanks to changes in culture this will change in the coming decade, I'm sure.  Just goes to show how BYU and the Church often find themselves behind everyone else, getting on board years after everyone else.  It will always be so. 

Edited September 19, 2016 by stemelbow

[bluebell]

11 hours ago, sunstoned said:

Even today, the church actively discourages women from higher education.  

Can I get a reference this statement?  It hasn't been my experience.