Senate ad hoc Committee for the Promotion of Gender Equity

Final Report for 2007-2008 and Plans for Continuation 

Final Reports from Subcommittees.  [Written reports posted on Committee website at http://www.pitt.edu/~frieze/senate/womenatpitt.html ]

• Childcare:  Guiseppina Mecchia
• The Committee has been meeting with Ron Frisch from Human Resources.  Since the Senate Committee on Benefits and Welfare would have to make any recommendations on having Child Care as a faculty and/or staff benefit, Elsa Strotmeyer has been appointed as a Pro Tem member of this committee and serves as a liaison between the two committees.
• The Committee presented a detailed report on the child care needs at Pitt to Faculty Assembly where it was unanimously supported.  There have also been articles in the University Times about child care needs.
• The Committee has been working with the leadership of the University Child Development Center [our childcare center].  As a result of these discussions, the UCDC has developed a more accurate waiting list [with formal checking to ensure people are really affiliated with Pitt when they sign up] and they have developed separate lists for full time and part time care.  Part time care is being more regularized to make most efficient use of the facilities.  UCDC is also surveying parents to determine if the kindergarten program should be eliminated to make more space for infant care.
• The Committee developed a recommendation on providing private space for nursing mothers to breast feed or pump milk.  This was sent to the Senate Plant Utilization and Planning Committee where it was strongly endorsed.  This will be sent to Faculty Assembly in January.
• The Committee wants to continue working as a subcommittee of a reconstituted Gender Equity Committee.  One project that is already started is meeting with Institutional Advancement to see if we can request child care donations.  The group would like to have a new name:  Child and Dependent Care.

 

• Staff Mentoring:  Patty Mathay
• A large and active committee has been working on this. 
• A major activity was a noon-time Spring Assembly event co-sponsored with SAC [Staff Advisory Committee] to look at Mentoring on April 9.  [The session was well attended and received very positive feedback]. 
• The Committee has found that most successful staff mentoring programs have the support of Human Resources or other institutional support.  Although the committee has been working with representatives from HR, HR has not agreed to support this activity.
• The Committee is not sure what more can be done.   It is clear that one need is teaching people how to network more effectively to get information about possible career moves.  They approached SAC about their sponsoring networking events for staff, but SAC did not feel it could take this on.
• It was suggested that Patty and a small number of other committee members meet with John Greeno and Kathy Pratt, the HR representatives to the committee, about what might be done.

 

• Women and Leadership:  Lucy Fischer. 
• The committee developed a list of 88 women administrators and sent them a questionnaire about barriers and leadership opportunities.  Although many of the women did feel that more programs were needed to help women take on leadership positions, others did not feel that women needed special training.  A commonly expressed view was that Pitt often uses personal contacts as a major basis for approaching people for leadership positions.  Women who are not in these networks don’t get asked.
• There are a number of leadership programs now at Pitt including one in Public Health, and in Health Sciences.   There are also a number of academic organizations such as HERS that offer leadership institutes of special interest for women.  The committee gathered information about these programs.
• Some recommendations of the committee included asking administrators to work harder in seeking out women for administrative positions; identifying people with leadership potential and providing mentoring to them; providing funding for women who do wish to attend special programs providing leadership training; providing more programs at Pitt; and doing more to assist with childcare and other special needs of women faculty.
• Discussion of the report included the idea that often women attain low-level leadership positions such as Program Director, but there is no clear track to move to more important positions after serving in these roles.

 

Future of ad hoc Committee for the Promotion of Gender Equity. 

• As an ad hoc committee, we are formally terminated on December 31, 2008.
• We have been reconstituted for another 2 years as the Committee for the Promotion of Gender Equity 2 . 
• Both the childcare groups and the leadership group would continue to be subcommittees of this new ad hoc committee.
• We will work with the new ad hoc committee on the Pitt sexual harassment policy and continue to monitor gender equity in faculty hiring, promotion, and salary.
• We will determine if we can continue to work on staff mentoring issues.

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Mission statement for the ad hoc committee

1. Goals for this ad hoc Committee include:

a.  To provide an on-going forum for the discussion of concerns relating to gender equity on campus for faculty, staff and students.

b.  To develop concrete recommendations for ways to enhance gender equity.

2. The Committee is open to all members of the University community.
3. Each year, the Committee will select up to 3 projects to work on.    Subcommittees will be formed to work on each of these projects.   Each subcommittee will be asked to report to the whole ad hoc committee at least once a semester.
4. The Committee will work closely with the administration and PACWC and other Senate committees in developing its recommendations.  Administrative liaisons will be sought to meet regularly with the Committee.
5. The Committee will regularly report on its activities to the Senate or Faculty Assembly.