Women Faculty Ask Study of Their Status

A group of Harvard's female faculty members have requested that Dean Dunlop appoint a faculty committee to examine the status of women at Harvard.

Pointing out that women are virtually unrepresented in the higher ranks of the faculty and administration, Caroline Bynum, assistant professor of History, Janet Martin, assistant professor of Classics, and three other female faculty members, acting as a steering committee for a larger group of Harvard's women faculty, requested that an eight member committee-including five women-report back with specific recommendations before the end of the term.

Though women represent 19.5 per cent of Harvard's graduate students and 15 per cent of those earning a Ph.D. degree (1967-68 figures) they are only 5.1 per ten (or ten) of the assistant professors.

According to Mrs. Bynum, the discrepancy between the figures means that "something is working against the hiring of women at the very beginning."

One Woman

There is only one full professor on the Harvard faculty who is a woman. Emily Vermeule, a professor of Greek archeology, appointed last month, is the third woman to hold the Zemurray-Stone Radcliffe Professorship, established in 1948 specifically for women.

"One reason for the hesitation about hiring women is clearly an awareness by hiring committees of the special problems which women face in working out their career patterns," Mrs. Bynum said. "But this awareness usually results in a decision not to offer the job, and conventional opinions [that marriage and family make women a greater risk] then become self-fulfilling prophecies. In addition, hiring guidelines are often applied rigidly and inappropriately."

She added that Princeton has expressed a definite intention to hire women faculty and that there is now a special administrative officer there working on the hiring of women.

Women Lecturers

Most of the 36 women on the Harvard faculty hold the position of lecturer which, according to Barbara Cohn, lecturer on General Education, is by definition an exceptional appointment, for men as well as for women.

Twelve of the lecturers are primarilyresearchers or administrators and do little actual teaching. Six teach elementary foreign languages on intensive schedule, and one gives piano lessons to students in the Music Department. Mary I. Bunting, president of Radcliffe, and two of the Radcliffe Deans also hold the position of lecturer.

Although ten of the women lecturers have administrative tenure (they must be given one year's notice) only one has regular tenure. The assistant professorship is not a tenured post.

According to one woman faculty member, "the virtual exclusion of women from University positions deprives female, students, both undergraduate and graduate, of role models. Graduate women, indeed, are being trained professionally in an institution that barely recognizes members of their sex as professionals."

At Dean Dunlop's request the steering committee is preparing an outline of the promising lines of inquiry for the committee. A preliminary draft of that outline suggests that the committee investigate three general areas: whether there should be women at all levels of the faculty and administration and, if so, how many, how qualified women are to be recruited and retained, and the admissions procedures of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.