At yesterday's forum on the "Climate for Women at U.Va.," panelist Sondra Stallard told an anecdote of a meeting she had with a senior administrator to discuss gender-based salary inequities in the early 1980s. While she was speaking with the administrator, he abruptly left the room. His secretary informed her he had gone to lunch.
Panelists at the forum agreed that attitudes toward treatment of women have improved over the past 20 years, since women first entered the University, but they also agreed that more improvements need to be made.
In addition to Stallard, who is dean of the School of Continuing and Professional Studies, four other panelists - Assoc. History Prof. Cindy Aaron; Asst. Dean of Students Glenna Chang; Sharon Hostler, medical director of Kluge Children's Rehabilitation Center, and Commerce School Dean Carl Zeithaml - spoke to an audience predominantly comprised of women.
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President John T. Casteen III spoke briefly at the event and said continued dialogue was necessary to create change.
The forum was a response to a report Casteen commissioned last February to review gender equity at the University.
"I'm tired of reports that just sort of disappear into the smoke only to see them resurrected in other reports that just disappear into the smoke," Stallard said.
Aaron, Hostler and Zeithaml all cited the University's current tenure clock as inadequate for women faculty. The tenure clock dictates that faculty members achieve tenure within seven years or face consequences to their position.
Although female professors are given time off the clock to care for their family, the fact that the University administration chose to make an exception for women rather than make a change that would affect both sexes shows inequality, Aaron said.
Hostler termed the University's current tenure clock "barbaric" and cited the Medical School's decision to adopt a 10-year clock as a more ideal timeline.
The panelists also had personal areas of concern.
Chang said she thought students were stretching themselves too thin and were too obsessed with achieving leadership positions, the competitiveness of which discouraged women and minorities.
"We undervalue students who are living well-balanced lives ... we overvalue students involved in 20 million extracurriculars," she said.
Zeithaml had a similar interpretation of the faculty's role, saying the definition of leadership needed to be interpreted more broadly.
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