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A Chemistry World article summarizes a study by Cornell University psychologists Wendy Williams and Stephen Ceci finding that faculty members asked to evaluate hypothetical male and female applicants for assistant professorships in biology, engineering, economics, and psychology gave preference to female applicants. Quoting the study:
The underrepresentation of women in academic science is typically attributed, both in scientific literature and in the media, to sexist hiring. Here we report five hiring experiments in which faculty evaluated hypothetical female and male applicants, using systematically varied profiles disguising identical scholarship, for assistant professorships in biology, engineering, economics, and psychology. Contrary to prevailing assumptions, men and women faculty members from all four fields preferred female applicants 2:1 over identically qualified males with matching lifestyles (single, married, divorced), with the exception of male economists, who showed no gender preference. Comparing different lifestyles revealed that women preferred divorced mothers to married fathers and that men preferred mothers who took parental leaves to mothers who did not. Our findings, supported by real-world academic hiring data, suggest advantages for women launching academic science careers.
The article concludes:
To be hired, women must first apply and the authors question whether ‘omniprescent and discouraging’ messages about sexism in academic appointments makes them reluctant to do so.
(Score: 2) by bradley13 on Tuesday April 21 2015, @11:39AM
I'm not too familiar with Australia, but certainly in the US and in Europe there are "teaching colleges". They don't have the prestige of the major research universities, but their mission is to actually teach. If that's where your personal priority lies, then go to a college that actually cares about teaching. You'll be a lot happier.
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Kell on Tuesday April 21 2015, @01:05PM
The way it works in Oz is that every (non second-rate) university is effectively R1 - you have no choice but to research and teach, unless you are exceptionally good and fortunate to get fellowships that allow you to drop the teaching load. Teaching only academics are such a rarity that nobody knows what to make of them (or on what basis to promote them) and it's almost the kiss of death to go that way. I know of exactly one senior prof who came up through teaching only and he was imported... on the basis of "Why is our teaching so bad? Let's hire someone who knows how to teach!"
Sigh.
Anyway, to address your point: I love my research and I wouldn't want to give it up. However, I also refuse to short-change the students by producing an inferior class. This is partly out of self-interest - afterall, these students are going to be building the planes I fly in and the bridges I drive over!
Scientists ask questions. Engineers solve problems.