Staff graphic by Bill Thombro
Staff graphic by Bill Thombro
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By the numbers
Indiana University tenure/tenure track faculty, fall 2015

• Total male instructional faculty and administrators: 1,244.

• Total female instructional faculty and administrators: 815.

• Male tenure/tenure track faculty: 879.

• Female tenure/tenure track faculty: 469.

• Percentage of male instructional faculty and administrators who are tenure/tenure track: 71 percent.

• Percentage of female instructional faculty and administrators who are tenure/tenure track: 58 percent.

Source: Bloomington Faculty Council Report on the Status of Specialized Faculty at Indiana University Bloomington
The number of male tenure and tenure track faculty members is almost double the number for women at Indiana University’s Bloomington campus, according to a report from the Bloomington Faculty Council. What’s more, about 70 percent of the total number of male faculty are tenure or tenure track, while only about 58 percent of female faculty are tenure or tenure track.

That’s about par for the course among Big Ten universities. Nearly 62 percent of male instructional staff were tenure or tenure track, compared with only about 50 percent of female instructional staff, in 2012, the most recent year data are available on the National Center for Education Statistics’ Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System website.

Sources said there are several reasons for this inequity, and fixing it will take time.

Part of the problem is the reduction in tenure and tenure track positions available.

During the past four decades, the portion of tenured faculty in American higher education institutions has declined 26 percent, and the number of full-time tenure track faculty has declined by 50 percent, said Anne Sisson Runyan, chairwoman of the American Association of University Professors’ committee on women in academic professions.

Tenured positions are traditionally the highest paid faculty positions, and universities are getting less public money. In the 1960s and ’70s, state support was about 80 percent, but now it’s as low as 8 percent for some institutions, Sisson Runyan said. According to the Chronicle of Higher Education, in 1987, nearly half of IU’s revenue came from state support. By 2012, it was down to about 20 percent.

This has happened while women were making considerable gains in academia. Since 2013, women hold more bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees than men, Sisson Runyan said.
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