1995 Annual Report
AMS-ASA-AWM-IMS-MAA-NCTM-SIAM
Joint Committee on Women in the Mathematical Sciences
The Joint Committee on Women in Mathematics (JCW) is a
joint committee of the above seven mathematics societies; its charge
is to identify and recommend actions which those societies should take
to alleviate some of the disadvantages that women mathematicians
now experience and to document its recommendations and actions by
presenting data. On 14-15 October 1995, the JCW held its second
annual intensive weekend meeting at the O'Hare airport Hilton in
Chicago. In addition, JCW conducted business by electronic mail, and
a small subset met at the AMS-MAA joint mathematics meeting in
SanFrancisco in January, 1995.
1. New chair: Marge Murray (Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State
University murray@calvin.math.vt.edu) was elected the next chair;
her term will begin 1 January 1996. It was also agreed that, to make
the chair's job more manageable and facilitate communication with
different constituencies and organizations, three JCW members
should be designated as vice-chairs. Martha Aliaga, Harriet Lord, and
Pat Wilson were then elected vice-chairs.
2. Societal data collection: In 1993 and 1994, the JCW recommended
that all represented organizations make an annual report
summarizing statistics on the participation of women in that
organization as the AMS does (see Nov. 1995 Notices, p. 1333). The
categories to be included would vary with each organization's
structure and meeting format. Compliance with this
recommendation has been extremely slow. While ASA, which
appears to have a healthy record of participation of women members,
has provided some useful information to JCW, no organization
(except AMS) regularly publishes statistics about women speakers at its
meetings.
* The JCW has now submitted a resolution to the MAA Board of
Governors for action at its Jan. 1996 meeting. In addition, the JCW
is working with the Committee on Sections to formulate a
proposal to obtain data on the participation of women in MAA
section activities; Lily Christ is coordinating this effort.
* Members of the ASA-IMS Committee on Women in Statistics
and the Caucus of Women in Statistics have expressed an interest
in working with JCW to obtain statistics about women speakers at
ASA/IMS meetings.
* The NCTM representative reported on proposals under
consideration by that organization.
* No action on this matter seems to be under consideration by
SIAM.
3. Women speakers: The 1994 JCW recommendations for increasing
women speakers in AMS special sessions were twice considered by the
AMS Council, which tabled them both times. However, both data for
1994 and anecdotal evidence suggest that the situation is improving.
The proportion of women speakers in special sessions organized by
men increased to 11% (as compared to 7-8% in previous years and 15%
in sessions with at least one woman organizer).
After considering a JCW recommendation that "the AMS
should include women on the organizing committees of all future
major symposia which it co-sponsors", the Jan. Council of the AMS
passed a modified resolution that "the AMS should make every
reasonable effort to see that women are included on the organizing
committees of all future major symposia which it co-sponsors".
The JCW received a proposal from another AMS committee
(SUG/COMC) regarding a proposal to organize "Disciplinary
Discussion Groups". The JCW discussed this proposal and sent a
response to SUG/COMC.
As noted in the 1994 report, JCW has been concerned by the
vocal misrepresentation by Larry Shepp of both AMS policy and JCW
recommendations on women speakers. A response to Shepp's first
letter in the October, 1994 AMS Notices by Marie Vitulli and other
JCW members was published in the March, 1995 AMS Notices.
Another letter from Shepp appeared in the June, 1995 AMS Notices;
a response to that, correcting several misstatements about JCW was
published in the December, 1995 Notices.
4. ASA Fellows: The JCW received a report from Juliet Schaffer on
the nomination and election of women as Fellows of the ASA
(American Statistical Association). In short, women fellows were
much more likely than men to nominate other women; however,
once nominated (whether by women or men or both) women were
more likely than men to be elected. One should be cautious about
drawing conclusions from such small samples. However, it seems
worth pointing that the data does suggest that men do often overlook
good women, but recognize their merits when they are brought to
their attention. Those who have been concerned about the
implications of past JCW reports and recommendations about similar
patterns in other areas, such as women speakers, should find this
reassuring.
5. Washington and Science Policy: The JCW was less active in this
arena in 1995 than in previous years. In part, this may be because of an
ongoing review of JPBM and changes in the ways in which
participating societies address issues of science policy.
The JCW did consider a proposal to establish a position for a
visiting woman mathematicians at the MAA office in Washington.
The JCW had some reservations about this proposal which were
conveyed to the MAA leadership. However, the JCW did suggest that
alternatives, such as a position for a Congressional Fellow in
Mathematics for Women or some form of sabbatical support for
women mathematicians who wanted to pursue policy issues rather
than mathematics research, might be worth considering in the future.
The outgoing JCW chair has been invited to participate in
an NSF conference to be held 13-15 December, 1995 with the title
Women and Science: Celebrating Achievements, Charting
Challenges. It is hoped that this may lead to future collaborations
with similar committees in other disciplines.
6. Data surveys and reports: The JCW discussed the need for a
comprehensive longitudinal survey of women who received PhD's in
mathematics in the 1980's. It was agreed that the JCW does not have
the necessary resources. It is important to identify one or two
individuals who can obtain funding and direct such a project, possibly
in collaboration with some of the represented mathematics
organizations.
The JCW will continue to communicate with the AMS-
IMS-MAA data committee and the CBMS survey committee about the
gender aspects of the data they collect and report. These groups have
been very receptive to JCW suggestions in the past and already
provide a wealth of valuable information to the mathematics
community. The outgoing JCW chair, M.B. Ruskai, has been
appointed to the AMS-IMS-MAA data committee for a 3-year term
beginning in 1996.
7. Affirmative Action Backlash: The JCW is particularly concerned
about the development of increasing backlash to affirmative action
efforts, and the need for effective outreach and publicity to counteract
this. Several JCW members are preparing letters or articles as
described below. The represented societies are encouraged to publish
informative articles, whether or not by JCW members, in their
journals and newsletters.
* Mary Flahive and Marie Vitulli are preparing a letter for
submission to the AMS Notices on interpretation of employment
data.
* The recent NRC report which ranks graduate programs also
contains data on the proportion of women among graduate
students and doctoral recipients at the departments surveyed. Lily
Christ and Fran Rosamond are preparing an article based upon the
data in this report.
* Mary Beth Ruskai is preparing an article on affirmative action
for the AWM Newsletter. This article will include an update of
the data on employment patterns which appeared in her article
"Time for Advancement" in the Dec. 1994 MAA Focus.
Respectfully submitted by M. Beth Ruskai, JCW chair
Department of Mathematics
University of Massachusetts Lowell
Lowell, MA 01854
bruskai@cs.uml.edu 617 646 9377
Appendices:
A. 1994 AMS Statistics on Women (hard copy only)
See AMS Notices, Nob. 95, p. 1333
B. JCW recommendation to MAA on Data Collection
C. ASA Fellows Data
D. Responses to Shepp Letters
Appendix B: JCW Recommendation to MAA on Data Collection
The JCW recommends that the MAA annually assemble and report in
Focus information on the relative numbers of men versus women
in at least the following categories: elected officials,
committee members and chairs, members of editorial boards,
invited hour speakers, speakers at special sessions/panels by
gender of organizers, and nominees and winners of awards/prizes.
Appendix C: Data on ASA Fellows
ASA Fellows Report: 1991-1995
Juliet P. Shaffer
The following table gives the numbers over the 5-year period 1991-1995
of ASA Fellows broken down by: (1)nominated and elected vs. nominated
and not elected, (2) gender of nominator, (3) gender of nominee, and
(4) fellow vs non-fellow status of nominator.
Nominee
Nominator
Male-elected Male-not Female-elected Female-not
Male-Fellow 143 200 25 15
Male-Nonfellow 7 18 1 3
Female-Fellow 10 11 13 3
Female-Nonfell. 4 2 1 0
There is a great deal of dependency in the table, since many nominators
nominated more than one individual over these years, and many nominees
were nominated two or more times. Therefore, I won't use any inferential
methods to analyze the table, but by looking at margins of this
2x2x2x2 table in various ways, the following descriptive statements
can be made.
1. Among those nominated, the percent of women elected (66%)
was higher than the percent of men elected (42%).
Elected Not elected
Nominees
Male 164 231
Female 40 21
2. Women were more successful as nominators (64% of nominees elected)
than men were (43% of nominees elected).
Elected Not elected
Nominators
Male 176 236
Female 28 16
3. Women nominators were more likely to nominate women (39% of women's
nominees) than men nominators were (11% of men's nominees).
Nominee gender
Nominator gender
Male Female
Male 368 44
Female 27 17
4. The statements in 1 and 2 both hold conditonally: i.e. the
percent of women elected was higher than the percent of
men elected both when women and when men were nominators, and women
were more successful than men as nominators of both men and women.
Male Nominator: 59% of women elected, 41% of men elected.
Female Nominators: 82% of women elected, 52% of men elected.
.ce
Male Nominator:
Nominee gender
Elected Not Elected
Male 150 218
Female 26 18
.ce
Female Nominator
Nominee Gender
Elected Not Elected
Male 14 13
Female 14 3
5. The percent of Fellows among male nominators (93%)
was somewhat higher than the percent of Fellows among
women nominators (84%).
Nominator Gender
Fellow Not a Fellow
Male 383 29
Female 37 7
6. The success rate of Fellows (45%) was somewhat higher than the success
rate of non-Fellows (36%).
Nominator Status
Elected Not Elected
Fellow 191 229
Not a Fellow 13 23
-Juliet
Appendix D: Response to Shepp (from Dec. 95 AMS Notices, p. 1477)
I write in response to Shepp's letters (AMS Notices Oct. 94, p. 899
and June, 95, p. 656; see also Vitulli, et al (AMS Notices Mar. 95,
p. 329) as chair of the AMS-ASA-AWM-IMS-MAA-NCTM-SIAM
Joint Committee on Women in the Mathematical Sciences (JCW),
only to correct some misstatements about JCW recommendations.
Shepp's June letter states
"JCW documents advocate such things as incentive funding for meetings
in which there are women speakers as a 'mechanism and incentive for
them [men] to also invite junior women' rather than the 'obvious
big names.' This is getting ridiculous."
I agree completely with his last sentence. Shepp ridicules
the JCW by using out of context quotes to distort its position.
The JCW has {\em NOT} recommended inviting junior women
as hour speakers at major mathematics meetings. It has, however,
made several recommendations for increasing the number of
women in AMS special sessions in response to the well-documented
(MAA Focus, Dec. 94, p. 28, Table V) phenomenon that women organizers
were much more likely than men to include other women and the
observation that this seemed to be because
"men tend to invite to {\em special sessions} primarily
well-established women who could {\em also} be {\em hour} speakers,
while women organizers include more promising junior women
and lesser luminaries" (emphasis added).
All subsequent recommendations were made in a context which
implied that junior men either already were, or should also
be, invited. The proposal for incentive funding
(which was not forwarded to Council) would have supported
"travel expenses of junior speakers (both male and female) at
special sessions". The proposal which was actually sent to, and
considered by, Council (see AMS Notices June, 95, p. 691 and
Aug. 95, p. 896 for the complete text)
repeatedly referred to "junior people" and "junior mathematicians".
Nothing in these recommendations could be construed to suggest
using different standards for junior men and junior women.
For those who want further information, the March, 95 AMS Notices
(p. 357) explains how AMS members can obtain a copy of the 1994
JCW annual report.
Sincerely,
Mary Beth Ruskai (JCW chair)