Service and Administrative Responsibilities

Given the various but equally important forms that faculty service might take, it is difficult to evaluate equity issues with respect to service. Data is readily available in some areas: everyone in the community knows, for example, who is serving as a department chair, who is on the faculty senate, who has been appointed to university or college committees, and who is serving on various task forces. This knowledge is made public. Other forms of service are less easy to detect: some departments have special responsibilities; some departments appoint their own committees; some departments (especially small ones) cannot distribute certain forms of service (participating in SOAR or FOCUS, for instance) because the number of faculty in their department is too small. Some forms of service are highly visible, some are less visible.

The data presented in this section necessarily focuses on some of the more highly visible forms of service. For that reason, the picture presented here is necessarily incomplete. However, as an institution we have yet to find adequate ways to ensure that service responsibilities are equitably distributed.

Table 27 suggests that--at least during the past few years--women are disproportionately represented in university-level service responsibilities. In 1998-99, women comprised 36% of the faculty on the Deland campus. They served on university committees in roughly that same proportion (35%). However, they constituted 53% of university committee chairs, 50% of the Faculty Senate, and 50% of faculty senate committee chairs. They were, however, much less likely to chair a department or a committee (at least in the College of Arts and Sciences).

TABLE 27
Women Faculty Analysis:
Service and Administrative Responsibilities

Women. . .
93-94
94-95
95-96
96-97
97-98
98-99
As % of tenured or tenure-track faculty
30%
33%
31%
35%
36%
36%
As % of committee chairs, Arts & Sciences not avail. not avail.
13%
13%
0
14%
As % of program committee chairs, Arts & Sciences not avail. not avail.
19%
21%
22%
included in 
category
above
As % of university committee chairs
50%
 not avail. not avail.
not avail. 
47%
53%
As % of university committee members not avail. not avail. not avail. not avail.
42%
35%
As % of the Faculty Senate
28%
33%
28%
37%
58%
50%
As % of the Faculty Senate Exec. Committee 
20%
20%
40%
60%
40%
80%
As % of those chairing a Faculty Senate committee 
0
33%
17%
37%
57%
50%
Years when the Faculty Senate was chaired by a woman 
x
x
x

SACS 2001 Self-Study
In the SACS self-study, which is currently under way, women faculty are participating in numbers greater than their proportionate representation on the faculty. They constitute 62% of the administrative appointments and committee coordinators. They constitute 44% of the committee members.

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