Gender gap can be seen through salaries and representation of females in higher positions at Ohio University.
Female faculty members represented about 45 percent of all professors teaching at Ohio University for the 2014-15 academic year, according to the most recent data available through the Office of Institutional Research.
That percentage has grown over the years, and is mirrored in the amount of female department chairs, which certain faculty members feel is a sign of progress in the world of academia.
Judith Grant became chair of OU’s political science department four years ago and is currently among 18 women out of 42 total department chairs at the university. She’s the first woman to have held the chair position for the political science department.
When examining department chairs and their salaries, however, a division emerges.
The average salary for all current male department chairs is about $118,000, versus $95,500 for the average female department chair. That represents a difference of about $22,500 between average male and female department chair salaries.
Grant's salary, currently at $110,754, lies just above the average for all department chairs, which for Fall 2015 was about $108,000.
However, Barb Wharton, Associate Provost for Institutional Research & Effectiveness, said the difference in salaries may be explained by a majority of the highest-paid department chair positions — engineering, medicine and business — needing to attract top performers in those fields with competitive salaries.
Like others in academia, Grant worked her way to a higher position, but she said she was able to gain leadership experience through her work in a gender-related field.
"There's an implicit gender bias in choosing women for leadership positions," Grant said.
At OU alone, Grant has directed the Women's, Gender and Sexuality Studies program and previously ran the Center for Law, Justice and Culture.
When she was hired at OU in 2003, only 35 percent of the nearly 1,300 faculty members at the university were female, according to data from the Office of Institutional Research's website.
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Since then, the percentage of female faculty has grown to 44 percent, with the total number of faculty remaining near 1,300 as of Fall Semester 2014.
That represents an estimated 30 percent increase in female faculty over 11 years.
Grant acknowledges the problems women face in certain disciplines, such as political science, which historically were male-dominated fields.
"(Political science and economics) deal with issues of social power and they have not historically been the kinds of fields that women have gone into," she said. "When I was coming up in political theory, there were no female professors in my field.”
Julie White, the current program director for women's, gender and sexuality studies said a majority of her program's instructors are hired in as joint appointments, just like Grant was.
Due to budgetary restrictions, the women's, gender and sexuality studies program often cannot afford to hire full-time instructors without partnering with another department.
However, hiring women into faculty positions is only half the battle, White said.
"We need to spend as much energy on retention as we do recruitment," White said.
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White added that there have been sporadic measures to do so for female faculty, but greater institutional support is needed.
Having the women’s, gender and sexuality studies program is important, White said, but places like the OU Women’s Center and more formal safe spaces for women would create a greater network of support for female faculty.
Department hiring practices may be a place to start, Beth Quitslund, OU’s Faculty Senate chair, said.
"I think it would be very helpful for the university to foster discussion about ways to assess and circumvent the unconscious biases that we all have in hiring decisions and merit evaluations," Quitslund, an associate professor of English, said in an email.
Progress, such as the overall increase in female faculty members, should be celebrated, Grant said, but there is still much to be done.
“There have been some quantities changing, but still remarkably it's not reflected in the amount of leaders (nationally),” she said.
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