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November 2005
Minutes of the Wednesday, November 16, 2005 Meeting of the School of Medicine Committee on the Status of Women and Minorities
Attending: Dr. Dolores Clement, Dr. Karen Cropsey (past Co-chair), Dr. Shobha Ghosh, Dr. Kamar Godder, Ms. Carol Hampton, Dr. Wendy Klein (Co-chair), Dr. Janet Niemeier, Dr. Rita Shiang (Co-chair), Ms. Mireille Truong
Dr. Shiang, Co-chair, presiding:
Dr. Shiang called the meeting to order at 4:10pm
Ms. Carol Hampton passed out written materials to members present.
- New and previous members introduced themselves
- Faculty Exit Survey Update
(Dr. Karen Cropsey, PI and Linda Birtley, Senior Research Associate, VCU Survey/Evaluation Research Lab)
It was stated that the committee is now gathering data for the fourth year. This study is to evaluate and establish the reasons faculty members decide to leave the university. A chart (white sheet) was passed out to demonstrate the progress of the SERL survey. So far the survey has been out for 2 weeks with 19 responses. It was found that there were no significance differences between responders and non-responders. So far there is a 51% response, which is a very good response; according to a study, the typical response is 30%. Ms. Linda Birtley will try to find the exact citation of this article. It was noted that people also have the option of completing the survey online. It was also noted that there were several incorrect addresses; Dr. Karen Cropsey and Linda Birtley will be working on tracking the correct addresses. It was mentioned that it would be interesting to find out the response rate at the same point in time from the previous years as it would be a good measure of the progress of the current survey.
One issue discussed was how to improve response to the survey. Ideas presented were: have faculty fill out the survey before they leave or send the survey by email. These may be more difficult to implement due paperwork processing time or lack of email access once the faculty leaves. Hopefully with the results from the survey from the past four years, it will give the committee enough data to encourage department chairs to support and to further the implementation of the survey. In the future, the committee may want to consider handing out to those leaving a postcard that includes the website address to the survey in order to maintain anonymity.
- 2004 Benchmarking Data: Gender Statistics of Faculty
(Dr. Saba Masho, Carol Hampton)
Ms. Carol Hampton presented the 2004 Benchmarking Data (white presentation sheet). The data is compared by department to national representation. For example, the number of women faculty in a certain department is compared to national numbers. The data is also available online. The data includes the number of woman and black faculty for each year. Underrepresented minorities were not evaluated as ethnicity categories on surveys are limited.
It was noted that more information was needed in terms of the professor rank and tenure status for African American faculty as well as time in rank. Dr. Saba Masho will be helping with obtaining this information and will be receiving a data set from Bill Gleason on Friday.
Members were asked if there was any other data (beige sheet) that they would like to add before this was presented to the department chairs in April.
Changes:
- Under #9 new hires and departures- add race
- It was suggested that in the future the committee should consider including information on how much funding faculty members bring to the university. Previously, the database with this information was not released.
A comment was made about how more women are receiving excellence in scholarship and teaching in comparison to men. However it is not known whether the reasons are because they perform better or if they are at the university for a longer time. It was mentioned that at Penn State University, there are women physicians who are funded to do projects such as the one presented today and they are given 1 day per week to work on the projects. VCU is now in the top 10 in terms of the funding that is invested in Women in Medicine programs. At the next meeting, Dr. Susan Kornstein should be invited to update the committee on the endowed funds handled by the MCV Foundation.
- VCU E-calendar: Letter draft to Dr. Strauss (Green sheet)
(Dr. Shoba Ghosh)
A letter was drafted by Dr. Shoba Ghosh regarding the utilization of theVCU e-calendar to enhance communication and to unify events/ information within the School of Medicine. Dr. Shoba Ghosh met with the IT personnel which demonstrated the capacities of the calendar. The IT personnel mentioned that they could tailor the calendar to the needs of the School of Medicine and that they could provide filters. The School of Medicine would be able to post information on various seminars and presentations on the website.
It was suggested that everyone would be able to get access to everything just by one click, anywhere and anytime, facilitated by the e-calendar. It would be helpful if the committee made the suggestion to the dean to require that the departments input their info on the calendar. Secondly, it may be helpful at the beginning to have a designated person to implement the use of the e-calendar. It was suggested that the School of Medicine could hire someone. This person would also update the information on a weekly basis. This will help with keeping the information current. However, there still needs to clarify a unified method to keep information current. It was suggested that one person from each department could be in charge of updating on the information. Another point would be that the committee needs to inform and make people, such as the chairs and administrators, aware of the capability of the calendar and to therefore assure that everyone gets trained on how to use it.
Dr. Shoba Ghosh drafted a letter to send to the dean. The committee will be sending the letter to the dean prior to the January 11th with the Dean. This way the committee can prepare an agenda of the issues it would like to present to Dr. Strauss and this will also allow him time to prepare questions/answers for the committee. The committee will be meeting on December 13th at 12pm in order to prepare questions for the dean and set an agenda for the January 11th meeting. An email will be sent out to members so that they can bring their questions to the meeting or if they cannot make it, they can send in their thoughts/suggestions via email.
- Report from AAMC WIM national meeting (Nov. 5th-8th 2005)
(Drs. Wendy Klein, Susan Kornstein, Bela Sood; Ms. Carol Hampton)
There was good representation however for the future the committee may want to encourage more participation in presenting posters.
- The next meeting will be on December 13th at 12pm
- Mark your Calendars:
14th Annual Pathways to Leadership Conference
Friday March 17th 2006Richmond Marriott
The meeting was adjourned by Dr. Shiang at 5:07pm.
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