How have you demonstrated your commitment to women’s and/or minority issues in your
current position?
Which of your achievements in the area of equity for women and/or minorities gives
you the most satisfaction?
Which of your accomplishments in the area equity for women and/or minorities was the
hardest to achieve? Why?
How would you demonstrate your concern for equity for women and/or minorities if you
were hired?
Our institution is committed to fostering equity for women and/or minorities. What
does “coeducation” mean to you? What steps would you take to ensure that genuine coeducation
takes place on our campus?
In your opinion, what are the three major problems for women and/or minorities on
your campus?
What are some issues of importance to women and/or minorities on your campus?
In general, how are minority women’s issues different from women’s issues and minority
men’s issues?
How has the women’s and/or minority movement affected your professional life?
Do you think that most women’s and/or minorities equity issues have been resolved?
Is it time to turn our attention to other issues?
How are general issues in higher education related to women’s and/or minority issues?
What is the link?
Institutions collect and analyze data but often that data is not broken down by sex.
When it is important to do analysis by sex?
Informal support
In what ways have you mentored, supported, or encouraged woman and/or minorities on
your campus/department
Have you ever worked actively on behalf of any of the following? If so, how?
women’s studies program
affirmative action policies, programs, or activities on behalf of women and/or minority
sexual harassment policies
rape crisis programs, including judicial procedures, and so forth
women’s and/or minority support groups at your college/university
child care arrangements for faculty, staff, and students
Describe activities-including articles, interviews, and speeches-in which you have
taken part in that demonstrates a public commitment to women’s and/or minority equity.
What are your views about women’s and/or minority studies and new scholarship on women
and/or minorities?
To whom do you go for advice about women and/or minority issues?
What do you think of older women and/or minorities returning to school? Do you think
that they need special services or other help? If so, what would you suggest?
In your current position, have you ever seen a woman and/or a minority treated unfairly?
How would/did you handle it?
Many female and/or minority graduate students face an increasingly chilly climate
at a time when they are in transition between being a student and a professional.
Can you describe some of the ways in which you think men, women and minority graduate
students are treated differently by faculty? By administrators? By other students?
How would you promote the interests of female and/or minority students?
Climate
In what ways do you think women and/or minority faculty and administrators are treated
differently from their white male counterparts? In what ways may such different treatment
place the women and/or minorities at a relative disadvantage in their personal and
professional development? What would you do to help change this situation?
How have you included women and/or minority colleagues in off-campus activities, such
as professional conferences and social events?
How much time do you spend informally (such as having lunch) with male, women and/or
minority colleagues?
What have you done to welcome new women and/or minority colleagues to campus/department?
Have you ever collaborated with a woman and/or minority on a research project or publication?
In what way?
Have you ever conducted research on gender-related and/or minority related issues?
Have you ever attended any activities such as lectures or films which were sponsored
by women and/or minority student’s organizations?
Questions for prospective administrators
Formal support
In your current position, what is your relationship to the affirmative action officer?
Have you ever sought his or her help in recruiting?
How would you work to achieve equity for women and/or minority scholars in terms of
promotion and salary?
How have you supported women and/or minority students’ organizations on campus? For
example, have you arranged for funding or office space?
How do you view the roles of a women’s and/or minority center, a commission on women
and/or minorities, and a women’s and/or minority studies program?
Are there a women and/or minority center at your institution? How do you feel about
women’s and/or minorities center? What is your relationship to the women’s and/or
minority center?
At your current institution, is there a commission on women and/or minorities? What
is your relationship to the commission? Do you think having a commission on women
is a good idea? How do you envision working with one here?
Staff related
How many of the top people at your previous institution/department were women and/or
minorities? What did you do to encourage hiring more women and/or minorities?
Of the people you hired in your current position, what percentage are women and/or
minorities?
What was the highest position to which you appointed a woman and/or a minority?
Have you been involved in a salary review at your current institution?
How will you ensure equity for women’s and/or minorities salaries?
What do you think about more women and/or minorities than men being hired as part-time
faculty with low salary, few benefits, and no place on the tenure track?
What are your feelings about stopping the tenure clock while a woman is on maternity
leave?
What are the best ways to get people to think about and be aware of women’s and/or
minorities issues? How have you personally influenced others regarding women’s and/or
minority issues?
Generally, women and/or minority students do not participate in class as often as
white men. How have you helped members of your staff or department deal with this
issue?
Direct encouragement
Which committee at your current institution would you consider the most powerful?
How many women and/or minorities are on it? How many women and/or minorities have
you appointed to it?
White men, women and/or minority students often have different experiences at college
that affect their personal and professional development. How would you make the college
environment more equitable for women and/or minorities?
What do you think of having a nonsexist language policy for university communications?
Would you implement one here?
How would/did you address a lack of women and/or minority students or faculty members
in specific departments and divisions?
How serious a problem do you consider sexual harassment on your present campus? What
have you done about it? Is there a grievance procedure for harassment problems? How
does it work?
Other
How serious a problem do you consider sexual harassment on your present campus? What
have you done about it? Is there a grievance procedure for harassment problems? How
does it work?
At your current institution, did you ever observe or hear examples of sexual harassment?
How would you deal with a similar instance if it happened here?
How did/would you deal with faculty members who say disparaging things about women
and/or minorities?
What women’s and/or minority issues have you addressed in speeches you have given
during the last few years?
What is your relationship to the Pan-Hellenic society on your current campus? How
do you regulate or oversee fraternity and sorority activities?
Have you raised money for women’s and/or minority sports?
How have you worked to integrate women and/or minorities into sports and related activities,
including the band?
Do you belong to any clubs that restrict membership by sex? (Such memberships, particularly
when held by male administrators, may be a potential source of embarrassment when
cited by student groups and/or faculty senate).
Questions for prospective faculty
Women's/minorities studies
Do you regularly read or subscribe to any journals that deal with scholarships about
women and/or minorities?
What scholarship about women and/or minorities have you read lately? Whose work on
women and/or minorities have you found most related to your research? Your curriculum?
How do you incorporate new scholarship on women and/or minority into undergraduate
coursework? Into your research? Into graduate coursework? With your graduate students?
How do you help your colleagues do so?
Which women and/or minority scholars or authors do you include in your syllabi? Reading
lists?
Some people say that separate women’s and/or minority studies courses are preferable
to integrating scholarships about women and/or minorities into the curriculum; others
believe the reverse. How does one balance these points of view? What priority and
emphasis would you give to generating research on the one hand, and then mainstreaming
it on the other?
Have nay of your students ever written about women and/or minorities in their term
papers? Their dissertations or thesis?
Campus environment
In most classes women and/or minority students don’t participate as much as men. What
have you done to encourage women and/or minorities to participate in your classes?
Has it worked?
Approximately how many men have you nominated for fellowships, awards, and prizes?
How many women and/or minorities?
How many teaching or research assistants have you hired in the last two years? How
many were women and/or minorities?
For Science Faculty: Research shows that women and/or minorities in science often have lower aspirations
than their male colleagues. Have you encountered this trend in your classes? What
do you do about it?
For Science Faculty: What differences have you perceived in men, women and/or minorities in the laboratory?
Do you tend to have single-sex lab teams? Why?
How have you encouraged women and/or minority students to enter traditionally male
fields?
What is your experience with faculty (and student) hostility to women and/or minorities
and women and/or minority issues? Have you seen or experienced any sort of backlash
or denial, where people say, in effect, “I don’t want to hear about it”? How do you
deal with backlash and denial?
Have any students ever complained to you about sexual harassment or discrimination
in any work with professors or staff? If so, how did you respond?
How do you feel about teaching students older than yourself?
