| From
the (Retiring) President's Desk:
What a year it has been! Your Board hit the ground running
in September and there's been no let-up ever since. Some of the year's
highlights include:
- Our annual AWN/AWF Fall
dinner promoting recognition of common goals and efforts in the academic
advancement of both the Medical School and Hilltop women faculty was
held October 23rd. The Dress for Success collection piloted by Nancy
Baenziger was a huge success. This program distributes professional
clothing to women that might not have the resources to purchase such
items.
- The AWN 10th year anniversary
celebration! Linda Pike spearheaded a week's worth of events last November
that included han-on activities at the St. Louis Science Center, a historical
display and video honoring some of the school's pioneering women, a
scientific symposium featuring talks by six women faculty, and a gala
dinner/dance in honor of all of us. It was a full house at the Starlight
Roof in the Chase Park Hotel, as we listened to a key note address by
Missouri State Treasurer, Nancy Farmer, and honored all of the women
that helped to make things better for those of us that followed. I'm
sure you would agree that it was truly a magical evening.
- The A-sponsored 4th Annual
Contemporary Women's Health Issues symposium took place December 7th,
2001 at EPNEC to a large audience of community practitioners and Medical
School faculty, staff and students. Kudos to Diane F. Merritt and Barbara
Zehnbauer for organizing this exciting CME program focusing on "Topics
in Cancer and Aging". According to the CME Office, our yearly symposiums
are the best attended and most lucrative.
- Dramatic changes in part
time benefits are direct result of AWN actions! Human Resources announced
in January that University faculty and staff wishing to work part time
would no longer lose all of their benefits, rather benefits (health,
dental, tuition, etc) would be proportional to the time worked. Three
cheers to Diana Gray and Diane Merritt for pushing through this reform
that affects many women at the Medical School.
- The School of Medicine
Gender Pay Equity Report as well as the Faculty Senate Council Gender
Pay Equity Final Report were released in May with disturbing data indicating
that the mean salary for women was lower than that for men in essentially
every category examined. Your Board spent many hours educating themselves
as to what the Medical School-derived Gender Pay Equity model meant,
how compensation was normally determined for outside institutions, and
how to best alert women faculty as to what median salaries should be
for their particular degree, track, and rank. This was a huge undertaking
and, while certainly not over, many thanks go to Linda Pike, Ingrid
Borecki, Roz Neuman, and outside consultant Jane Bjorndal McAdams, to
name just a few. It's nice to think that there are many women faculty
at the Medical School with substantial recent raises as a direct consequence
of this effort.
- Our annual Spring Dinner
featured Dr. Eugene Bauer who has served as both Dean and Vice President
of Stanford University School of Medicine. Dr. Bauer offered insights
into the challenges and opportunities of gender imbalances and inequities
at top U.S. Medical Schools such as Stanford and Washington University
School of Medicine. He particularly urged fairness, openness and tracking
to ensure change. We are indebted to Janet Rader for arranging both
the speaker and the dinner!
- AWN nominated our Honorary
Board Member, Dr. Jessie Ternberg, for the St. Louis Academy of Science
2002 Trustees Award for her lifetime of work in science and medicine.
Two full tables of women faculty were present April 4th at the Academy
Dinner to honor Dr. Ternberg as she received this award to thunderous
applause and a standing ovation.
- AWN Brown Bag Series on
Grantswomanship. Even if you only made it to one of these outstanding
talks, I'm sure you'll agree it was worth it! Congratulations to Ingrid
Borecki and Abby Hollander for putting together this outstanding and
informative series. May all your percentiles be low and your budgets
high!
Throughout the year the Board
met several times with both the Dean and the Chancellor to address issues
related to the search for a new Associate Dean for the Office of Faculty
Affairs, efforts to increase the recruitment, retention and promotion
of women at the Medical School, and issues related to gender pay equity.
These ongoing dialogues provide us with a means to "think outside of the
box" to address gender imbalances from a top-down approach. Significant
progress has been made in the search for the new Associate Dean. Thus
we can look forward to the finalization of this process.
Changes ahead include a new
policy in which faculty can sign up for a 5 year membership (at a discount!)
or be billed yearly. This should allow us to streamline our membership
process and take the onus of remembering dues off of all of you. Also
we're working hard to revamp our web page so that it is more user friendly
and can become a link you'll want to check for news and articles of interest.
Finally, I'd like to recognize
the outstanding efforts of each and every board member this year. Despite
being as over-committed and time-deprived as all of us, they came to as
many meetings as was humanly possible, offered insights and advice via
e-mail, stood up to pressure from the highest echelons, and at all times
had the interests of the faculty women at the Medical School first and
foremost in their minds. It's women like these that make change happen!
Karen O'Malley
President,
AWN 2001-2002 |
