Narrative on FAMU Employment Data from FAMU Officials.
Attached, please find the requested information about staffing, by gender, at Florida A&M University. FAMU continues its long tradition, started in 1887, of being an institution where African-American males lead with distinction. However, as the attached information shows, FAMU has in recent years, made some important gains in achieving gender balance in leadership roles in two important areas: executive and managerial, especially the highest leadership positions on our campus, and faculty.
Specifically, the percentage of women faculty over the past ten years has increased from 40.7% in fall 2005, to 46.4% in fall 2014. Particularly significant are our continuing efforts to increase the number of women who hold full professor rank, as well as increasing the number of women faculty members teaching in the STEM fields which are so vital to our mission.
In recent years, we have also made gains in the number of women who are in senior leadership positions on our campus. The IPEDS data on the gender distribution of FAMU staff employed in executive and managerial positions over the same 10-year period show a slight majority of women holding positions in those roles. The percentage of women in this category has declined slightly each year since 2011. The broad category of executive and managerial employees, which includes all persons whose work is directly related to management policies or general business policies, ranging from University President to food service manager, does not show the real work that needs to be done in diversifying the senior leadership ranks. While the President and provost are both women and there is near parity in the ranks of the deans, most senior vice president positions at FAMU are still held by men. With the increasing diversity in its leadership team, FAMU serves as an example to all of the most inclusive models of academic leadership.
Information about the IPEDS EAM classification, which was effective until 2012, can be found here: http://nces.ed.gov/ipeds/glossary/index.asp?id=209
A comparison of the gender balance in four-year colleges nationally, using the most recent IPEDS data of 2013-14, and the new IPEDS employment categories, indicates that FAMU data is consistent with national trends, i.e., where the national data indicate a higher percentage of women than men in a particular category, which is reflected in the FAMU data as well. The one exception is in the community service, legal arts, and media categories where at the national level women comprise a higher percentage than men, but at FAMU men comprise a higher percentage.
