Photo by Betsy Burrow
Institutional leaders tend to portray their organizations as equal and inclusive — but that is not always the case. Women faculty members at Pepperdine face many unique challenges, striving to pave the way for women in higher education.
Professors said it can be difficult to gain respect from their students, receive recognition for their work and be represented in higher administrative positions.
“I do have a degree and authority and should get respect from those things that I’ve earned in the classroom,” Communication Professor Sarah Stone Watt said.
Whether on the student or administrative side, women faculty members explore how they must overcome inequality to reach their full potential.
Women Faculty Seek Respect
For women faculty, it can be difficult to maintain a balance between approachability and authority. Students sometimes perceive their female professors as less professional than their male counterparts, making it harder for women faculty to feel as if they receive the respect they deserve, faculty said.
Sociology Professor Anna Penner said she believes women faculty should not allow students to call them by their first names because it can undermine their authority with students.
“If [students] call me by my first name, that gets too casual,” Penner said. “I need either a ‘Doctor’ or a ‘Professor’ there. Please don’t call me Mrs. Penner. I earned this degree, and I am an expert in these fields.”
Other women faculty have faced the same struggles and said they have had to navigate them with time.
“I think I struggled with [balancing approachability and authority] when I was younger and more worried about that boundary,” Psychology Professor Jennifer Harriger said.
Harriger said she has become more maternal to her students while still maintaining professionalism and boundaries.
“I have teenagers who are not that much younger than my students. I think that has made me become a little more maternal to my college students,” Harriger said. “I’m going to care and I’m going to listen [to students] but also make sure they are doing the work that is required for class.”
Beyond their titles, women faculty also face challenges with student feedback on course evaluations. There tend to be more comments surrounding women faculty’s physical appearance and personality rather than their ability to teach.
Penner said she has dealt with microaggressions from students.
“You see things like not being taken as seriously and not being seen as credible or authoritative,” Penner said.
Rate My Professor is a platform where students can leave comments and reviews about their professors. Stone Watt said she has noticed male faculty receiving more objective reviews, while women faculty are more often targeted for their appearances or emotional tendencies.
Stone Watt said one of her female colleagues received a course evaluation that said, “You remind me of my Sunday school teacher.”
She said comments like this helped her understand, early in her career, the complex dynamics between female professors and students.
“If you look into the website, you’ll start to see there are huge gender discrepancies in the ways that students evaluate faculty,” Stone Watt said.
Women Faculty Seek More Support
Beyond the students, University administrators also play a role in making women faculty feel equally valued and respected.
Penner said that while the University does a good job supporting women faculty in some areas, there are also areas where Pepperdine could better support women.
A major setback is supporting women as parents. Penner said she wishes the University offered on-campus childcare or better accommodations for women on maternity leave. Pepperdine offers grants that offset the cost of care for faculty.
Penner said these grants are said to be up to $5,000, but she has never received more than $1,500 — the equivalent of one month of childcare for her preschooler.
“[Childcare] is one of those things that other faculty [understand] and the administration doesn’t,” Penner said. “That is going to predominantly impact women because women are typically engaging in childcare more than men.”
Penner said it is harder for Pepperdine administration to understand this struggle since they are typically paid more and can better afford childcare.
Other female faculty members feel they are expected to do more service, pointing to the issue of gender. Faculty’s time spent guiding and supporting students outside of class is one of the services they provide.
“My favorite students were coming in and telling me about a crisis or something like that,” Stone Watt said.
Stone Watt said women faculty spend more time with their students, taking away from their research. She said these situations are typically overlooked.
“There is a lot of informal mentoring and just being with students, which is really the thing Pepperdine faculty are known for,” Stone Watt said. “But female faculty are doing a lot of informal conversations.”
Stone Watt said this is difficult because she doesn’t want to complain about being with her students, but it can be hard as a woman when so much service goes unnoticed.
Women in Administration
Pepperdine has a significant number of women faculty, but this number becomes scarcer as positions rise in the ranks.
President Jim Gash, who initially received criticism regarding the gender equality in his cabinet, has worked to make this gap more proportionate, Stone Watt said.
The Pepperdine University Executive Leadership team currently consists of 10 men and six women. Of 10 academic deans, four are women.
“There are relatively equal numbers of men and women hired at an assistant level,” Harriger said. “But more men get promoted to tenure and are in higher positions like administration compared to women.”
English Professor Marie Mullins, who previously served as the divisional dean of the Humanities and Teacher Education Division, said she would like to see women in positions of higher authority at Pepperdine.
“[Positions like] the dean of Seaver College, provost of Pepperdine or president of Pepperdine,” Mullins said. “It would be nice to see that women could do those leadership roles, and I think that there are women who are very capable.”
Stone Watt, former divisional dean for Communication, said most of the female faculty are clustered around lower-level positions — like assistant or visiting professors — and men are more represented at the top.
The issue isn’t about women getting hired; it is about women being trusted with the same roles as men.
“It is diverse but not at the levels it should be,” Penner said.
Support for Women Faculty
Even though women faculty pointed to ways in which Pepperdine can improve its support, there are also some systems in place to address the hardships they face.
Mullins, who wrote the proposal for the Committee on Women Faculty, said the committee is a source of help and support in representing women faculty at Pepperdine.
“[The committee] used to advocate [maternity] leave for women as well as grants for faculty,” Mullins said. “All of those things have now become a part of the institution.”
The Committee on Women Faculty has helped several women faculty members feel represented and heard in their concerns. Both Stone Watt and Mullins said the committee’s work has been extremely helpful.
“One of the things they do is have a Women’s Leadership Award every year in a banquet,” Mullins said.
Harriger said she had many experiences as a junior faculty member where senior-level faculty members looked out for her. She appreciates the Psychology department’s efforts to create equality across the board.
“Our Psychology department does a great job of supporting both young faculty and men and women,” Harriger said.
Inspiring Women in Leadership
Pepperdine has a significant number of women faculty members who have climbed to leadership positions.
Stone Watt said she had several mentors earlier in her career who, at the time, she didn’t even realize were helping her grow. Now, she strives to pass this on to her own students.
“Look around at the people who you see doing the things you want to do and go ask them how they ended up doing what they do,” Stone Watt said.
Stone Watt said she almost always says yes to people asking her to mentor them. Mullins said mentors help young women grow further in their careers.
“My advice would be to be resilient, to follow your heart and find really good mentors who are willing to work with you and who want to see you succeed,” Mullins said.
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Contact Sophie Rogers via email: sophie.rogers@pepperdine.edu
