Third-level equality policies face review

A review of equality policies in third-level colleges is being considered by the Higher Education Authority amid ongoing controversy over a lack of promotion for female academics.

Gender equality issues have made headlines since before Christmas for NUI Galway, whose promotion procedures were heavily criticised by an Equality Tribunal ruling, but HEA figures show significant imbalances at senior levels across the sector.

All universities, institutes of technology, and the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland signed up yesterday to a charter committing them to advance women’s academic careers in science, technology, engineering, maths, and medicine.

HEA chief executive Tom Boland told the Oireachtas education committee it is considering a wide review of equality policies and how they are implemented.

“NUI Galway has got some negative publicity in recent weeks. Regrettably, it’s not unique in the sense of the relationship between the proportion of female academics and the proportion of female professors,” he said.

NUI Galway called for a sectoral review after the tribunal in November found it had discriminated on gender grounds against botanist Micheline Sheehy Skeffington, who was unsuccessful in a 2008 promotion application.

The university last week announced Professor Jane Grimson will chair a taskforce to advise on policies and procedures related to gender equality.

HEA figures show that just over half of all those in lecturer grade jobs at NUI Galway are female, but women account for only 14% of professors and 13% of associate professors.

In all seven universities, men and women have an almost even share of lower-grade lecturing posts.

At Trinity College Dublin, just 14% of professors are women, and at University College Cork, one in six professors and one in four associate professors are female.

In Dublin City University 17% of professors are female, while the figures are 20% at University College Dublin and 23% at Maynooth, but the 31% figure for University of Limerick helps bring the sector average up to 19%.

The figures are equally imbalanced in many institutes of technology, with just 13% of senior academic staff at Athlone IT being female, 18% in IT Sligo, 22% in Waterford, and 23% in Carlow. The Institute of Art, Design, and Technology in Dún Laoghaire is an exception, where women hold 55% of senior academic positions and half of lower lecturing grades.

IT Tralee has a 50-50 split in senior lecturer grades. Letterkenny IT is not far behind, although men dominate the very top grades at both colleges.