New data from the U.S. Department of Education shows that in the 2010-11 academic year there were 394,898 instructional staff at publicly operated degree-granting institutions in the United States. There were an additional 171,652 instructional faculty at private, nonprofit degree granting institutions.
Women are 45.5 percent of the instructional staff at publicly operated institutions and 42.5 percent of the instructional staff at private, nonprofit institutions.
At the full professor level, women hold 30.6 percent of all positions at state-operated colleges and universities. They make up 28.5 percent of the full professors at private, nonprofit institutions.
Consider providing racially/ethnically disaggregated data in the future. This information would help unearth critical differences among women that will be important to address.
I’ve seen one example of dramatic change right here at the University of Tromsø in Norway: In 2007, only 18% of our full professors were women. Four years later, as a result of deliberate and explicit programs, we’ve increased that number by 50%! We now find over 27% of our professorial positions filled by women, well ahead of the 18% percent in Europe but lagging slightly behind the 30% documented in the United States.