Duke University
Faculty Women's Network

 

News

We hope you have a productive and fun summer. See you in the Fall. Let us know if there is any way that the Faculty Women's Network can help.

Mission

The mission of the Faculty Women's Network is to promote institutional equity for women faculty at Duke, to foster an environment in which faculty women can flourish here, and to support one another in our efforts toward these goals. Our commitment extends to recruitment, retention, and promotion of women faculty (especially, at the current time, promotion from associate to full professor); salary equity for women faculty; advancement of women faculty to administrative positions; institutional responsiveness to the demands of faculty members' family life, the burden of which still falls unevenly on women; a supportive and enabling workplace climate (everywhere, but notably in the sciences) for women faculty, graduate students, and post-doctoral fellows; and sustained mentoring for these women.

History

During the better part of the 1980s and the early 1990s, the Faculty Women's Network worked for, and won, many advances-among them, significant gains in recruitment and retention of women faculty; a resulting critical mass, and a community, of faculty women; the sharp reduction of sexual harassment at Duke and the institution of a sexual harassment code; paid maternity leave for women faculty (recently superceded by a new more progressive parenting leave policy that is no longer tied to medical disability leave and now includes the option of leave for adoptive parents and for the domestic partners of birth mothers); and, a broader awareness, institution-wide, of faculty women's presence and the issues we confront. Perhaps because of these very successes, perhaps exhibiting a natural cycle of exhaustion and rejuvenation in political activism, the Faculty Women's Network entered a decade-long hiatus. Its work, however, was not finished; indeed, some of the problems that the Network addressed then have now resurfaced. Galvanized by the 2003 report of President Nan Keohane's Women's Initiative, now officially supported by the Office of the Provost, and energized by a new generation of women, the Faculty Women's Network has reinvented itself.

Projects and Activities

HELP line

If you are encountering issues that you would like to discuss in a confidential manner with the FWN, send email with the subject line: "FWN Help" to

Faculty Recruiting

At departments' and candidates' discretion, small groups of women faculty members will meet with female candidates for faculty positions during their on-campus interviews. These meetings will give the candidates a chance to make the acquaintance of potential women colleagues, and explore their perspectives on life at Duke. Many of Duke's current women faculty fondly recall their meetings, during their own job interviews, with women from the Faculty Women's Network. These former candidates tell how significant this opportunity was in their decisions to come to Duke. Beginning with searches now in progress, we have revived this service to departments and candidates.

Department Search Chairs should contact the FWN convener (email below) to arrange a meeting.

Membership

Consider becoming a member of the FWN. We are a community of over 120 women faculty across campus. We are always happy to grow. Just send an email to the convener (email address below) with "FWN" in the subject line in order to join or you can join at any of our events (described above).

Contact Information

Co-Conveners:
Nan Marie Jokerst
Electrical and Computer Engineering, 660-5503

Lynn Smith-Lovin
Sociology, 660-5786

Links to Related Information

This is a collection of web links related to women faculty. Please send items of interest to the convener.

Private Resources

This link contains many resources for members of the Faculty Women's Network. Use the login and password previously provided to access this webpage. If you have forgotten these, contact the convener.