Editor's Note: The following is the second story in a five-day series about the advances and difficulties of women in Athens' academic, professional and cultural scenes.
Ohio University history professor Benita Blessing has had to learn to balance a life and a career.
Working in the history department, she teaches, advises students and also published a book in November. In the summer, she works at Minnesota's Concordia Language Villages, a foreign language and cultural program for and adults.
And for the past three years, she also has been working to obtain tenure at OU, a process that can be hectic and demanding.
A few years ago, Blessing found herself writing chapters of her book on plane rides to visit her terminally ill father in Texas. While there, she said she held his hand in the hospital ' grading blue books with the other hand.
Very few people hold your hand through the process of getting tenure
she said.
While obtaining tenure is a difficult process for anyone, women often have the extra role of being a family's primary caregiver, a factor in the current disparity between male and female tenured professors at OU and nationwide, said Annette Graham, chair of Faculty Senate's promotions and tenure committee.
About 65 percent of Ohio University's 744 faculty members have tenure. Of those, 30 percent are women. Compared to its peer institutions, however, OU ranks second-highest in the ratio of male and female tenured professors, trailing behind the University of New Hampshire, according to data from the American Association of University Professors.
Although the numbers of female professors achieving tenure have been rising since the 1970s, national numbers still show roughly 75 percent of tenured professors are male, a large difference, Graham said, but not one that necessarily implies gender discrimination.
Graham said the largest problem on the road to tenure is a lack of understanding about the process, one that involves separate rules from each school and department and one crucial period.
Faculty can stay in a tenure-track position for up to six years. If they are not granted tenure by then, they get a one-year terminal contract to allow them time to look for another job.
So far, Blessing said the process has been as transparent as possible for her.
If you don't get a book published forget it. If you don't do enough in teaching forget it. If you don't do enough service
you're not getting tenure. Of course
there is a level of subjectivity
but that's no different from the subjectivity professors use when grading papers
she said.
Years before even starting the tenure process, women often must begin considering how a future family might factor into their professional lives. Graham said the possibility of a female tenure-track professor taking time off for a family does sometimes factor into the tenure process.
They try to judge everyone with the same ruler
Graham said. It's not always a fair ruler.
It often becomes difficult to keep up with the demanding tenure-track process when other obligations call, Blessing added.
It usually comes down to tenure or a family
she said. You're not getting writing done when your three-year-old is pulling on your leg.
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