Chapter 06: The Office of Women Faculty Programs: Activities and Challenges

Authors

Elizabeth L. Travis PhD, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center
Tacey A. Rosolowski PhD, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center

Files

Description

In this Chapter, Dr. Travis describes some of the main projects developed through the Office of Women Faculty Programs (which opened in 2007). She begins by describing the book, Legends and Legacies (published 2008), that brought together personal narratives written by MD Anderson’s key women scientists and clinicians. She notes that she worked with Mary Jane Schier, Steve Stuyck, and Maria Dungler in the Public Affairs Office. She also explains the rationale behind the photograph best associated with the book: a group photo of the featured women dressed in cocktail dresses. She notes that it was inspired by an Annie Liebowitz photograph, but also notes that the group photo stresses that “We have to build communities of women.” She describes the book launch events and the impact of the book on the institution, noting that the book put a different and more human face on the women of the organization.

Next Dr. Travis describes several early activities of Women Faculty programs, including the website and its monthly online feature, “Women Leading the Way.” She also describes setting up the Kripke Legend Award to honor people who promote and women: it is a highly competitive in cancer medicine and is awarded to women and to men.

Next Dr. Travis describes reactions to the Office’s activities: “Male colleagues were not happy,” and Dr. Travis explains that she was described as “too strident.” There are still naysayers, she observes. Next she describes how she learned to address complaints after a particularly difficult set of personal attacks. She went to Dan Fontaine in the UT System for advice. He said, “Do a survey of Division and Department heads about Women Faculty Programs.” She explains the results and discusses how important it was that she reported the results at the Research Council and Clinical Council –transparency that did a great deal to change the tone of reactions to her work.

Dr. Travis explains that the Office of Women Faculty Programs is an independent office that reports directly to the Provost.

Dr. Travis stresses that the focus of the Office of Women Faculty Programs is to promote women into leadership positions. She explains that women leaders bring a different perspective and different problem-solving strategies to institutions when they are in leadership roles.

Dr. Travis explains some of the changes in culture she has observed at MD Anderson: for example, men on search committees now will say, “There are no women.” Dr. Travis then explains that many people resist thinking about gender as an issue because they feel they are being accused of not being fair-minded. At the end of this session, she talks about how she handles this and how the institution has changed.

Identifier

TravisEL_01_20140324_C06

Publication Date

3-24-2014

City

Houston, Texas

Interview Session

Elizabeth Travis, PhD, Oral History Interview, March 24, 2014

Topics Covered

The Interview Subject's Story - The AdministratorThe Administrator MD Anderson History MD Anderson Culture Growth and/or Change Gender, Race, Ethnicity, Religion Diversity at MD Anderson Controversies Professional Practice Leadership Women and Diverse Populations Obstacles, Barriers, Challenges

Transcript

Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:

To what degree was the Department of Women Faculty Programs kind of thought out, or did you come in really on the ground floor figuring it out?

Elizabeth Travis, PhD:

Ground floor. Ground floor.

Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:

So tell me about that process. How did you start to build what this looked like?

Elizabeth Travis, PhD:

Well, I kind of thought we had to hit the ground running, and we had to get something going pretty quickly and identify key areas. One was raising the visibility of women. The book was one of the first projects.

Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:

And that’s Legends and Legacies, just for the [inaudible].

Elizabeth Travis, PhD:

Legends and Legacies, yes. Legends and Legacies. All of my colleagues, my good friends, female colleagues, thought I was crazy. They thought, “Oh, nobody’s ever going to buy this book, but we’ll humor her. We’ll humor Liz. We’ve known her a long time. We’ll humor her. We’ll do this.” And it’s ended up being a signature of the office, actually. We take that book when we go out to schools. You know, we’ve sent it to a lot of deans of medical schools. When I go and give talks, I always bring a couple of copies for the women’s program there. But it also, for me, it was an opportunity to—first of all, those women, talk about diverse backgrounds. It was a way of saying not everybody comes from privilege. You don’t have to come from privilege to have a position. You don’t have to come from privilege to be a physician or a scientist. And that’s all their individual stories and their—do you have a copy of the book?

Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:

I do.

Elizabeth Travis, PhD:

Yes, you do, right. I thought that we had given you one.

Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:

Yes.

Elizabeth Travis, PhD:

And some of them are incredibly compelling. I didn’t even know them, even though I knew everybody in that picture, although they didn’t all know each other.

Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:

Which is so funny, because as I’ve learned from conducting these interviews, I mean, most of the men don’t come from privilege.

Elizabeth Travis, PhD:

Right. That’s right.

Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:

So why do women believe they have to in order to succeed?

Elizabeth Travis, PhD:

Yes, exactly.

Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:

It’s very strange.

Elizabeth Travis, PhD:

Exactly. And also just say, “Look what all these—.” And if you look at that picture, it’s diverse in all ways. It represents all the mission areas of the institution. It’s diverse across race and ethnicity. I mean, it’s diverse across—it’s mostly our senior—it was all the women leaders at the time and some of whom are now leaders, some of whom are now leaders. But it was in their own words, and I told them, I said—so I worked with Mary Jane Scheir [phonetic]. I worked with Steve [Stuyck [Oral History Interview] , Maria Dungler in Public Affairs, and I told them—and Diane Tomasi [phonetic] in the publications, she did the editing. We told them, we gave them—we said, “This is how long we want it. We want your personal story. Do not tell me your CV. I know your CV. This isn’t what this is. This is about you and your story. And you write it. We will lightly edit it just for grammar, whatever.” And if you’ve read the stories, you know they’re all very different, they’re told differently. We had them put in personal pictures, because this book was to be not only about your accomplishments, about how you got there, offering pointers to our younger women, and, secondly, being a woman, which is why that picture is what it is.

Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:

Yes, with the evening dresses just for eveningwear, which is great. “I can look like this and still have a high-powered career. I don’t have to have a tie.”

Elizabeth Travis, PhD:

Right. Because originally—and I told them we wanted to do a group picture, and everybody thought of course we’d be in lab coats and stethoscopes and all the rest of that, you know, our professional garb, and I said, “Hm-mm [negative].” And this was when Annie Leibovitz did the photo shoot for Vanity Fair of the stars, and Maria Dungler came up to me in my office, I was over in HMB at the time, and they were in the same building. She said, “Dr. Travis, look. This is what we’re going to do,” and that’s what that was. That was our model for that. And I sent it to the women and they were like, “You’ve got to be kidding me.” Somebody said, “I’ll be Gina Lollobrigida.” (laughter) We had a great time. That was the first and it was also the—the other thing to me, I said, “We have to build communities of women,” and this was important because the head of Vet Med didn’t know the surgeons. A lot of those women didn’t know each other because some were in lab, some were in the clinic. Now, some of them did, but a whole lot of them—Margaret and I knew everybody in that picture, but a lot of them didn’t know each other.

Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:

That’s kind of amazing.

Elizabeth Travis, PhD:

It is amazing. So this is the first community of women that we built, and they still hang together. And so it was—and then we had a big event to roll the book out. We had it over at Trevisio’s, and we had that picture and we had a big one of it. Nobody had seen it but me and Maria in Public Relations. Nobody else had seen the picture, and we had it covered. I mean, we just had—we invited everybody. It was a big event. We unveiled the book, we had the books, and then we unveiled the picture. And I mean, there were gasps. (laughs) I mean, everybody was—it was a terrific evening. It was a terrific evening. So that was one of the first things. The other thing—

Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:

Can I just ask you—

Elizabeth Travis, PhD:

Sure.

Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:

What was the impact of the book? I mean, once you had this great event, the book comes out, what was the aftermath?

Elizabeth Travis, PhD:

The aftermath is we did book signings in the institution, we sold it here for like twenty dollars, and we would do book signings around. We did numerous book signings. I mean, people, all the—it’s in the book shop, it’s in the gift shops, we sell it in the gift shops.

Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:

Did it make a change?

Elizabeth Travis, PhD:

I think it did. I do think it did. I think it, number one, raised awareness of all the things we wanted it to, that—look at these women. And people would read the stories of women that they knew and they’d said, “I didn’t know that.” I think the other thing it did, it made everybody human. You know, people—it’s like, “I didn’t know you did this,” or, “I didn’t know you were that,” or, “I didn’t know you loved to dance,” or—you know, so it put a different face, if you will, on the women of the organization. We all became a little more personal to people, and I think that also is important for building morale. And yet nobody abused that kind of us opening ourselves up. I don’t think there was any—not any pushback, you know. And then the website. We started a website, and that was another thing. Then immediately—

Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:

A website related to Legends and Legacies?

Elizabeth Travis, PhD:

No, we started a website for Women Faculty Programs.

Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:

Oh, okay.

Elizabeth Travis, PhD:

And we decided we were going to have things like, again, “Women Leading the Way,” that every month we were going to feature one of our women faculty who we felt led the way; did she get an award, a new department chair. And we still do that every month.

Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:

And when was that website started?

Elizabeth Travis, PhD:

2008. Probably 2007, probably in the fall, because the office opened February 2007. I had one E.A., and then I had a part-time project director, who was hired by Faculty Development, by Janis Yadiny, and she shared her. Vicky Thompson worked with me in the beginning, and she did the website. But we did “Women Leading the Way.” I mean, we just were just firing on all cylinders, I’d say. Then the other thing we did not long after that was our Kripke Legend Award, that we have an award that honors Margaret Kripke and her advocacy of women, and it’s gender-neutral and it is—we’ve had a National Academy member, Nancy Hopkins [phonetic], got it. Marge Foti got it. Ed Renz. A man can get it. And it’s a national award.

Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:

And the rationale for the award is?

Elizabeth Travis, PhD:

To honor those who advocate and promote the careers of women in cancer science and cancer medicine, because you need these people and you need to acknowledge the work that they’ve done on behalf of women, and so we did that. The president recently followed that up—last year was our first one—with the President’s Leadership Award, which actually honors one of our internal faculty for the same thing, for advancing the careers of MD Anderson women. So that’s been the impact. So the impact is—I mean, we have a committee, a selection committee. They are Cancer Center directors from around the country. We have applications. It’s highly competitive. You wouldn’t believe the applications that come in, highly competitive, well known around the country.

Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:

Wow.

Elizabeth Travis, PhD:

And the orchid, you know, the book cover, you know, has the white orchid on it. That’s kind of a signature of the office. I send that when a woman—we get new women chairs. I send it to women who are appointed Cancer Center directors. I send them to women who are from this office, from MD Anderson, congratulations. So, you know, we try to be out in the community as well. So it was a website, it was “Women Leading the Way,” then working on awards, sending women to the AAMC programs, career development programs. Those were some of the first things we did. And you were asking about pushback, and, I mean, there was pushback initially.

Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:

Tell me about that. How’d that take shape?

Elizabeth Travis, PhD:

I was not—I mean, I—and maybe I had my head in the sand or maybe I was just, you know, so focused on doing what I was doing that I wasn’t picking up the signals. But there were some of my male colleagues who were not happy with what we were doing, how we were doing it, and how I was doing it, and they complained to the president, who complained to the provost, who told me about it.

Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:

What were they complaining about?

Elizabeth Travis, PhD:

They thought I was too strident. That was one of the things. And perhaps I was. I don’t remember that, but, you know, perhaps I was. But, again, the question is, what do you do about that, and I obviously was not happy about it. I also made the statement that, “You know, if somebody wasn’t complaining about me, if I were you, I’d be worried, because that probably means I’m not doing my job right,” because, I mean, surely we had to expect that there would be pushback, you know, have this office committed to women, etc. And, yes, even to this day, I know there are naysayers, people who don’t particularly agree, and I’ve learned to deal with that by you treat them the same as you treat everybody else, they’re entitled to their opinions, and treating the women faculty the same as I treat the rest of them, invite them to everything and make sure they have the opportunities, but to just—I’ve worked with the men who I know are allies and who are vested in doing this and want to do this. So what I did then, because I really didn’t know how else to go about this, I actually went to a good friend in the institution, male, who I—

Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:

Now, when you said “then,” is when you confronted some of the complaints?

Elizabeth Travis, PhD:

So I didn’t know how to confront the complaints, and so I talked to—he probably won’t mind this. I went to Dan Fontaine. I have a good relationship with Dan and I do—I don’t always agree with him, but that’s part of the relationship. But I told him what had happened, and I said, “What do you advise?” And he said, “Do a survey.” So that’s what I did. I surveyed all the chairs and division heads, and I said, “This is your opportunity. Tell me what you like, what you don’t like.”

Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:

So, about what Women Faculty Programs was doing.

Elizabeth Travis, PhD:

About what we were doing, and I also told them, “It’ll be totally anonymous. It’s going to be formed up. You can say what you want.” I said, “What I’m interested in knowing is what do you like and what don’t you like, and I will come back and report off the data to you at Research Council and at Clinical Council.” And I did that, and I think that’s probably the biggest single thing I did to gain respect for what we did in the office, because I heard what—okay, they weren’t all unhappy, but some were. And I said, “Okay.” And then when I reported back, I said, “Here’s what you had to say, and I agree with these things, and some of these things we can change and some of them we can’t.” [

Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:

What were the results of this survey?

Elizabeth Travis, PhD:

Basically that mostly they were happy with what we—there will always be—like when you do a 360, you know, there are always people who think you walk on water, and there are always those who think you’re the devil incarnate, and everybody’s kind of in the middle, in between. But there wasn’t anything that was particularly outrageous, you know. I think it was more about—it was so, I guess, not unimpressive, but I think that it did for me was, number one, some of the things we were doing, they liked. I think they wanted a change in tone. We didn’t have to change very much, quite frankly. (laughs)

Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:

Well, sometimes it just seems like change itself is the problem.

Elizabeth Travis, PhD:

Yes, but I think it was the fact that I said, “Okay, I heard you, I want to hear from you, and then I will come back and report back to you on what you said. You will see the data. The data will be analyzed and we’ll get it. I will present it. I will stand up here and present to you whatever it is, and we can have a conversation.” Some of them were unhappy about the focus on women, weren’t quite sure why we needed it, you know, and we were trying to make a lot of changes. We really were. Like I said, I figured I was given a job to do and I needed to do it, and I didn’t want to waste much time. I think the pace of things was a little shocking to people. You know, I’m not so sure a lot of them liked the book so much.

Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:

Why?

Elizabeth Travis, PhD:

Well, I guess it was just the focus on the women. A lot of people didn’t think that was important, even though the data supported that it was important. I think when you set up an office like this— this is an independent office that reports to the provost—I think it usually makes people a little jittery about whether other people are going to be treated fairly. I mean, we’ve all heard the stories now about white men think they should have their own organization. By the way, I have to say tomorrow Gloria Steinem turns eighty, which is unbelievable.

Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:

Unbelievable, yes.

Elizabeth Travis, PhD:

Unbelievable, but talk about a person who really did a lot to raise the issue, the gender issue and the inequities and etc., at a time when it really was unpopular in the sixties.

Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:

No kidding. No kidding.

Elizabeth Travis, PhD:

But I think it’s changed, you know, and they weren’t sure how this was going to help the organization, and, “Oh, by the way, don’t you want the best in terms of—?” And I always say, “Yes,” and then you don’t have to say anything else. People kind of look at you. That happened to me one time. I was a program chair for a big international meeting of one of my professional societies, and I told my whole committee, men and women both, that, “Do not bring me a symposium without a woman.” This was 2007. “Do not bring me a symposium without at least one woman, because I’ll send it right back, because we have a lot of women in the organization.” And somebody said—male—who I knew really well—I was past president of this organization. He was my secretary-treasurer. He said, “Liz, but don’t you want the best?” And I said, “Yes.” He kind of looked at me, and he finally got it, you know. Yes, the point is, yes, and we’re not tapping all that talent. So I think that change is always—it’s hard for people, and this was a big change. This was an office committed to advancing—recruiting, promoting and advancing women faculty. That was a lot to swallow, quite frankly, you know. But I didn’t let that stop me from doing the job, and I always figured, you know, the provost will let me know, which he did that one time when they got complaints, and so I took care of that. But I was given a job to do, and I had to do it and I had to show them results. That’s the other thing we focused on. For me it’s about leadership. Still and yet, it’s about leadership. I think the more women and minorities in leadership, the better off an organization is. And there’s plenty of data that support that, in the business world and the academic world, I might add. Their bottom line is better.

Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:

Why is that?

Elizabeth Travis, PhD:

Because you bring a different perspective to the table. You bring a different approach to problem solving, and the more differences of opinion, the data show—there’s a man whose name is Scott E. Page, who has done a lot of extensive research on diversity, and all of his studies, the data show that the more diverse opinions you have at the table, the product is more innovative, there are better solutions, because if you’re all thinking the same, there’s no opportunity for innovative and new ways of doing things. So it’s about leadership, and about having women at the leadership table, and having women’s voices being heard, having minority --and, in this case, the intersection of gender and minority women-- hearing what they have to say. They have a different viewpoint. You know, we do think differently. We’ve been socialized differently. To this day, women are socialized differently, like to not self-promote and other things. Men have to be—I think we all have to be aware of that, because a woman may be speaking or a minority may not be speaking up when, in fact, they have the talent to do a job. You have to think, “I know they can do this, and I’m going to give them that opportunity.” So I think it’s about leadership. The other thing is, it’s like putting a sign out, “No women or minorities need apply,” if there are no women in leadership positions. So that was the other big push. I mean, working with search committees. I mean, to this day I’m on every leadership search committee. We changed policy very early on. Identified policies, we changed our search committee policy to—the policy says that there have to be women and minorities, and it’s a critical mass. It’s not numbers. It’s not a number. One is not enough because you’re a token and your voice isn’t heard. It’s 30 to 40 percent. And there was pushback about that. There was pushback about, “Why do we need that?” Well, it’s because women are 35 percent of the organization, you know, and they will bring a different perspective. Originally and initially I was always the one saying, “We don’t have any women candidates here,” but the way my approach to that was, I would always, every search committee, even now, I go with the names of women. We in this office, we do some research. We surface names of women. But it’s changed to the point now that men on search committees will say, “We don’t have any women.” That’s culture change. But, you know, initially, people don’t like you asking that question. You know, it just makes people uncomfortable, and so I would ask the question or I would say, “Here are some women that we need to review.”

Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:

Why do you think men were so uncomfortable having to ask that question or having you ask that question? Why was it the gender question that made them so uncomfortable?

Elizabeth Travis, PhD:

I think because everybody thinks they’re fair. We all—I mean, and this is not only men. Women do the same thing. In studies where they compare, there’s been one site just done recently where they sent out—and these were just résumés, same résumé for a research position in a lab, and they sent them out, changed the name from John to Jane. Then they sent them out to, I don’t know, two hundred scientists in the community, actually, and said, “Who would you hire?” blah, blah, blah. Well, the bottom line was—and they sent it to men and women. The bottom line was everybody preferred John over Jane, and when they hired Jane, they hired her at $4,000 less. Here’s that magic number, $4,000 less even today. But it wasn’t dependent on who the gender of the reviewer was. So in other words, it’s not only men who do this. So I think that because everybody thinks they’re fair, and by saying that, I think the implication is they felt I was saying, “You’re not being fair,” would be one interpretation, I think, that, “Well, of course we want the best and we have the best,” and so I think it’s that. I think that’s basically it. We all don’t like to think that maybe we are not fair. None of us like that, myself included. And so I think it just makes people uncomfortable, you know. I think all these discussions around underrepresented minorities, and women who are not a minority but who are a minority in the academic ranks, make people uncomfortable, men and women. It’s not only the men. In fact, I think it’s because, in a way, you’re implying that we’re not being fair. I think change is hard, you know. I think any change is hard. In a way, I think they feel that you’re point a finger at them saying, “You haven’t been doing this,” and that was not the intent. The intent was always, “Here are people that we should consider. Let’s look at their CVs.” And that’s my approach, has always been, I vet them before I even take them to the leadership search committee because I know what’s going to fly and what isn’t. I know what kind of credibility. I know where the bar is. You have to know where the bar is for anything when you’re doing this, and you have to at least meet this bar. So I would vet them and bring them to the table and say, “So here’s some we should review.” We’ve made great strides in terms of women in leadership positions. Women are on search committees. There now are search committees have women on them. Women on the short lists. I mean, that has changed in the past seven years.

Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:

Well, we’re almost out of time. Shall we leave it there for today?

Elizabeth Travis, PhD:

Sure.

Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:

[inaudible] on a high note.

Elizabeth Travis, PhD:

It is. Perfect place to stop.

Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:

Thank you very much.

Elizabeth Travis, PhD:

Thank you. I’ve enjoyed it.

Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:

Yes, me too. I’m turning off the recorder at about 11:54. Thank you very much, Dr. Travis.

Elizabeth Travis, PhD:

Thank you, Tacey. (end of Segment 6)

Recommended Citation

Travis, Elizabeth L. PhD and Rosolowski, Tacey A. PhD, "Chapter 06: The Office of Women Faculty Programs: Activities and Challenges" (2014). Interview Chapters. 1024.
https://openworks.mdanderson.org/mchv_interviewchapters/1024

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