Chapter 7: Women Faculty Programs: Its Beginnings; Awards for Progress Made

Chapter 7: Women Faculty Programs: Its Beginnings; Awards for Progress Made

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Description

In this Chapter, Dr. Travis reviews the history leading to the formation of the ad hoc committee in the 80s tasked to evaluate the status of women and discusses some documents (not yet in the MD Anderson Archive) related to this history. She talks about the report produced by the Committee to Evaluate the Status of Women (1988/89). (She also has a copy of the report made to the institution by consultant Wanda Wallace, called in to advice how to address gender inequity.) She notes that MD Anderson has a better track record than most medical institutions in promoting women. She notes that MD Anderson received a Leadership Development Award in 2012 from the American Association of Medical Colleges: this recognized the body of work accomplished by the Office of Women Faculty Programs. Dr. Travis herself received this award as an individual in 2009. She outlines the accomplishments that have been made, among them an increase in women in leadership roles from 15% to 27%. Dr. Travis says this is a “model office” and that she speaks all over the country to talk about its structure and role.

Identifier

TravisEL_02_20140325_C07

Publication Date

3-25-2014

City

Houston, Texas

Topics Covered

The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center - An Institutional UnitMD Anderson History Leadership Institutional Mission and Values MD Anderson Culture Gender, Race, Ethnicity, Religion Discovery and Success MD Anderson Impact

Transcript

Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:

Okay, cool. All right. So we are recording, and today is—oh, my gosh, it’s the 25th—26th. I’ve forgotten the date. Isn’t that sad? (laughs) I’m Tacey Ann Rosolowski, and I’m—

Elizabeth Travis, PhD:

The 25th.

Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:

The 25th. And today is the 25th of March, 2014. What a thing to blank on. Better than blanking on your name.

Elizabeth Travis, PhD:

Hey, that’s all right. (laughter) Happens all the time to me.

Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:

And I am on the fifth floor of Pickens Tower for my second session with Dr. Elizabeth Travis, who is the Associate Vice President for Women Faculty Programs. Thank you again for participating.

Elizabeth Travis, PhD:

My pleasure.

Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:

I had a great time talking to you yesterday. I’m looking forward to deepening our conversation today.

Elizabeth Travis, PhD:

It was fun, actually.

Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:

And you said that you were able to get some additional information to clarify some points that were left a little bit open last time, so—

Elizabeth Travis, PhD:

Correct.

Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:

So please let me know what you have. Travis, Elizabeth PhD Okay. The first thing I want to clarify is what this institution did way back in the eighties around the issue of women and minorities, and I mentioned yesterday that there was a small committee of Lillian Fuller, Margaret Kripke, Margaret Spitz, Judy Watson, and myself.

Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:

And, again, what was that committee called?

Elizabeth Travis, PhD:

Well, I think we didn’t have a name. I think it was an ad hoc committee that then reported to Dr. LeMaistre with some recommendations, and he then established a committee that was the Committee to Evaluate the Status of Minority and Women Faculty and Administrators.

Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:

Wow.

Elizabeth Travis, PhD:

This report was 1989. The study was done—this was August ’89. The study was done that year of ’88, ’89, and was initiated because of the work of this small group of women that I spoke about, got together and identified inequities. Then we have a huge report of fifty-six pages. Margaret Kripke was the chair of that committee.

Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:

Now, is that report in the archives?

Elizabeth Travis, PhD:

You know, I don’t know that, and we probably should archive it.

Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:

Yes, it should be archived if it has not been.

Elizabeth Travis, PhD:

Yes. So, in fact, I just had mentioned to somebody in my office, we need to pdf this and get it in the files, because it goes data all the way back to 1978.

Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:

Yes, that would be so important.

Elizabeth Travis, PhD:

It really—okay. So definitely we will do that.

Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:

Yes [inaudible].

Elizabeth Travis, PhD:

So I wanted to set the record straight on that. The other thing is the committee consisted of men and women faculty and administrators, so it was a mixed committee that reported directly to Dr. LeMaistre with their findings, and, like I said, Margaret Kripke was the chair of that committee. So that kind of clarifies what we talked about yesterday. There actually has been commissions in the state, Governor’s Committee. In fact, I think there still is a Governor’s Committee on Advancement of Women and Minorities, and this was in the 1990s. But the one that’s critical to this institution is the first report that Margaret did for Dr. LeMaistre.

Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:

And I wanted to ask you, what is your evaluation on where MD Anderson stands vis-à-vis peer institutions in addressing these questions of women and minorities?

Elizabeth Travis, PhD:

We are doing better than most and have received a couple of awards because of the work that this—so the office—I received an individual award, and then the institution just two years ago received an award for the work we have done.

Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:

Can you tell me about those, please.

Elizabeth Travis, PhD:

They’re from the Association of American Medical Colleges. It’s the group on women in medicine and science, which is—the Association of American Medical Colleges, all medical schools belong. MD Anderson is a member as well, even though we’re a Cancer Center without a medical school. We have a different status, but we are full members. I’m very involved in the organization. I, in fact, am the chair-elect of the group on women in medicine and science. And these awards recognize both an individual—it’s called the Leadership Development Award.

Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:

Oh, okay.

Elizabeth Travis, PhD:

So it’s the AAMC Leadership Development Award, and I received—

Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:

This is your personal award.

Elizabeth Travis, PhD:

This is my personal one. I received it in 2009 for the work that we were doing in the office for promoting and advancing women. In 2012, MD Anderson received the award for the work that the institution, basically this office, was doing to promote and advance what we had been doing and the advances we have made in advancing women in medicine and science.

Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:

And what did you feel was kind of the tipping point for that, that resulted in you receiving the award in 2009 and then resulted in the institution receiving the award in 2012?

Elizabeth Travis, PhD:

So I think it was the body of work for the institution, large body of work over then five years of the office being open. I think particularly it was both the individual award as well as the institutional award was the increases we had made in putting women into leadership positions here, primarily as chairs, most of them as chairs of departments, but some in higher leadership positions. And I think that was the real tipping point for the award. I think we have made great strides in that regard. We’re well ahead of the national average, and since the office opened, we’ve gone from 15 percent to 27 percent of our leaders are women. We use percentages because the numbers are the numbers, but it’s relative to how many leaders you have and the numbers of leaders increased over those years. So just in a relatively short time, and that was—and I think the individual award was because we had put policies in place that allowed for more consideration of women and minorities for leadership positions. As I said yesterday, we in a relatively short time did a lot on improving the visibility of women, not only in the institution but outside the institution, policy changes that were making real on-the-ground changes in behavior and culture, and then I think it was just the whole body of work that the office did and that promoted the organization into basically a model.

Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:

Wow. Now, when you say “model,” is this office something that other institutions come to to see how have you been doing this?

Elizabeth Travis, PhD:

They come here, and I speak all over the country about that.

Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:

Wow.

Elizabeth Travis, PhD:

I’m invited to speak about what we do. So we’re unique in that we have a dedicated office reporting directly to the provost, and that’s how it was set up from the very beginning. There was the recommendations of the two focus groups we spoke about, which, by the way, one of those focus groups or one of those studies, the consultant was Wanda Wallace, and I have her report as well.

Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:

That would be also great to have in the archive, yes.

Elizabeth Travis, PhD:

Okay. We will do that.

Conditions Governing Access

Open

Chapter 7: Women Faculty Programs: Its Beginnings; Awards for Progress Made

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