The Chronicle of Higher Education
by Liz McMillen
July 27, 2021
Scholars of all kinds and across ranks have had their careers disrupted by the Covid-19 pandemic. But a substantial body of social-science evidence suggests that women, who were already disproportionately burdened, have been hit especially hard. How should institutions of higher learning respond? How can tenure and promotion procedures adequately reflect gendered disparities in Covid impact? How can the amplified demands of child care and elder care be addressed? Can evaluation criteria — including expectations around leave — be made more transparent?
These and other questions were on the table when The Chronicle’s Liz McMillen spoke with five leading thinkers about the pandemic’s differential impact on female academics: Jessica Calarco, an associate professor of sociology at Indiana University; Vineet Arora, the dean of medical education at the University of Chicago; Robinson W. Fulweiler, an associate professor of biology at Boston University; Henrika McCoy, an associate professor of social work and interim associate dean for academic affairs at the University of Illinois at Chicago; and Joya Misra, professor of sociology at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. Here’s an excerpt from their conversation.