Advocates for gender equity in academia have been working to effect institutional change for thirty years and, while much has changed, numerous studies and reports make it clear that much remains the same. The participants in this conference have all made significant contributions to our understanding of the situation women currently face in academia, highlighting the effects of a diffuse set of barriers to women's participation: small scale, often unintended differences in recognition, support, and response that can generate large scale differences in outcome for women. The aim of this conference, convened at Barnard College, December 9-10, 2004, was to take stock of extant research and interventions, to chart a course forward.

The proceedings of "Women, Work, and the Academy" included both a public panel discussion and a series of working sessions on specific topics. Participants' executive summaries are all available through the links above, and you can view a full digital video of the panel discussion with Nancy Hopkins (MIT), Claude Steele (Stanford), and Virginia Valian (Hunter College and CUNY Graduate Center).

A practice-oriented report on the proceedings has been published in the BCRW report series, New Feminist Solutions. Visit the New Feminist Solutions website for more information or you can download the report here (PDF).

"Women, Work, and the Academy" was organized by Alison Wylie and Janet Jakobsen, and has been made possible by a generous grant from the Virginia C. Gildersleeve Fund of Barnard College, with assistance from the ADVANCE Program at the Earth Institute at Columbia University.