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Gender parity in American academic philosophy: a promising practice study

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Gender parity in American academic philosophy: a promising practice study

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Content Gender Parity in American Academic Philosophy: A Promising Practice Study
by
Magdalena Teresa Bogacz
Rossier School of Education
University of Southern California
A dissertation submitted to the faculty
in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of
Doctor of Education
Aug ust 2021

© Copyright by Magdalena Teresa Bogacz
All Rights Reserved

The Committee for Magdalena Teresa Bogacz certifies the approval of this Dissertation

Helena Seli
Briana Hinga
Mark Power Robison

Rossier School of Education
University of Southern California
2021
iv
Abstract
The main purpose of this study was to examine the University of Utah Department of Philosophy
performance related to a larger problem of practice, that is, the lack of gender parity in American
academic philosophy. More specifically, this study examined the knowledge, motivation, and
organizational influences that were assumed to play a critical role in the stakeholder’s capacity to
close the gender gap among its regular full-time faculty members. Understanding the
circumstances that underpin gender disparity in American academic philosophy may help
identify solutions to the larger problem of gender discrimination and women’s
underrepresentation in academia. Thus, the secondary purpose of this study was to create a set of
generalizable and transferable recommendations to be used by other organizations that struggle
with similar problems of practice. This study found five promising practices to be potentially
transferable. They are divided into two groups: 1) hiring practices, and 2) retaining practices.
Keywords: women in academia, gender parity, gender gap, gender gap in philosophy

v
Acknowledgements
First, I would like to acknowledge my committee chair, Dr Mark Power Robison. I
developed a habit of calling Him Dr Mark soon after we met in mid-May 2019, during my initial
admission interview to the Global Executive program. His meticulous attention to detail and
unconditional support made all the difference in the world. Dr Mark - You made the process of
writing dissertation exciting and fun – and this, I think, is the best complement that a committee
chair can receive.
I would also like to acknowledge my committee members, Drs Helena Seli and Briana
Hinga, for constructive feedback and suggestions about how to improve this study, both in terms
of defining and conceptualizing important topics as well as framing the research questions.
At the University of Utah, I would like to wholeheartedly thank the entire Department of
Philosophy for its warm welcome and willingness to participate in my study. Thank you to all
the research participants for the hours that you spent sharing your experiences with me – without
You, my dissertation would not be possible. Within the UU Department of Philosophy, I would
like to especially acknowledge Dr Matt Haber, the Chair of the Department. His excitement
about my study and his deep commitment to diversifying philosophy reinforced my belief that
what I was doing was important and needed.
At Bakersfield College, where I currently work, I would like to acknowledge my Chair,
Michael McNellis, for accommodating me when I needed time and energy to focus on my
doctorate program. Thank you for always being there for me and cheering me up when I needed
it the most.
Finally, I would like to thank my mom and dad who supported me, from Poland, in
conducting this research, and my husband, Jake, for patience.
vi
Table of Contents
Abstract .......................................................................................................................................... iv
Acknowledgements ..........................................................................................................................v
List of Tables ............................................................................................................................... viii
List of Figures ................................................................................................................................ ix
Background of the Problem .................................................................................................2
Importance of a Promising Practice Project .........................................................................7
Organizational Context and Mission ...................................................................................8
Organizational Performance Status ......................................................................................9
Organizational Performance Goal and Current Performance ..............................................9
Description of Stakeholder Groups ....................................................................................10
Stakeholder Group for the Study .......................................................................................11
Purpose of the Project and Questions ................................................................................12
Conceptual and Methodological Framework .....................................................................12
Definitions ..........................................................................................................................13
Organization of the Project ................................................................................................13
Chapter Two: Review of the Literature .........................................................................................15
Women in Academia ..........................................................................................................16
Significance of Women’s Underrepresentation in Philosophy ..........................................28
Faculty Knowledge, Motivation and Organizational Influences .......................................31
Conclusion .........................................................................................................................48
Chapter Three: Methods ................................................................................................................50
Participating Stakeholders .................................................................................................50
Interview Sampling Strategy ..............................................................................................51
Data Collection and Instrumentation .................................................................................53
vii
Data Analysis .....................................................................................................................57
Credibility and Trustworthiness .........................................................................................58
Ethics ..................................................................................................................................60
Limitations and Delimitations ............................................................................................62
Chapter Four: Results and Findings ...............................................................................................64
Participant Profile ..............................................................................................................65
Knowledge Findings ..........................................................................................................67
Motivation Findings ...........................................................................................................85
Organizational Findings .....................................................................................................92
Emergent Theme: Family-Friendly Environment ............................................................110
Summary of Knowledge, Motivation, and Organizational Influences Findings .............112
Chapter Five: Transferable Practices ...........................................................................................114
Discussion of Findings .....................................................................................................115
Practices Discovered to be Assets in Reaching Gender Parity ........................................120
Utah Context-Specific Practices ......................................................................................121
Transferable Practices ......................................................................................................123
Future Research ...............................................................................................................131
Conclusion .......................................................................................................................132
References ....................................................................................................................................134
Appendix A: Recruitment Email .................................................................................................142
Appendix B: Information Sheet for Interview Participants .........................................................143
Appendix C: Interview Protocol for Philosophy Faculty Members ............................................145
Appendix D: Job Ad for the Assistant Professor in Applied Ethics ............................................148

viii
List of Tables
Table 1: Assumed Knowledge Influences and Types 38
Table 2: Assumed Motivation Influences 41
Table 3: Assumed Organizational Influences 48
Table 4: Interview Participants (n = 10) 66
Table 5: Assumed Knowledge Influences and Validation Status 68
Table 6: Assumed Motivation Influences and Validation Status 86
Table 7: Assumed Organizational Influences and Validation Status 93
Table 8: Influences and Validation Status 116
Table 9: List of Promising Practices 120

ix
List of Figures
Appendix E: Philosophy Department Diversity and Inclusion Statement 149

1

Chapter One: Introduction
In the United States, lack of gender parity in academic philosophy is the most
pronounced gender imbalance in all of the arts and humanities disciplines (Institute of Education
Sciences, 2016; National Science Foundation, 2019; Office of Education Research and
Improvement, 2000). Research indicates that women earn 61% of all master’s and professional-
practice degrees in the humanities and 54% of the doctoral degrees in the field. In 2016,
however, women attained only 25% of master’s degrees and 31% of doctoral degrees awarded in
philosophy (Institute of Education Sciences, 2016). In 2018, the number of doctoral degrees
earned by women in philosophy dropped to 28% (National Science Foundation, 2019).
Moreover, the number of women serving as tenured faculty at top-50 philosophy doctoral
programs is 25% despite holding almost half of all postsecondary faculty appointments in the
humanities (Institute of Education Sciences, 2016; The Philosophical Gourmet, 2018; Van
Camp, 2018). Although many institutions nationwide emphasize their efforts to diversify
academic departments through a variety of hiring and retaining practices, recent statistics show
that women’s underrepresentation in philosophy departments has persisted steadily for the last 20
years and it remains, on average, at 25% (American Association of University Professors, 2019;
Valian, 1998).
According to the Philosophical Gourmet (2018) report, thus far there are only three
universities that have reached and maintained at least 50% of women faculty that are tenured or
are on tenure-track. They are the University of Oregon with 57% women, the University of Utah
with 50% women, and the University of Iowa also with 50% women among its faculty members
in philosophy. Among these three, only the University of Utah was ranked among the top-50
2

philosophy doctoral programs in the United States (The Philosophical Gourmet, 2018; Van
Camp, 2018).
Understanding the circumstances that underpin gender disparity in American academic
philosophy may help identify solutions to the larger problem of gender discrimination and
women’s underrepresentation in academia. Thus, the purpose of this dissertation was to identify
promising practices at an organization that achieved gender parity within its philosophy faculty.
Specifically, this study focused on the University of Utah Department of Philosophy and its
regular full-time faculty members to examine factors leading to its success as a department with
gender parity.
Background of the Problem
The gender gap in academia is not new. Numerous studies demonstrate that women are
underrepresented, underrated, and under-rewarded in most academic disciplines and this has
persisted for decades (American Association of University Professors 2019; Blau & Kahn, 2016;
Haslanger 2008; Kelly & Grant, 2012; Hutchison & Jenkins 2013; Stewart & Valian 2018).
Some fields, however, are more gender-imbalanced than others. For instance, gender disparities
such that women are disproportionately underrepresented in science, technology, engineering,
and mathematics (STEM) fields and occupations are a well-documented anomaly (Kahn &
Ginther, 2017). These gender disparities permeate academia and labor market in various ways,
from the number of students enrolled in undergraduate courses and the number of students
earning degrees to the number of full-time faculty members and earning gaps (Hutchison &
Jenkins 2013; Kahn & Ginther, 2017).
Furthermore, on average there are larger gender gaps in computer science, engineering
and physics than in mathematics, biology, and chemistry (Cheryan, Ziegler, Montoya, & Jiang,
3

2017). This is visible with women earning more than 50% of undergraduate degrees in biology
but less than 20% of the undergraduate degrees in computer science (National Science
Foundation, 2014a.). Similarly, Khan and Ginter (2017) observed that there are significantly
more women taking U.S. STEM Advanced Placement Test in biology (24%) and environmental
science (13.3%) than in computer science (2.2%) or physics (0.9%). Despite the fact that some
STEM fields are more gender-balanced than others, in general women are underrepresented and
underpaid in most STEM disciplines. They obtain only 37% of all undergraduate degrees and
they earn only 79% to 82% of what men earn (Blau & Kahn, 2016; Kelly & Grant, 2012;
National Science Foundation, 2014a).
Additionally, although women dominate arts and humanities nationwide, a survey of
disciplines within arts and humanities shows that women outnumber men in almost all subfields
except for philosophy and related disciplines (Institute of Education Sciences, 2016; National
Science Foundation, 2019). Women in philosophy are significantly underrepresented in all
academic ranks, from undergraduate students to full-time faculty. Women earn about 30% of
undergraduate degrees, 25% of master’s degrees and 31% of doctoral degrees awarded in
philosophy (Institute of Education Sciences, 2016). Moreover, women occupy only about 25% of
tenured faculty positions at the top 50 philosophy doctoral programs in the U.S (The
Philosophical Gourmet, 2018; Van Camp, 2018). The number of women who are full-time
faculty members increases when the prestige or ranking of the university or college decreases,
with the highest numbers of female tenured faculty working in community colleges (White, Chu,
& Czujko, 2014). This could be evidence of devaluating of scholarship by women and thus
another gender bias symptom.
4

Crenshaw (1991) explained that the problem of gender bias can be intensified by
accumulating multiple “disadvantaged” identities that make particular women vulnerable to a
variety of discriminations at the same time. In her theory of intersectionality, Crenshaw focused
on a unique combination of race and gender and shed light on the idea that women of color share
a unique experience of facing compounded bias. American Philosophical Association (APA)
data supports this theory. The current demographics of the profession show that 97% of PhD
philosophers are White (APA, 2019). APA has over 11,000 members 125 of whom are Black,
and this includes 30 Black women holding a PhD in philosophy and working in academia (APA,
2019; Gines, 2011). In addition, there are variations within philosophy itself. The area of ethics
is closer to gender parity than other fields in philosophy such as logic (Schwitzgebel & Jennings,
2017). Regardless of the symptoms. manifestations, and racial intricacies, there are multiple
ways to understand the cause of gender imbalance which are examined below.
Researchers have proposed a number of hypotheses to explain why the female
underrepresentation in philosophy persists (Dougherty et al., 2015). Building on Dougherty et
al.’s (2015) work, although they included a significantly higher number of categories, with 19
hypotheses total, in what follows are five relevant hypotheses for this promising practice study.
The purpose of highlighting these five particular hypotheses is to provide a topical context of
why women are absent from philosophy departments.
The first hypothesis, the social factors hypothesis, encompasses social and psychological
phenomena such as gender schemas, implicit bias, evaluation bias and stereotype threat, and it
insists that they could explain the gender gap (Haslanger, 2008; Saul, 2013; Steele, 2010; Valian,
2004). Schemas are mental frameworks that serve as cognitive shortcuts. They are units of
information that guide people’s categorization of new things, people, and experiences with which
5

we come in contact. They further, and more centrally, aid in fast judgements and decision
making (Hutchison & Jenkins, 2013; Saul, 2013; Valian, 1998; Valian, 2004). Gender schemas
are default settings that reference what it means to be male and what it means to be female. They
assign different characteristics and expectations to people depending on their gender. This often
leads to evaluation of men and women based on expectations through schemas and not the actual
merit of the individual. This is evaluation bias. Gender schemas frequently make people
“overrate men and underrate women” (Valian, 2004 p. 208). Moreover, because such biases
often operate on a subconscious level, they can influence persons’ perceptions, judgements, and
behavior without their awareness (Valian, 2004 p. 208). Finally, because stereotype threat tends
to occur when extra pressure is put on a performer, women’s acts can be negatively affected due
to being observed (Saul, 2013; Schouten, 2015). Women are not expected to do well in many
analytic disciplines, such as physics, engineering, or philosophy, and because they know of those
expectations, they tend to confirm them.
The second hypothesis that could potentially account for women underrepresentation in
philosophy is the hostile environment hypothesis primarily based on Sally Haslanger’s work
(2008). Haslanger described philosophy departments as “hypermasculine places” that are
“competitive,” “highly judgmental,” and “hostile to femininity.” Thus, if philosophy departments
truly are “socially dysfunctional places” with “hypermasculine environments,” then women
might not feel welcomed to come and stay in such climates (Haslanger, 2008, p. 217).
The third hypothesis is the role model hypothesis. The study by Paxton et al. (2012)
indicated that “there is a positive correlation between the percentage of female philosophy
majors and of female faculty members found within particular institutions” (p. 954). Thus,
female students might choose not to major in philosophy because they do not see themselves
6

reflected in the professoriate. Along these lines, Cheshire Calhoun (2009) suggested that “female
students have difficulty envisioning themselves as philosophers and this produces a weaker
attachment to the discipline” (p. 219). When female students are not taught by female professors,
nor read female philosophers, they have trouble envisioning themselves successful and tend to
leave the discipline.
The fourth hypothesis is the gendered interests hypothesis suggesting that women are
more into working with people than working with abstract objects (Su, Rounds & Armstrong,
2009). Thus, they choose disciplines that are more social, such as education or nursing, as
opposed to investigative and analytical, such as physics or philosophy. The different-interests
hypothesis has received substantial attention in recent years (Dougherty et al., 2015; Thompson
et al. 2016; Goguen, 2018).
Finally, the fifth hypothesis is the gendered intuitions hypothesis. Buckwalter and Stich
(2014) suggested that there are different-gender philosophical intuitions and that women’s views
are not validated by the discipline itself because they do not align with the classical approach to
solving philosophical problems. Thus, women stay away from practicing philosophy because
their views are not recognized as intuitive, and therefore, they are automatically labeled as
inaccurate.
Regardless of the cause, the lack of gender parity in academic philosophy affects several
different groups. It affects women in terms of marginalization and potential gender
discrimination if the social factors hypothesis is true. It also affects the student body in terms of
lack of female role models and academic mentorship. Finally, it affects the disciplines itself
(Kings, 2019; Holtzman, 2016; Saul 2013). Saul (2013) believed that the knowledge that
philosophy produces directly reflects the environment in which philosophy takes place. She
7

further states that philosophy is best produced in fair conditions where all philosophers are
valued equally. On the other hand, if the field is depleted of women and their perspectives, “the
philosophy being produced is likely to be substantially worse than it would be in a fairer
environment” (Saul, 2013, p. 50). Similarly, Holtzman (2019) explained that because philosophy
is a social endeavor, any “unwarranted, prejudicial dismissal of interlocutors can ultimately lead
to degradation of the quality of information provided by those interlocutors” (p. 305). Hence, the
treatment of women as philosophically inferior, or simply irrelevant, and excluding their
opinions from the discipline can negatively affect the quality of knowledge produced. Such
knowledge is, at best, unnecessarily limited in scope and, at worst, impoverished.
Importance of a Promising Practice Project
It is important to examine promising practices in the context of this problem for a variety
of reasons. As a result of gender disparity in philosophy, women and their ideas are not fairly
represented (Haslanger, 2008; Saul, 2013; Valian 1998; 2004). According to Schwitzgebel and
Jennings (2017), although women constitute a little over half of the total population in the United
States, “they do not occupy half of all full-time university faculty positions, publish half of all
academic journal articles, nor constitute half of the highest social status members of academia”
(p. 3). This is true for academia in general and for the discipline of philosophy in particular.
Wilson (2011) framed this problem referring to American philosophy as “a microcosm of the
larger US society” where hierarchical organizations of people stem from systemic gender
discrimination (p. 853).
Furthermore, if the social factors hypothesis about the cause of the gender gap in
philosophy is true, then women underrepresentation in this field can be a result of systemic
gender discrimination. If this is the case, then solving the gender gap in philosophy departments
8

is a matter of social justice. Hence, studying promising practices can help identify appropriate
strategies to include the previously marginalized group within the academic discipline.
However, women are not the only victims of the gender gap in philosophy. The entire
discipline of philosophy also suffers (Holtzman, 2016; Kings, 2019). The lack of gender parity
across academic departments affects the way in which philosophy is practiced nationwide. If the
field is influenced by implicit bias, stereotype threat, and gender discrimination, then the
philosophy produced is likely to be less reliable than if it were to be done more objectively (Saul,
2013). Therefore, it is necessary to study promising practices and close the gender gap in
academic philosophy for two significant reasons: (a) fairness of organizational practices and (b)
the quality of philosophy itself.
Organizational Context and Mission
The University of Utah (UU) is a public top-tier research university founded in 1850 in
Salt Lake City. UU’s philosophy department, established in 1919, represents a promising
practice because it reached gender parity with women in exactly 50% of regular full-time faculty
positions. This stands in stark contrast to the 21% to 25% average among the other top-50
philosophy doctoral programs in the United States (The Philosophical Gourmet 2018; U.S.
Department of Education, 2008; Van Camp, 2018). Currently, the department consists of 20
regular full-time faculty, five career-line faculty, two adjunct faculty, and two associate
instructors (page 13 contains a description of faculty categories). The UU Department of
Philosophy typically has around 250 undergraduate majors, majoring in either philosophy or
philosophy of science, and about 20 to 24 graduate students on an annual basis. The UU
Department of Philosophy “affirms the value of philosophy for everyone” (UU Department of
Philosophy, 2020). It recognizes that the real value to philosophical inquiry lies in “including
9

people from a diverse array of backgrounds.” In its mission and diversity statement, the UU
philosophy department emphasizes the importance of its ongoing effort to promote inclusivity. It
“actively works towards addressing historical injustices and contemporary biases,” to fulfill its
commitment “to ensure accessibility to all community members” and “to affirm the value of
philosophy for everyone” (UU Department of Philosophy, 2020).
Organizational Performance Status
The UU philosophy department represents a promising practice within the discipline
because it reached gender parity with exactly 50% of regular full-time women faculty as
compared to between 21% and 25% among top-50 U.S. philosophy doctoral programs (The
Philosophical Gourmet 2018; U.S. Department of Education, 2008; Van Camp, 2018). This is
one of only two top-50 philosophy departments in the nation that have equal representation of
women and men in the discipline (Van Camp, 2018). Understanding the circumstances that
underpin the UU philosophy department’s gender parity may help identify solutions to the larger
problem of gender discrimination and women underrepresentation in academia.
Organizational Performance Goal and Current Performance
In its diversity and inclusion statement, the UU philosophy department affirms the value
of philosophy for everyone (UU Department of Philosophy, 2020). It also recognizes the value to
philosophical inquiry of including people from a diverse array of backgrounds. The department
acknowledges that the discipline of philosophy has a history of excluding disadvantaged
individuals, which continues to be manifested in various ways, including underrepresentation in
the profession, especially of those from disadvantaged groups. The faculty members aspire to
create a departmental climate that is open to all and mutually supportive for all community
10

members. In addition, the department aims to cultivate a positive, respectful, and collegial
departmental climate so they can be an inclusive space safe for learning and inquiry.
Hence, the UU philosophy department’s promising practices enable it to actively work
towards addressing historical injustices and contemporary biases, and to fulfill its commitment to
ensure accessibility to all community members and to affirm the value of philosophy for
everyone. However, while the UU philosophy department made great strides in gender parity, it
is possible it did not reach the same level of inclusion for other historically disadvantaged
groups. This promising practice study focuses specifically on the inclusion of women and it
makes no claims as to whether the department has met the entirety of the diversity and inclusion
statement.
Description of Stakeholder Groups
Among others, there are three key stakeholders’ groups who directly contributed to and
benefit from the achievement of gender parity in the UU philosophy department. These groups
are students, faculty members, as well as the college of humanities and university leadership.
The next few sections briefly describe the three stakeholders relevant for this project.
Currently, the department has around 250 undergraduate students and 24 graduate
students with nine in master’s program and 15 in doctoral program. They have been selected as a
stakeholder because all students, but especially female students, can benefit from an increased
number of female faculty members. This is because a higher number of female faculty members
entails a higher number of female advisors, mentors, and role models within philosophy.
Moreover, students contribute to the closing of the gender gap because increasing female
students’ participation in the discipline can potentially increases the pool of future female
candidates for faculty positions.
11

As mentioned earlier, there are 20 regular full-time faculty members, five career-line
faculty members, two adjunct faculty members, and two associate instructors. Faculty members
are imperative to achieving gender parity for at least two central reasons. First, faculty members
actively participate in hiring processes set forth by the university. They search and select job
candidates that they later invite for interviews. The faculty members, thus, are in a position to
recommend potential job candidates to the dean of the college of humanities. Second, faculty
members play a role in establishing a culture in the department where the social and
psychological phenomena that perpetuate the gender gap might be eliminated.
Finally, the college of humanities and university leadership, including the dean and
associate dean for academic affairs in the college of humanities as well as the president of the
university together with the senior vice president for academic affairs and vice president for
equity, diversity and inclusion, form a stakeholder group. Both the college of humanities and
university leadership contribute to the promising practice by setting in place transparent,
inclusive, and fair practices for hiring faculty members. Additionally, the UU leadership created
organizational culture for the entire institution and ensures implementation of equitable policies.
Stakeholder Group for the Study
While all stakeholders’ contributions played a pivotal role in the achievement of the
overall organizational goal of gender parity within the department of philosophy, it was critical
to understand the promising practices utilized by its regular full-time faculty members. Regular
faculty members play a significant role in hiring processes set forth by the university and,
together, form a culture and build a departmental climate. Learning about the environment in
which female faculty work, that is, what attracted and retained them, might help with
understanding what enabled the gender parity that does not exist in most of other higher
12

education institutions in the country. Therefore, for the purpose of this promising practice study
the stakeholder of focus was a portion of full-time faculty members in the UU Department of
Philosophy.
Purpose of the Project and Questions
The purpose of this project was to study the UU Department of Philosophy performance
related to a larger problem of practice, that is, the lack of gender parity in academic philosophy.
While a complete study would focus on all stakeholders, for practical purposes, the stakeholder
focused on in this analysis was a portion of regular full-time faculty members at the UU
philosophy department. The analysis focused on the philosophy faculty members’ assets in the
areas of knowledge and skill, motivation, and organizational resources. As such, the questions
that guided the promising practice study were the following:
1. What faculty knowledge, motivation, and organizational factors support achieving and
maintaining gender parity among the faculty?
2. What recommendations in the areas of knowledge, motivation, and organizational
resources may be appropriate for solving the problem of practice at another organization?
Conceptual and Methodological Framework
This promising practice study utilized a conceptual framework derived from the gap
analysis model developed by Clark and Estes (2008) and adapted to suit the needs of a promising
practice study. Gap analysis is an organizational human performance problem-solving tool. It
precisely delineates an organization’s performance goals and then determines gaps between an
organization’s current achievement level and its desired achievement level. However, for the
purpose of this research, instead of concentrating on performance gaps, this study identified the
most important stakeholder assets to help understand organizational goal achievement.
13

From a methodological point of view, this study employed a case study approach. It used
descriptive data obtained from interviews, documents review, literature review and content
analysis to investigate and examine assumptions made about stakeholders’ knowledge and
motivation assets as well as organizational context, culture, and support structures. These
assumptions were generated based on personal knowledge and related literature. The study
finishes with recommending research-based solutions for other philosophy departments to help
them reach gender parity in their own respective organizations.
Definitions
The following distinctions are taken from the UU philosophy department website. The
definitions below have been created based upon the consultation with the current philosophy
department chair.
• Regular (full-time) faculty: tenure-line faculty
• Career-line faculty: full-time, non-tenure-track, teaching faculty
• Adjunct faculty: faculty holding tenured appointment at the UU in a discipline other than
philosophy and simultaneously serving as an adjunct assistant professor in the philosophy
department
• Associate instructor: part-time, non-tenure-track, instructor
Organization of the Project
This study comprises five chapters. Chapter One has described the key concepts and
terminology commonly used in discussions about gender parity and women underrepresentation
in philosophy. This chapter also introduced the organization’s mission, goals, and stakeholders in
conjunction with the initial concepts of gap analysis. Chapter Two provides a review of the
literature surrounding the scope of the study. In addition, the chapter addresses topics of women
14

in arts and humanities, women in philosophy, a survey of hypotheses explaining women’s
underrepresentation in philosophy and the significance of such gender gap. Chapter Three details
assumed assets, choice of participants, data collection, and analysis. Chapter Four illustrates data
and analyzes results. Chapter Five concludes this study by offering research-based
recommendations for practice that other organizations can utilize as well as an implementation
and evaluation plan for such recommendations.

15

Chapter Two: Review of the Literature
Women have historically found themselves excluded from academic philosophy. There
are many hypotheses as to why this history is as well as why women continue to be
underrepresented in the field. However, there is a small group of philosophy departments in the
United States that are findings ways to include more women among their faculty members and
by this overcome gender disparity. One of them is the UU Department of Philosophy. This
chapter explores both the possible hypotheses as to why for so long women have been excluded
from academic philosophy as well as possible reasons that allowed the UU Department of
Philosophy to overcome this historic exclusion.
More specifically, this chapter reviews current statistics about the visibility of women in
arts and humanities contrasted with women in philosophy. This chapter also reviews five
common hypotheses about women’s underrepresentation in philosophy including social factors
hypothesis, hostile environment hypothesis, lack of role models hypothesis, gendered interests
hypothesis, and gendered intuitions hypothesis. Additionally, this chapter touches on the
significance of women’s underrepresentation in philosophy, reviewing the literature on social
justice and the quality of philosophy affected by the gender imbalance. Finally, this chapters
ends with a review of learning, motivation, and organizational factors with a view toward
understanding regular full-time philosophy faculty members’ knowledge, motivation, and the
organizational influences affecting their performance at the organization of study in this
dissertation. Ultimately, I hypothesize that no matter the actual reason for the exclusion of
women in academic philosophy, there is a number of powerful influences and strategic practices
that can help with closing the gender gap in the field.

16

Women in Academia
Although there has been significant progress in terms of the visibility and advancement
of women in some academic fields, others still struggle with the persistence of gender imbalance
(Stewart & Valian, 2018). For instance, women outnumber men in almost all major
concentrations within arts and humanities except for few: philosophy and related disciplines
(Institute of Education Sciences, 2016; National Science Foundation, 2019; Schwitzgebel &
Jennings, 2017). The peculiarity and scope of this phenomenon will be reviewed below.
Women in Arts and Humanities
In the 1960s, the humanities, awarded only a small portion of doctoral degrees to women
(American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 2017). For instance, in 1966 only 19% of doctoral
degrees in the humanities were awarded to women. By 1970, women achieved gender parity in
the humanities in terms of master’s degrees allocation (American Academy of Arts and Sciences,
2017). This number steadily increased and by the 1990s the majority of all new humanities
doctoral degrees recipients were women (Institute of Education Sciences, 2016). This trend
persists. As of 2017, women earn 61% of all master’s and professional-practice degrees in the
humanities and 54% of the doctoral degrees in the field (American Academy of Arts and
Sciences, 2017). Moreover, women make up over 50% of all postsecondary faculty in the
humanities (American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 2017). For instance, 52% of all full-time
faculty in English and foreign languages are women (National Science Foundation, 2014a).
However, four of the humanities award less than half of their doctoral degrees to women.
These disciplines are classical studies, religion, history, and philosophy (Institute of Education
Sciences, 2016). Additionally, there are two branches of the humanities where men are at least
twice as likely as women to teach: history and philosophy (National Science Foundation, 2014a).
17

Similarly, although women make up more than half of total graduate enrollment in arts and
humanities, they constitute a very low percentage of philosophy and religion, which is about 5%
(White et al., 2014).
Women have dominated the arts and humanities since reaching gender parity in 1970.
This is evident in the total graduate enrollment that they account for, in the numbers of degrees
they earn, as well as in the number of all postsecondary faculty positions that they hold.
However, although women outnumber men in almost all subfields in arts and humanities, there is
one concentration in particular where they are significantly underrepresented, and that is
philosophy.
Women in Philosophy
Since the 1970s, things have changed for women in philosophy. Once completely
excluded from the field, after over 2,400 years of philosophical practice, the “lovers of wisdom”
finally allowed women to actively participate in the field (Beebee, 2013). Today, women make
up about 25% of professional philosophers in the United States.
Women’s underrepresentation in philosophy extends to all academic ranks, from
undergraduate students to full-time faculty members. This encompasses women’s visibility in the
total student enrollment, the number of degrees attained, the number of tenured faculty positions
held, and the number of publications in the most prestigious philosophy journals (Haslanger,
2008; Hutchinson & Jenkins, 2013; The Philosophical Gourmet Report, 2018; Van Camp, 2018).
Additionally, there are variations within philosophy itself as well as racial variations among
women philosophers.
In 2016, women attained only 25% of master’s degrees and 31% of doctoral degrees
awarded in philosophy (Institute of Education Sciences, 2016). In 2018, the number of doctoral
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degrees earned by women in philosophy dropped to 28% (National Science Foundation, 2019).
Furthermore, women are disproportionately underrepresented at elite institutions (Haslanger,
2008; National Science Foundation, 2014a). Women are more likely than men to teach
philosophy in community colleges, while men are more likely than women to teach philosophy
in research universities (National Science Foundation 2014a; Schwitzgebel, & Jennings, 2017).
In fact, the number of women as tenured faculty at top-50 philosophy doctoral programs is at
25% (The Philosophical Gourmet Report, 2018; Van Camp, 2018). Additionally, Schwitzgebel
and Jennings (2017) reported the percentage of faculty at different professional rank at
Philosophical Gourmet Report-rated U.S. Ph.D. programs. On their analysis, women constitute
37% of all assistant professors, 29% of all associate professors, and 20% of all full professors. It
is worth noting that data from 2017 on women faculty indicating their visibility at 25% shows a
noticeable improvement from 1992, in which between 13%-18% of professional philosophers
were women (Van Camp, 2018). Although the progress by ranks is slow but steady, extensive
ground remains to be covered for women to reach parity in academic philosophy.
When it comes to authorship in philosophy journals, women author between 14%-16% of
all publications (Schwitzgebel & Jennings, 2017; Wilhelm, Conklin, & Hassoun, 2018). More
specifically, in five elite journals, women author 15% of publications in ethics and 10% in non-
ethics (Schwitzgebel & Jennings, 2017). Wilhelm, Conklin, and Hassoun (2018) called this
number “extremely low” and conclude that “the percentage of women authors is less than the
percentage of women faculty in different ranks and at different kinds of institutions” (p. 1447).
Some authors speculate that the reason for such low visibility of women in prestigious journals is
evaluation bias that stems promptly from gender bias (Macnell, Driscoll & Hunt, 2015; Saul,
2013; Wilhelm, Conklin, and Hassoun, 2018).
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Moreover, women’s underrepresentation varies within philosophy itself. That is, moral,
political, and social philosophy are closer to gender parity than other areas of philosophy. The
percentage of faculty who are women in value theory (i.e., ethics) is 34%, in history of
philosophy and traditions is 30%; in language, epistemology, mind, and metaphysics is at 20%,
and in science, logic, and math is at 16% (Schwitzgebel & Jennings, 2017). The authors further
noted that “the most prominent women philosophers of the past hundred years have been known
primarily from work in these areas” (p. 4). They list Simone de Beauvoir, Hannah Arendt, and
Martha Nussbaum as the few examples in support of their findings.
Finally, there are racial variations among women philosophers. While women make up
about 25% of all professional philosophers working in academia, women of color constitute
0.2% of this part if the professoriate (Chronicle of Higher Education, 2007). The comparably
lower number of women of color might be due to the fact that gender discrimination combined
with racial discrimination creates a specific kind of circumstances for women of color. These
circumstances cause women of color to face multiple discriminations at the same time and,
compared to White women, make it even more difficult for them to access and persist in the
discipline.
The enduring gender imbalance in philosophy is multifaceted. Women are
underrepresented in all professional ranks, in the most prestigious institutions, and in the elite
philosophy journals. Moreover, there are variations within philosophy itself, with the most
women in Moral and Social philosophy and the least in Logic and Philosophy of Science.
Finally, there are racial variations among women philosophers with women of color occupying
less than 0.2% of all academic positions in the country. The persistent gender imbalance in
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philosophy has received substantial attention in recent years. Researchers and philosophers have
offered numerous explanations to account for the persistence of this gender gap.
A Survey of Hypotheses Explaining Women’s Underrepresentation in Philosophy
This dissertation focused on reviewing five hypotheses explaining women’s
underrepresentation in philosophy that are the most relevant for this promising practice study.
The five hypotheses under review came from Dougherty et al. (2015) and include social factors
hypothesis, hostile environment hypothesis, lack of role models hypothesis, gendered interests
hypothesis, and gendered intuitions hypothesis. The following sections will analyze the pertinent
hypotheses in a greater detail.
Social Factors Hypothesis
The social factors hypothesis comprises social and psychological phenomena such as
gender schemas, implicit bias, evaluation bias and stereotype threat and insists that they are
predominately responsible for the persistent gender imbalance in philosophy. Gender schemas
are mental frameworks that serve as cognitive shortcuts (Valian, 1999, 2004). As people grow
and learn, they create hypotheses about the physical and mental world that they encounter. Those
hypotheses are often formed from generalizations that help individuals navigate through the
world in which they live. They guide their categorization of new things, people, and experiences
with which they come in contact. They further, and more centrally, aid in their fast judgment and
decision making (Saul, 2013; Valian, 2004). Gender schemas are sort of default settings that
reference what it means to be male and what it means to be female. Schemas assign different
characteristics and expectations to people depending solely on their gender.
For instance, Valian (2004) argued that people generally think of men as independent,
task-oriented, and rational, whereas they think of women as nurturing, emotional, and social.
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Traits like originality, excellence, leadership, and intellectual ability are more associated with
men than they are with women. Valian continued: “In brief, men act while women feel and
express their feelings” (p. 208). This historical observation permeates the way in which
individuals continue to frame others by gender (Ridgeway, 2011). The implication for
professional life is that this often leads people to evaluate men and women based on expectations
through schemas and not the actual merit of the individual (otherwise said: judgment of the
person as its own object, i.e., an objective judgment). Valian (2004) stated that schemas are
dangerous insofar as they affect perceptions of competence. Schemas, often operating on a
subconscious level, cause people to “overrate men and underrate women” (Valian, 2004; p. 208).
Implicit gender schemas are responsible for generating a foundational gender bias received from
many past generations (Stewart & Valian, 2018).
Our reactions to others that are unconsciously affected by the group the persons belong to
or identify with are called implicit biases (Saul, 2013). Implicit bias refers to the way a
marginalized group is perceived or evaluated. Most biases influence our behaviors and reactions
without our awareness. This is the case with gender biases. Interestingly, both women and men
are biased against women (Saul, 2013; Steinpreis, Anders, & Ritzke, 1999).
Furthermore, gender bias is a leading factor contributing to evaluation bias. Studies
indicating the impact of gender on evaluating one’s performance or merit have been around for
over 20 years (Macnell, Driscoll & Hunt, 2015; Saul, 2013; Steinpreis, Anders, & Ritzke, 1999;
Stewart & Valian, 2018). For instance, blind review in journals or among CV reviewers favors
women (Saul, 2013). On the other hand, the presence of a female name has a strongly negative
effect on evaluation. Macnell, Driscoll, and Hunt (2015) confirmed this phenomenon among
students’ ratings of teaching. In the experiment, the authors disguised instructors’ gender identity
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in an online course. Nevertheless, students repeatedly rated the male identity significantly higher
than the female identity, regardless of the instructor’s actual gender. This demonstrates gender
bias.
Women’s performance can be affected by yet another phenomenon: stereotype threat.
Stereotype threat occurs when extra pressure, due to being observed, is put on a performer and it
negatively affects his or her act (Steele, 1997). In other words, stereotype threat has to do with
underperforming while being watched. Spencer, Logel, and Davies (2016) explained that
“Stereotype threat describes the situation in which there is a negative stereotype about a person’s
group, and he or she is concerned about being judged or treated negatively on the basis of this
stereotype” (p. 416). This entails that, generally, women are expected to perform lower or lesser
than men, in particular situation, and because they are aware of those expectations, they tend to
confirm them.
When considering the social factors hypothesis, it is important to focus on the distinction
between implicit bias and stereotype threat. Implicit bias refers to the way a marginalized group
is perceived, whereas stereotype threat influences the way the members of that group perform.
Both of these occurrences maintain social stigmatization and can help explain why so few
women get into academic philosophy. Women are simply not expected to do well in many of the
analytic disciplines, such as physics, engineering, or philosophy. Very often, precisely because
they know of those expectancies, they tend to confirm them.
Furthermore, social and psychological phenomena constituting the social factors
hypothesis might be heightened by adding another dimension to gender discrimination, that is,
race. Crenshaw (1991) explained that women of color, combining at least two identities, are
victims of both racial and gender bias. This means that women of color are devalued more than
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White women which might lead to their lower visibility in academia in general, and in
philosophy in particular.
To conclude, the social factors hypothesis tries to explain the gender gap in philosophy
by highlighting social and psychological phenomena that influence either the evaluation or the
performance of women. Among those, there are negative implicit biases about women’s ability
in philosophy as well as women’s underperformance due to social pressures such as stereotype
threats. Another hypothesis used to explain women’s underrepresentation in philosophy is the
hostile environment hypothesis.
Hostile Environment Hypothesis
The hostile environment hypothesis explains women’s underrepresentation in philosophy
in terms of hostility and the hypermasculinity of academic departments. Stewart and Valian
(2018) introduced two perspectives that together might reinforce unintentional exclusion of
women from academia: individual and institutional. On the individual level, human judgement is
prone to error. As observers and evaluators, people are cognitively fallible. This, combined with
schemas about different groups of people, motivates organizational policies and practices that
accidentally ignore individuals, such as women, whose involvement would enhance appropriate
departments, colleges, and universities.
Haslanger (2008) was one of the first authors to share her experiences openly as a woman
philosopher. She wrote in length about the culture and environment in which philosophy is often
practiced. She refers to philosophy departments as “hypermasculine,” “judgmental,” and
“socially dysfunctional” places where philosophers “combat” each other on a daily basis.
Haslanger further stated that such environments, coupled with heavy gender imbalance, create
challenges for women to feel “at home” or to feel a sense of belonging (2008). Similarly, Stewart
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and Valian (2018) mentioned how women feel like “outsiders,” or “the other,” because anything
they do in male-dominant philosophy departments men view as not fitting in and out of place.
The feeling of estrangement that women experience in philosophy is magnified through their
own field, that is feminist philosophy, having more significant presence in gender studies than in
philosophy departments (Hutchison & Jenkins, 2013).
Beebee (2013) described the business side of philosophy supporting the idea of
institutional mechanisms that reinforce the exclusion of women from philosophy. Business
practices such as hiring, firing, salaries, promotion, tenuring, teaching assignments, and even the
dynamics of departmental life, Beebee insisted, might unintentionally discriminate against
women in philosophy (2013). She further states that “The current members of the philosophy
profession act as de facto gatekeepers who largely determine which persons do – or do not –
carry on the future work of the field” (Beebee, 2013; p. 23). Unintentional exclusion coupled
with the business side of philosophy, Beebee concluded, might be a large part of what keeps
women out of the field.
In summary, the hostile environment hypothesis explains the gender imbalance by
focusing on conditions and contexts in which philosophy is practiced. This hypothesis appeals to
the fact that, since philosophy departments are dominated by men, the environment in which
philosophy is done is often hypermasculine and hostile toward women. This might provoke a
feeling of not belonging and the estrangement that women in philosophy departments frequently
report. One more hypothesis used to explain the gender gap in philosophy is the lack of role
models hypothesis.

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Lack of Role Models Hypothesis
The Lack of Role Models Hypothesis stresses the relationship between the percentage of
female philosophy majors and of female faculty members and it argues that the lack of early
exposure to female role models might discourage female students from pursing philosophy. In
2009, Calhoun highlighted the undergraduate students’ pipeline problem in philosophy. The
author discussed the phenomenon of female students disappearing from the field after taking the
initial, usually the introductory, course in philosophy. Calhoun proposed that perhaps “something
happens in those lower-level philosophy classes” that discourages women from continuing, or
pursing, philosophy altogether (p. 217). Calhoun further stated that this disappearance might be
because female students discover how absent women are from both the course content and who
teaches the subject. This is to say that female students may lose their interest in the field because
they do not see themselves represented among authors and teachers.
Other researchers confirmed Calhoun’s proposal (Paxton et al., 2012; Stewart & Valian,
2018). For instance, Stewart and Valian (2018) insisted that students’ choices and interests can
be impacted by what they observe in the world. If female students do not see faculties like them
in front of the classroom, they might start having difficulties envisioning themselves successful
in that field and ultimately become discouraged from pursing it. Paxton, Figdor, and Tiberius
(2012) added that, since the drop in female philosophy students is mitigated by the presence of
female philosophy faculty, early exposure to female role models as mentors might help to keep
more women in philosophy.
The lack of role models hypothesis makes sense out of the gender gap in philosophy by
pointing out that there is a positive correlation between the number of female philosophy majors
and the number of female faculty members within particular institutions. Furthermore, the
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biggest drop of female students in philosophy occurs between introductory courses and
philosophy majors. Research suggests that this might be due to the lack of early exposure to
female role models. Yet another hypothesis explaining underrepresentation of women in
philosophy is the gendered interests hypothesis.
Gendered Interests Hypothesis
The gendered interests hypothesis proposes that there are gender differences in interests
and further suggests that women prefer to work with people rather than with abstract objects.
Hence, they choose disciplines that focus on interpersonal relationships more than they choose
disciplines, like philosophy, that focus on theoretical investigations. A large meta-analysis of the
variability of sex differences in interests done by Su et al. (2009) indicated that there is a
significant difference in sexes pertaining to their interests. The analysis showed that men pose
realistic and investigative interests, whereas women have more artistic and/or conventional
interests. Moreover, these interests extend to professional occupations. Women pursue job that
are social or artistic and require more social interactions, while men choose professions that are
more theoretical and require contact with objects.
Goguen (2018), while agreeing that there are differences in interests between men and
women, suggested that these differences might be influenced by social factors or even social
pressures. In other words, the fact that women prefer to work with people and not things might
be influenced by social norms and pressures such as gender schemas and stereotypes. However,
whatever the cause of sex differences in interests, biological or cultural, the underrepresentation
of women in philosophy, on account of the gendered interests hypothesis, is caused by their lack
of interest in the field.
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To conclude, the gendered interests hypothesis aims to explain women’s
underrepresentation in philosophy by appealing to the idea that women, solely because they are
women, are not interested in pursuing disciplines that focus on theories and abstract objects. On
the contrary, they prefer studies that focus on people or artistic expression. Whether the cause of
their interests is biological or cultural, the gendered interests hypothesis argues that women do
not purse philosophy because they are not into it. Finally, the last reviewed hypothesis
accounting for women underrepresentation in philosophy is the gendered intuitions hypothesis.
The Gendered Intuitions Hypothesis
The gendered intuitions hypothesis suggests that there are gender differences in
philosophical intuitions and that women’s views are not recognized as proper or adequate
because they do not align with traditional philosophical discourse. The first to hypothesize about
sex differences in philosophical intuitions were Buckwalter and Stich (2013). The researchers’
controversial claim about gendered intuitions suggested that male intuitions align better with
classical approaches to solving old philosophical problems. On this account, male intuition and
their views are prioritized and valorized, by the profession, while female intuitions are discarded
and devalued. Female intuitions are labeled as “inaccurate” or simply “wrong” because they tend
to diverge from philosophical traditions. This labeling might lead to unconscious and
unintentional bias against women. Buckwalter and Stich concluded that these differences might
play an important role in shaping the demography of the profession.
Since Buckwalter and Stich’s (2013) publication, other researchers tried to replicate their
contentious findings. Most of the attempts have failed (Aldeberg, Thompson, Nahmias, 2014;
Seyedsayamdost, 2015). Only a handful of authors agree with Buckwalter and Stich about the
possibility of sex differences in intuitions (Thompson, Adleberg, Nahmias, 2016; Tripodi, 2015).
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However, these authors propose that differences in intuitions might not be fully gendered but,
rather, socially constructed and the product of stereotypical behavior.
In summary, the gendered intuitions hypothesis states that there are gender differences
concerning whose views are validated among philosophy students. Although it was rejected by
several independent group of researchers due to lack of replicability after its initial proposal, this
explanation, nevertheless, permeates conversations about gender imbalance in philosophy.
When considering the survey of hypotheses explaining women underrepresentation in
philosophy, it is worth emphasizing common themes and key ideas as they pertain to this study.
Regardless of the cause of the gender gap, it is an undeniable fact that women have been
excluded from the field based on their gender and assumed inferiority in their cognitive abilities.
These historically discriminatory actions have serious effects on not only the women and the
student body but also philosophy as a whole, its methods, its ideas, and its climate in general.
Significance of Women’s Underrepresentation in Philosophy
The lack of gender parity in academic philosophy affects women in terms of
marginalization and potential gender discrimination. It also affects the student body in terms of
lack of female role models and academic mentorship. Finally, it affects the discipline itself.
Social Justice
If the social factors hypothesis or the hostile environment hypothesis about the cause of
the gender gap in philosophy is true, then women’s underrepresentation in the field can be a
result of systemic gender discrimination. Marginalization of women in philosophy is a form of
historical injustice (Tripodi, 2017). Just like any exclusion, marginalization might turn into
discrimination. This was, and often still is, the case of women in philosophy. The field of
philosophy systematically disadvantaged women (Tripodi, 2017). Women of color, women who
29

are differently able, and women that identify as other than heterosexual are victims of heightened
marginalization and discrimination because of intersecting identities.
Initially, women were entirely excluded from philosophical inquiry. Later, they were
denied any epistemic authority. Finally, they were depicted as “the other” – inferior or deviant
(Hutchison & Jenkins, 2013; Tripodi, 2017). All of these practices contributed to strengthening
gender bias and social hierarchies, especially for women other than White, able, and
heterosexual. Hence, for centuries, the pursuit of knowledge in philosophy generated injustices
(Tripodi, 2017). Only by integrating marginalized groups, such as women, in our knowledge
inquiries can we ensure equality of opportunities and reinforce the idea of social justice.
One way to do so is by introducing organizational practices and policies that intentionally
integrate previously excluded groups in our pursuit of knowledge (Ridgeway, 2011; Stewart &
Valian, 2018; Tripodi, 2015). Ridgeway (2011) suggested that organizational structures and
procedures can embody gender stereotypes. If they do, then “they become independent agents of
gender bias in the workplace” (p. 96). This is to say that organizational cultures shape the work
world for their employees. These cultures can influence implicit cultural assumptions about the
genders and diffuse them, if only needed or necessary. Thus, it is in philosophy departments’
power to constrain or enable gender biases.
Historically, women have been excluded from the field of philosophy based on their
gender and supposed lack of cognitive abilities necessary for philosophizing. The discriminatory
actions against women, such as lack of access to philosophy and devaluation of their views, must
end. And organizational structures and policies, including academic departments, can be a
powerful force in mitigating gender biases and bringing social change. This is important because
closing the gender gap in philosophy will result in an increased number of female faculty
30

members and female mentorship. Furthermore, this might encourage more female students to
purse philosophy and ultimately contribute to the preservation of equal representation of women
in the field. However, women and the student body are not the only victims of the gender gap in
philosophy. The entire discipline of philosophy also suffers.
Quality of Philosophy
The lack of gender parity across academic departments affects the way in which
philosophy is done nationwide. philosophy is impoverished by its history of elitism and
exclusion (Hutchison & Jenkins, 2013). Philosophy cannot claim to represent a human wisdom
in the view of narrow representation of humanity in the ranks of its practitioners. Hence,
mitigating the exclusion of women from the field is necessary for at least one reason that goes
beyond equity goals. This reason is to benefit philosophy itself.
Similarly, Saul (2013) argued that to produce the best possible philosophy that depicts all
knowledge of humanity accurately, “we need the best philosophers to receive proper
encouragement and good jobs, and to work in environments where they can produce their best
work” (p. 50). Women who are framed by their gender alone or gender in combination with other
identities such are race, ethnicity, or sexual orientation, and judged according to stereotypes
might feel discouraged to continue philosophy. In consequence, this might cause the loss of
many talented philosophers. Moreover, philosophy that excludes women is limited in scope,
since it eliminates a variety of different perspectives and intuitions (Holzman, 2016). There
might be truths to which philosophers will have no access unless the discipline increases the
diversity of experiences. These experiences should include women, people of color, those that
identify other than heterosexual, as well as those that are differently able. Hence, as Holzman
pointed out, diversity in philosophy is necessary for both social and philosophical progress.
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Based on the work of authors outlined above, I argue that closing the gender gap in
academic philosophy is necessary for at least two concerns: fairness of organizational practices,
and the quality of philosophy itself. The case is continuously being made that women have been
denied access to the field of philosophy for far too long. When they have finally gained access,
however, their views remained undervalued and trivialized. Since marginalization of women in
philosophy is a form of persistent historical injustice, only by actively integrating women in
knowledge pursuits will secure equality of opportunity and enrich the field of philosophy with a
diverse body of its practitioners and worldviews. Insomuch as organizational practices can play a
crucial role in eliminating the gender gap in philosophy departments nationwide, this chapter
ends with reviewing what knowledge, motivation, and organizational resources that may have
been critical for the philosophy faculty in order to reach the goal of gender parity among its
members.
Faculty Knowledge, Motivation and Organizational Influences
Clark and Estes’ (2008) gap analysis guided this research project as its conceptual
framework. However, for the purpose of suiting the needs of this promising practice study, the
gap analysis model has been slightly modified. Instead of focusing on closing the performance
gap, Clark and Estes’s framework was used to highlight and demonstrate the critical influences
that might have contributed to solving the problem of practice. Among these influences, there
were factors related to stakeholder knowledge, motivation, and organizational resources (Clark &
Estes, 2008). The following sections examine the knowledge, motivation, and organizational
support factors that are assumed to have influenced the UU Department of Philosophy faculty
ability to reach gender parity among its members. The first section discusses the knowledge and
skills influences that are assumed to be both essential and necessary in supporting faculty
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capacity to reach gender parity. The second section examines the assumed motivational
influences. The final section addresses organizational resources and support that might have
helped or hindered the stakeholder goal achievement.
Knowledge and Skills-Related Influences
Knowledge and skills together comprise one of the three major causes of performance
gaps (Clark & Estes, 2008). Effective performers need to know what their performance goals are
and how to accomplish them. This is especially true if they have never reached these, or similar,
goals in the past. They also need to be able to reflect on what they do not know. Finally,
individuals require skills necessary for novel problem solving, if possible future challenges are to
be accounted for. Clark and Estes (2008) stressed that “people are often unaware of their own
lack of knowledge and skills or reluctant to disclose weaknesses” (p. 44). Precisely because of
this frequent lack of awareness of the status and extent of one’s own knowledge and reluctancy
to disclose personal shortcomings, knowledge and skills influences must be assessed during gap
analysis. Adequate knowledge and skills are critical in supporting the achievement of
performance goals, while inadequate knowledge and skills can cripple it.
Knowledge Types
In order to explore faculty knowledge about implementing gender-parit-oriented hiring
practices in a comprehensive manner, Krathwohl’s (2002) framework will be utilized. Krathwohl
(2002) identifies four types of knowledge: factual, conceptual, procedural, and metacognitive.
Factual and conceptual knowledge are often considered together in which case they can be
referred to as declarative knowledge. All four types of knowledge are necessary to assess, as
each of them provides a distinct influence that might help or hinder the stakeholder goal
achievement.
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The first knowledge type is factual. Factual knowledge comprises information that is
commonly referred to as facts and is specific to disciplines. Such knowledge includes basic
elements and domain-related terminology that are necessary to solve problems in a given area
(Krathwohl, 2002; Rueda, 2011). The second knowledge type is conceptual. Conceptual
knowledge consists of knowledge of the basic elements (facts) within a larger structure of a
given discipline. The larger structure includes categories, classifications, generalizations,
theories, and models pertinent to a particular discipline (Krathwohl, 2002; Rueda, 2011). The
third knowledge type is procedural. This is the knowledge of “how” – how to do something.
Procedural knowledge consists of methods, techniques and skills (Krathwohl, 2002). Finally, the
fourth type of knowledge is metacognition. Metacognition is also referred to as self-knowledge
or knowledge of the self (Krathwohl, 2002; Mayer, 2011; Rueda, 2011). This knowledge is
critical in strategic behavior as it allows one to adjust one’s strategic approach while solving
problems. Additionally, metacognition allows one to reflect on one’s own cognition and
effectiveness, as well as to consider contextual and conditional dimensions of a given activity or
a problem (Rueda, 2011).
Although this study examined the four types of knowledge of the UU Department of
Philosophy faculty members’ in five distinct areas, a special focus was placed on metacognitive
knowledge. The areas under investigation were as follow: (a) knowledge of the historical barriers
that kept women from entering philosophy, (b) knowledge of the current challenges facing
women in philosophy, (c) knowledge of the percentage of nationwide philosophy department
faculty that are women, (d) knowledge of implementing gender-equitable hiring practices, and
(e) knowledge of the faculty own gender and evaluation biases. Subsequently, the five assumed
knowledge influences will be explained more in detail.
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Faculty Knowledge of the Historical Barriers That Kept Women From Entering Philosophy
Faculty members must have known and understood the historical barriers that made it
difficult, if not entirely impossible, for women to participate in academic philosophy (Beauvoir,
1954; Gatens, 1991; Hutchison & Jenkins, 2013). The “fathers” of philosophy and science have
been outspoken with regard to their view of women when it comes to reason (Beauvoir, 1954;
Lloyd, 1979). Lloyd (1979) mentioned that the male-female distinction has been utilized to
represent the distinction between reason and its opposite since the very beginning of
philosophical thought. The historical fact of the perception of reason as “male,” Lloyd continued,
is the general cause of conversation between philosophers when it comes to women in
philosophy. For example, Aristotle who is the originator of not only empiricism and scientific
method, but arguably Western philosophy itself, takes this particular stance on women: “As
regards the sexes, the male is by nature superior and the female inferior, the male ruler and the
female subject" (Politics, 1254b13–14). Aristotle continues, “Silence is a woman’s glory”
(Politics, 1252b8-9).
The foundation of sexism laid by ancient Greek philosophers persists to this day. Explicit
statements of misogyny can be found in philosophical texts written by a majority of prominent
thinkers. Notable figures such Augustine, Aquinas, Kant, Nietzsche, and others wrote
unfavorably about women, their abilities, and place in society (Beauvoir, 1954; Lloyd, 1979). A
number of contemporary philosophers perpetuates the problem. In the last 10 years, “the
superstar philosophers,” such as Thomas Pogge (Yale), John Searle (Berkeley), and Colin
McGinn (University of Miami) have been accused of harassing and humiliating female students
(Berkeleytoo, 2020; Rothfeld, 2017). Due to the violation of sexual harassment policies, Searle
lost his emeritus status while McGinn resigned from his tenured appointment (Berkeleytoo,
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2020). Yale’s philosophy department condemned Pogge in an open letter criticizing his behavior.
This anecdotal evidence is not representative of all 21st century philosophers. However, it is
provided for illustrative purposes to highlight the patriarchal attitudes many male philosophers
have toward their female counterparts. This is why the faculty members must be aware of the
context in which philosophy developed and the link between historical facts and women absence
from the discipline. Hence, this study examined whether faculty had knowledge of historical
obstacles that kept women away from philosophy.
Faculty Knowledge of the Current Challenges Facing Women in Philosophy
In order to be successful in reaching gender parity, the study assumed that faculty needed
to have specific knowledge about the challenges women currently face when entering the field of
philosophy in academia. Research indicates that many philosophy departments are a hostile place
for women (Beebee, 2013; Haslanger, 2008; Hutchison & Jenkins, 2013; Stewart & Valian,
2018). According to several authors, many women experience the feeling of “not fitting in” in
male-dominant philosophy departments (Haslanger, 2008; Hutchison & Jenkins, 2013).
Moreover, women in philosophy experience stigmatization and devaluation as result of gender
schemas and stereotype threat (Macnell et al., 2015; Saul, 2013; Steinpreis et al., 1999; Steele,
1997; Stewart & Valian, 2018; Valian, 2004). Knowledge of these challenges is important for
hiring faculty to have as it aids in the understanding of why so few women enter into academic
philosophy, and even if they do why so few of them succeed in academic ranks and tenured
promotions. This study examined whether faculty possessed knowledge about the current
challenges that women face in philosophy itself as well as in academic departments.

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Faculty Knowledge of Gender Disparities in the Discipline
In order for faculty members to succeed in reaching gender parity, they needed to have
understood the status of the women in the profession. The fact that, on average, women
constitute only 25% of all faculty in the top-50 philosophy departments nationwide is imperative
to understanding the magnitude of the problem of practice (Institute of Education Sciences,
2016; The Philosophical Gourmet, 2018; Van Camp, 2018;). This knowledge is important
because it shows the clear distinction between philosophy and the other arts and humanities
where women dominate quite significantly. This study explored whether faculty were aware of
the status of the women in the profession.
Faculty Ability to Implement Gender-Equitable Hiring Practices Such As Setting Diversity
Goals, Anti-implicit Bias Education and Professional Development for Search Committees,
Diversity-Enriched Position Descriptions, and Marketing and Outreach
To meet the goal of gender parity, faculty were assumed to have had procedural
knowledge of implementing gender-equitable hiring practices. Among many of these practices,
this study focuses specifically on faculty knowledge of 1) how to set diversity goals, 2) how to
minimize their own implicit biases, 3) how to write job descriptions that encourage women to
apply, 4) and how to advertise their positions to a diverse audience (APA, 2020; Williams &
Wade-Golden, 2013). These strategic faculty recruitment strategies in particular have shown
promise in attracting and hiring a more diverse pool of candidates (Aldamero, 2017; Kayes,
2006; Williams & Wade-Golden, 2013).
Knowing how to set diversity goals, for instance, would allow the department to define
and rationalize diversity in their own terms. By this, the faculty could anchor their diversity goals
in the educational benefits of having a diverse group of members in their department (Williams
37

& Wade-Golden 2013). Knowing how to minimize their own biases would help the faculty with
a more accurate and just assessment of their peers and potential job candidates. This is because
faculty would evaluate applicants based on their merit and not implicit stereotypes (APA,2020;
Kayes, 2006). Knowledge of how to write diversity-enriched job descriptions could be helpful
with attracting more women to apply and by this bring more heterogeneity to the pool of
potential candidates. Such job descriptions would also reinforce the departmental commitment to
engage more women in philosophy. Lastly, knowledge of appropriate marketing and outreach
strategies that target women could help with getting more women interested in the department
(Williams & Wade-Golden 2013). This study explored whether the hiring faculty possessed the
ability to successfully implement gender-oriented hiring practices and procedures.
Faculty Knowledge Of Their Own Gender Biases
Faculty needed to be, above all else, self-aware of their own potential implicit and
explicit biases in order to effectively minimize them (APA, 2020). This metacognitive
knowledge is crucial as measures of implicit gender bias have been found to be predictive of
favoring men over women when it comes to assessing candidate’s credentials in hiring (Biernat
& Kobrynowicz, 1997; Eagly & Karau, 2002; Uhlmann & Cohen, 2007). The presence of a
female name has a strongly negative effect on evaluation (Macnell, Driscoll & Hunt, 2015; Saul,
2013). This trend, as shown earlier in this chapter, has been persistent in terms of curriculum
vitae review, publications’ review, and course evaluation student ratings (Macnell, Driscoll &
Hunt, 2015; Saul, 2013; Steinpreis, Anders, & Ritzke, 1999; Stewart & Valian, 2018). Thus,
consciously reflecting on and attempting to minimize one’s own gender and evaluation biases is
crucial in closing gender gap among philosophy faculty members. One way to do so is through
anti-implicit bias education and professional development measures for all faculty, but especially
38

for members of the search and hiring committees (APA, 2000; Williams & Wade-Golden 2013).
This study explored whether the hiring faculty had attended anti-implicit bias training. Table 1
provides information specific to knowledge influences and knowledge types. As presented
below, the table details three assumed knowledge types needed by the faculty to reach gender
parity among its members: declarative knowledge, procedural knowledge, and metacognitive
knowledge.

Table 1
Assumed Knowledge Influences and Types
Knowledge
Type
Assumed Knowledge Influence
Declarative

Declarative

Declarative
Faculty knowledge of the historical barriers that kept women from
entering philosophy

Faculty knowledge of the current challenges facing women in
philosophy

Faculty knowledge of the gender disparities in the discipline

Procedural Faculty ability to implement gender-equitable hiring practices such
as: setting diversity goals, anti-implicit bias education and
professional development for search committees, diversity-enriched
position description, and marketing and outreach

Metacognitive Faculty knowledge of their own gender biases

39

Motivation Influences
In addition to knowledge, motivation is a key influence on performance. Schunk,
Pintrich, and Meece (2009) defined motivation as “the process whereby goal-directed activity is
instigated and sustained” (p. 4). Motivation is influenced by both internal (beliefs and
perceptions) and external (sociocultural) factors (Seli & Dembo, 2019). Expanding on this
definition, Rueda (2011) pointed out that motivation is innately cultural. He stated that “We
develop motivational beliefs from others with whom we interact in the variety of social contexts
in the ecological niches we inhabit” (p. 39). Thus, motivation is context-specific, and the
dynamic interplay of internal and external factors needs to be kept in mind while evaluating
one’s motives. Furthermore, Seli and Dembo (2019) noted that there are three indicators of
motivation: choice of behavior, level of activity and involvement, and persistence and
management of effort. This is to say that one can determine an individual’s motivation by
observing whether they choose one activity over another out of their own free will, persist until it
is finished in the face of distractions, and invest mental effort to meet minimum performance
standards.
The three motivational indices of choice, persistence and mental effort are grounded in
several motivational constructs such as self-efficacy, value orientation, attributions, goal
orientation and others. The study specifically explored two motivation influences from among
the motivational constructs. The motivation influences examined were the following: 1) faculty
perception of the importance of reaching gender parity within their department, and 2) faculty
confidence in their ability to implement gender-parity-oriented hiring practices. Both motivation
influences were assumed to be the underlying causes of faculty active choice, persistence and
mental effort invested in reaching gender parity within their department. Hence, to assess the
40

indicator of choice involved in faculty implementation of gender-parity-oriented hiring practices,
the attainment value theory was used, whereas to assess the indicator of persistence and effort,
self-efficacy theory was used.
Faculty Perception of the Importance of Reaching Gender Parity Within Their Department
In order to actively choose to pursue gender parity among its members, faculty needed to
value becoming a gender-equitable department. According to value theory, value is a predictor of
choice. That is, the degree to which one values a task predicts one’s level of motivation (Seli &
Dembo, 2019). Eccles (2010) suggested that the subjective task value can be influenced by four
related constructs: intrinsic interest or enjoyment, attainment value or importance, utility value or
usefulness, and the perceived cost of engaging in the activity. Out of the four, this study focuses
specifically on the attainment value. Eccles (2010) described the attainment value term as “the
link between tasks and individuals’ own identities and preferences” (p. 2). In addressing
attainment value in general, Eccles discussed that individuals hold images of self and associated
with them schemas, goals, interests, and needs. An attainment value is derived from an activity
that fulfills any of such personal values and aligns with the images of self (Eccles, 2019; Seli &
Dembo, 2019). This project assumed that faculty value orientation influenced their active choice
as an indicator of their motivation. In other words, faculty perceptions of the importance of
reaching gender parity within their department motivated an organizational change.
Faculty Self-Efficacy to Implement Gender-Parity-Oriented Hiring Practices
In order to be effective in reaching gender parity within their department, faculty needed
to believe that they possess adequate abilities and skills to implement gender-parity-oriented
hiring practices. A belief that one can successfully complete a specific task is called self-efficacy
(Parajes, 2010). In other words, self-efficacy is one’s own confidence in their abilities to carry
41

out a given task (Parajes, 2010). Self-efficacy is situation specific; it may vary from task to task.
In fact, Seli and Dembo (2019) noted that people have efficacy beliefs about each task they
undertake. Moreover, there are two types of efficacy: individual and collective. Thus, in order to
reach gender parity, on one level, faculty needed to believe that they individually had the
knowledge and skills to succeed in achieving gender parity, and on another level, that they as the
whole department also had the capacity. Finally, self-efficacy is derived from four sources:
previous experience, observing similar others, social messages, and physiological and emotional
states (Bandura, 1977). Seli and Dembo (2019) cited research that established that out of the four
sources, past performance on the task at hand is the most influential in forming self-efficacy
beliefs. Generally, success raises an individual’s self-efficacy and failure lowers self-efficacy
(Seli & Dembo, 2019). And because self-efficacy can positively influence motivation in terms of
persistence and mental effort, this study assumed that faculty confidence in their own abilities
and skills affected their capacity to successfully implement gender-parity-oriented hiring
practices. Table 2 illustrates information specific to motivation constructs and assumed
motivation influences that have impacted faculty capacity to reach gender parity in the
department.

Table 2
Assumed Motivation Influences
Motivation Construct Assumed Motivation Influence
Attainment Value Faculty perception of the importance of reaching gender
parity within their department.
Self-Efficacy Faculty self-efficacy to implement gender-parity oriented
hiring-practices.

42

Organizational Influences
In addition to knowledge and motivation, organizational influences play a critical role in
allowing individuals to successfully reach their performance goals and by this support
organizational goals. Organizational influences can be either barriers or assets that determine
whether stakeholder can be effective in fulfilling their roles in the organization (Clark & Estes,
2008). Gallimore and Goldenberg (2001) categorized organizational influences into two units:
models and settings. Cultural models are organization’s shared values, beliefs, and norms. They
create the organizational climate and norms, and they define individuals’ perceptions, attitudes,
and reactions within the culture (Gallimore & Goldenberg, 2001). Cultural settings, on the other
hand, are physical manifestations of cultural models. They comprise policies, practices,
resources, and people. Gallimore and Goldenberg (2001) pointed out that models and settings are
“manifestly interconnected, and it is difficult to establish the primacy of one or the other” (p.48).
This entails that organizational culture exists and is formed in organizational settings. In other
words, culture is the product of interactions between people and the environment of their
workplace (Clark & Estes, 2008; Gallimore & Goldenberg, 2001). Precisely because cultural
models and cultural settings are intertwined, the remainder of this section reviews several of the
organizational influences that were assumed to be decisive in the faculty having a capacity to
reach gender parity. The study focused on examining the following cultural models and settings:
(a) culture that prioritizes inclusion of historically marginalized groups in a specific context,(b)
culture that embraces change, (c) presence of effective role models, (d) high quality of training
and professional development, and (e) presence of expectations and support.

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Culture That Prioritizes Inclusion of Historically Marginalized Groups in a Specific Context
Organizational culture often dictates how individuals work to achieve their performance
goals (Clark & Estes, 2008). Organizations are in a unique position to create cultural models that
can change individuals’ beliefs, prioritize specific values and create norms that are of outmost
importance to the organization. By this, organizations can redefine their own course and shape
particular stakeholder group’s goals (Aldamero, 2017; Clark & Estes, 2008; Kayes, 2006;
Williams & Wade-Golden 2013). Because most stakeholder’s goals are subordinate to the
organizational goals, an organizational culture is critical in affecting performance improvements
(Clark & Estes, 2008).
For this project’s stakeholder group of focus, philosophy faculty, in order to successfully
reach the goal of gender parity, it must have been essential to create a departmental culture that
paid special attention to historically marginalized groups in their specific context. In philosophy,
one of these groups are women. The department of philosophy under investigation had to make it
its goal to prioritize women. They could have done it in several different ways. For instance, they
might had expressed that feminist philosophy is seen as imperative and not as marginal to the
discipline (Kayes, 2006). They might had searched actively and broadly to recruit a higher
number of female candidates (Aldamero, 2017). They might had provided cues of belonging and
mentoring programs for their current faculty members (Aldamero, 2017; Kayes, 2006). Whatever
the stakeholder decided to do in order to give priority to women, it had to start from a core
commitment to address historical injustices, promote inclusivity, and affirm the value of
philosophy to everyone. This study explored whether philosophy faculty prioritized inclusion of
woman in their specific context.

44

Culture That Embraces Change
Institutional transformation can be facilitated if stakeholders pay attention to the
importance of local ecology. This is because organizational culture permeates and refines all
attempts to improve performance (Clark & Estes, 2008). Cultural models, that is, shared
organizational values, beliefs, and norms, evolve slowly. Cultural settings, which are actualized
cultural models, can aid such change (Gallimore & Goldenberg, 2001). And although there might
be variations in settings that lead to organizational change, there is one aspect that remains
constant: a given culture must embrace change in order to be able to accept and adopt
institutional transformation (Kayes, 2006).
To meet the goal of gender parity among its members, philosophy faculty needed to
remain open to the vision and change that women faculty had to offer. The faculty also needed to
instantiate university’s language on diversity and gender equity in departmental structures,
policies, and hiring protocols (Kayes, 2006). Finally, the faculty needed to be aware of the
impact that their articulated departmental values have on their members as well as their students
and potential new hires (Kayes, 2006). To conclude, cultures that are resistant to change
generally experience performance problems (Clark & Estes, 2008). However, cultures that
embrace transformation are more likely to affect their own capacity to reach performance goals.
This study explored whether the philosophy department embraced institutional change and by
this facilitated the achievement of gender parity.
Presence of Effective Role Models
Organizational leaders are in a rare position to instigate change within their respective
settings, and they can do so by transforming their supervisees into passionate and driven
individuals (Clark & Estes, 2008). Effective role models exhibit ability to create “We” culture,
45

instead of “I” culture, that is cooperative, supportive, and whose members invest maximum
effort in a shared goal that they recognize as valuable (Clark & Estes, 2008; Kayes, 2006).
Effective role models can build personal and team confidence as well as supportive emotional
climate that individuals experience in their work environments (Aldamero, 2017; Clark & Estes,
2008). By this, effective role models can impact stakeholders’ capacity to reach their
performance goals.
Effective role models, such as president, provost, dean, and department chair play a key
role in creating and maintaining faculty diversification initiatives. For the stakeholder of this
study, this entails that their institutional leaders defined and justified diversity and created a
diversity recruitment plan that ultimately contributed to the stakeholder capacity to reach gender
parity among its members (Williams & Wade-Golden, 2013). This also means that the
department chair was able to translate this plan into the practices and policies of the departmental
setting, by, for instance, creating diversity-enriched position descriptions and marketing and
outreach to the potential female hires. This study explored how effective the institutional and
departmental role models were in helping the faculty reach gender parity within their department.
High Quality of Training and Professional Development
Knowledge and skills enhancement can positively impact stakeholder goal achievement
in two distinct ways. It can help when individuals lack knowledge of how to reach their
performance goals and it can help with novel problem solving when future challenges are
anticipated (Clark & Estes, 2008). To know how to reach their performance goals individuals
need information and training (Clark & Estes, 2008). To adapt to ever-changing conditions and
novel settings and to successfully solve problems, individuals need continuing and advance
education (Clark & Estes, 2008).
46

This study explored whether, in order to reach gender parity within their department,
philosophy faculty received bias education and professional development focused on
diversification of faculty (APA, 2020; Williams & Wade-Golden, 2013). Bias education is
critical to help faculty understand how gender and evaluation bias influences their search and
selection process (Williams & Wade-Golden 2013). Professional development as such should be
continuing, providing research-based knowledge, and required for all faculty members, but
especially, for search and hiring committees. High quality of training and professional
development can help to minimize implicit and explicit bias and allow faculty to purposefully
reflect on their own perceptions and practices both as individuals as well as a unit (Kayes, 2006).
This study will examine what training and professional development faculty members received
that might helped them with focusing on hiring women.
Presence of Expectations and Support
Accountability measures can help with aligning organizational culture with
organizational behavior (Clark & Estes, 2008). This is to say that when organizational vision,
goals, policies and procedures align with the organizational culture, the organization is more
likely to reach its performance goals (Clark & Estes, 2008). On the other hand, when the
environmental culture conflicts with the groups and individuals’ behavior, performance problems
arise. The alignment between culture and behavior can be achieved with the use of varying
accountability measures and strengthened by organizational support (Clark & Estes, 2008;
Williams & Wade-Golden, 2013).
For the stakeholder group of this project, accountability and support measures might have
manifested themselves in the university’s expectations of diversification efforts as well as robust
diversification infrastructure. For instance, in order to keep faculty accountable for introducing
47

gender-oriented hiring practices and procedures, the university might have required them to
report regularly on their diversification efforts both as the search and departmental level
(Aldamero, 2017; Williams & Wade-Golden, 2013). Moreover, the president, provost, and dean
might have mandated diversification efforts as critical for launching searches, engaging with
candidates on campus, and finally, making new hires (Williams & Wade-Golden, 2013).
Furthermore, in order to support the faculty in their efforts of including women, the university
might have created accessible recruitment tools such as creating diverse and inclusive
committees, travel recruitment grants, visiting scholar resources for potential candidates, and
cluster and spousal hiring funds (Aldamero, 2017; Williams & Wade-Golden, 2013). This study
explored what kind expectations and support the university have provided to the philosophy
faculty in order to diversify their faculty. Table 3 shows the two cultural models and three
cultural settings discussed in this section together with assumed organizational influences that
were needed by the faculty to reach gender parity among its members.

48

Table 3
Assumed Organizational Influences
Organizational Influence Category Assumed Organizational Influences
Cultural Model Influence 1 /
Culture that prioritizes historically
marginalized groups
The departmental culture that actively works
to address historical injustices, promotes
inclusivity, and affirms the value of
philosophy to everyone.
Cultural Model Influence 2 /
Culture that embraces change
The departmental culture that embraces
change and promotes gender equity.
Cultural Setting Influence 1 /
Presence of effective role models
The university’s provision of effective role
models who have integrated diversity goals
into hiring practices such as the department
chair and the dean of the college of
humanities.
Cultural Setting Influence 2 /
High quality of training and professional
development
The university’s provision of anti-implicit
bias education and professional
development for search and hiring
committees.
Cultural Setting Influence 3 /
Presence of expectations and support

The university’s provision of effective
support and accountability measures that
encourage departments to willingly
participate in promoting diversification of
their faculty members.

Conclusion
In sum, this chapter reviewed five most relevant for this study hypotheses explaining
women underrepresentation in philosophy, the significance of gender gap in terms of social
justice and quality of philosophy, as well as assumed knowledge, motivation, and organizational
influences that might have helped philosophy faculty in reaching gender parity. The goal of this
promising practice study was to identify factors leading to success in reaching the organizational
goal of faculty diversification in terms of gender. As such, next chapter explains the conceptual
framework and methodological approach that guided this qualitative research project with a
49

special focus on examining what knowledge, motivation, and organizational influences helped
philosophy faculty with closing the gender gap in their department.

50

Chapter Three: Methods
The study focused on the knowledge and motivation of the faculty members, and on
organizational resources and support related to employing gender-equitable hiring practices and
thus, reaching gender parity within philosophy department. For practical purposes, the
stakeholder group of focus were full-time faculty members within the UU Department of
Philosophy. This study adopted a qualitative approach. It was guided by the following two
questions:
1. What faculty knowledge, motivation, and organizational factors achieving and
maintaining gender parity among the faculty?
2. What recommendations in the areas of knowledge, motivation, and organizational
resources may be appropriate for solving the problem of practice at another organization?
The reminder of this chapter discusses the research design in greater detail. First, it
describes methods and criteria for sampling, data collection and data analysis. Next, it examines
the concept of credibility and trustworthiness together with ethical considerations. Finally, the
chapter ends with limitations and delimitations of the proposed research design.
Participating Stakeholders
The population of interest for this study were faculty members at the UU Department of
Philosophy. This was a qualitative case study. For such studies, the most appropriate sampling is
purposeful. This is because the researcher targets a specific environment, focuses on a rather
small population, and seeks in-depth, rich information. Hence, this study composed of purposeful
two-tier sampling (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016). A purposeful sampling is a nonrandom,
nonprobability sampling method that selects participants with specific characteristics or qualities
that are essential to participate in a research study (Johnson & Christensen, 2016). Two-tier
51

sampling refers to two independent levels of sampling: the case level and within the case level,
respectively (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016).
The selection of philosophy faculty members at UU (the case) was purposeful as they
represent an information-rich case (Johnson & Christensen, 2016; Merriam & Tisdell, 2016).
This is because they set diversity goals, participate in hiring of new faculty members, and create,
or at least contribute, to the organizational culture and climate. In qualitative research,
information-rich cases allow researchers to learn in great detail about issues central to the
purpose of their inquiry. Since the UU Department of Philosophy has reached gender parity
among its full-time faculty members as one of only two top-50 philosophy departments in the
nation, this department represents a unique case.
The second level of sampling constitutes sampling within the case (Merriam & Tisdell,
2016). As with the selection of the case itself, purposeful sampling was used to select the sample
within the case. At the time of data collection, there were 20 regular full-time faculty members,
five career-line faculty members, two adjunct faculty members, and two associate instructors in
the UU Department of Philosophy (N = 29). This study recruited half of the regular full-time
philosophy faculty members that have worked in the department for an extensive period of time
and had a graduate degree in philosophy (n = 10). The criterion-based sampling selection
outlined below highlights the necessary attributes of the research sample and directly reflects the
purpose of this promising practice study.
Interview Sampling Strategy
I sought to recruit the first 10, half women and half men, regular full-time philosophy
faculty members that had a Ph.D. in philosophy and worked in the department for more than five
years. Recruitment for the interviews began with establishing contact with the philosophy
52

department chair. I shared the scope and purpose of the study with the chair more than a year
before the study took place. The chair offered to help with reaching the faculty members and
shared my recruitment letter and the study information sheet with the potential participants
(Appendix A on page 142 contains a recruitment letter used for the study and Appendix B on
page 143 contains the study information sheet.). All 20 regular full-time philosophy faculty
members were contacted by their chair, informed of the study, and provided with the opportunity
to participate. Ten of these faculty members agreed to participate. Among them, there were
seven women and three men. Moreover, all study participants had a Ph.D. in philosophy and all,
but one participant worked in the department for an extensive period of time. Amongst the
participants, their average number of years of service in the department was 21.8 years.
Interview Sampling Criteria and Rationale
Criterion 1
The interview participants were all regular full-time philosophy faculty members at UU.
Being a regular full-time faculty member was crucial for the interview as it was assumed that
full-time faculty members would have established longer and closer relationships with the
department. Moreover, full-time faculty members, as opposed to part-time faculty members,
generally have more professional responsibilities toward their students, department, and college.
Increased professional duties and obligations might provide more details regarding the climate
and circumstances of the department’s hiring practices and policies.
Criterion 2
The interview participants worked in the department for at least five years. The continuity
of employment within the department was crucial for the participants’ selection as it helped to
gain insights into departmental culture and potentially uncover the history of transformational
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practices concerning the achievement of gender parity. Moreover, it was important to gather
information from those employees that had enough time to establish professional as well as
personal relationships within the surveyed department. Amongst the respondents interviewed for
this study, nine out of 10 worked in the department for at least five years.
Criterion 3
The interview participants needed a graduate degree in philosophy, either a master’s or a
Ph.D. degree. As mentioned earlier, this promising practice study sought to understand what
organizational policies and practices enable gender parity among philosophy faculty members.
While doing so, this study investigated knowledge, motivation, attitudes, and behaviors of those
individuals that are professional philosophers. All study participants had a Ph.D. in philosophy.
Data Collection and Instrumentation
As a qualitative case study, this project used interviews and documents review to collect
data. A visit to UU Department of Philosophy was planned in Fall 2020 to hold in-person
interviews with key stakeholders. However, due to Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic the UU
philosophy department agreed to participate in the study via Zoom. Hence, all interviews took
place online and the documents were obtained electronically, via email, after the interviews
concluded.
Both interviews and documents were essential to contextualize this research and answer
the research questions guiding this promising practice study. Interviews were critical to
understand the uniqueness of personal experiences that philosophy faculty has in terms of
reaching gender parity among its members. Additionally, interviews explored organizational
influences such as culture, infrastructure, policies, practices, and sufficient support that helped or
54

hindered faculty ability to become a gender-equitable department. Documents, on the other hand,
were useful in determining how institutional beliefs, values, and priorities translated into actions.
Interviews
Confidential interviews were conducted via Zoom with 10 regular full-time philosophy
faculty members between October and December 2020. Each interview was scheduled ahead of
time, took between 30 and 150 minutes, and followed the same protocol (Appendix C on page
145 contains the protocol and the list of interview questions). Prior to beginning each interview, I
asked participants for verbal consent to start the study and permission to record the conversation.
The interviews themselves were semi-structured. Merriam and Tisdell (2016) define semi-
structured interviews as allowing “the researcher to respond to the situation at hand, to the
emerging worldview of the respondent, and to new ideas on the topic” (p. 111). Thus, semi-
structured interviews allow the researcher to be more flexible and adjust the order and wording
of the interview questions to the context of each participant. This is important because my goal
was to enter into each participant’s perspective and to obtain a special kind of information
regarding first-hand experiences, beliefs, and perceived values. And since each participant has a
unique perspective, more flexibility allowed for greater in-depth exploration of those personal
experiences. However, although I allowed the level of flexibility, some things remained constant.
Particularly, all interviewees were asked the same set of knowledge, motivation, and
organizational questions to satisfy Clark and Estes (2008) gap analysis model.
All participants were over 18 years of age and participated voluntarily. All participants
were asked for a permission to video record the interviews and all participants agreed to be
recorded. Additionally, I took notes during the interviews and wrote memos after each interview.
The notes were used to record my comments and reflections as well as the observed non-verbal
55

behaviors exhibited by the interviewees. Memos helped with documenting my thoughts,
questions, and discovering emerging patterns and themes during the process of data collection.
Recorded interviews were sent for transcription to Rev.com, an online transcribing service and
thereafter I reviewed them to ensure accuracy. Transcriptions were necessary to generate as they
helped me with coding data. Coded transcripts were then used to engage in throughout data
analysis.
There were 10 open-ended interview questions and 15 probing questions. Open-ended
questions suit qualitative research well as they allow participants to take whatever direction and
use whatever words they want to describe their experiences (Patton, 2002). Moreover, open-
ended questions aim to minimize the presupposition about what sorts of feelings, words, or
dimensions should be used by the interviewees (Patton, 2002). In other words, open-ended
questions allow for greater freedom of expression.
Patton (2002) described six question options: experience and behavior, opinion and
values, feelings, knowledge, sensory, and background/demographic. These six kinds of questions
can be asked about any topic. However, because the purpose of this research project is to satisfy
Clark and Estes (2008) gap analysis conceptual framework, special attention was focused on
asking experience and behavior, opinion and values, and knowledge questions. Interview
questions are designed to correspond to knowledge, motivation, and organizational influences
assumed to help faculty reach gender parity. Furthermore, the purpose of asking interview
questions targeting knowledge, motivation, and organizational influences was to address the two
research questions guiding this project. These questions were: 1) what faculty knowledge,
motivation, and organizational factors support achieving and maintaining gender parity among
the faculty, and 2) what recommendations in the areas of knowledge, motivation, and
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organizational resources may be appropriate for solving the problem of practice at another
organization. The 15 probing questions included in the interview protocol aimed at targeting
topics and themes that may have not been addressed by the participants either by omissions or
intention. The use of probing questions varied and was relative to the kinds of answers that the
participants provided.
Documents
In addition to interviews, I reviewed documents as a critical means of contextualizing the
research questions. The documents provided essential information that defined, described, and
helped with understanding the organizational culture that allowed the stakeholder to reach the
goal of gender parity within philosophy. I collected a variety of existing documents not created
specifically for the study (Bogdan & Biklen, 2006; Merriam & Tisdell, 2016). The collected
documents can be roughly divided into two categories: (a) documents related to the department
of philosophy itself, and (b) documents related to the UU in general. The department-specific
documents included (a) three most recent department of philosophy job ads including position
descriptions, (b) a diversity and inclusion statement, and (c) a written piece on diversifying
tenure-line faculty contributed to the APA blog by one of the faculty members. The documents
related to the university comprised of (d) the Office for Inclusive Excellence’s goals and mission
statement, (e) the School for Cultural and Social Transformation’s profile and a message from its
dean.
The selections of documents from the two sources described above was motivated by the
research questions. More specifically, it was critical to contrast the departmental and the
institutional beliefs, values, and priorities because such comparison allowed me to determine if
the success of philosophy department in terms of reaching gender parity is aligned with the
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university goal of promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion. Finally, although most of the
documents were collected primarily to provide the context for the study, a few of them helped
answer the research questions related to achieving and maintaining the goal of gender parity
within the department. Specifically, the documents related exclusively to the department aid in
answering the research questions concerning metacognitive and procedural knowledge of the
philosophy faculty, while the documents related to the university focused more on providing
context to the formation of organizational culture.
Data Analysis
Data collected from the interviews was coded to the assumed knowledge, motivation, and
organizational influences that were derived from Clark and Estes (2008) gap analysis framework.
This code was a priori, that is, established before data collection. Additionally, I used empirical
codes that emerged organically during data collection and initial data analysis phase. The
emergent code helped with capturing the richness of the participants’ responses and with
uncovering any potential patterns and themes that will reveal themselves during the analysis. The
goal of using multiple codes was to reach data saturation (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016).
I also made use of her observer’s comments and memos that were created during
conducting the interviews. These were of service by further contextualizing data and making
sense out of nonverbal messages, such as laughter, tears, or any other emotions expressed.
Finally, I applied some of the analytic tools developed by Corbin and Strauss (2008). Analytic
tools are thinking techniques. The purpose of using them is to facilitate the coding process. Out
of several different techniques that Corbin and Strauss (2008) mentioned, I used the following:
(a) thinking about the various meanings of a word, (b) looking at language, (c) drawing upon
personal experience, (d) waving the red flag, and (e) looking at emotions that are expressed and
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the situations that aroused participants. The choice of these analytic tools was based on
participating stakeholder. Because research participants are all trained philosophers, and by
default engage in analytic thinking, I focused on the choice of their language and inquire into
different meanings of words. Additionally, because I am a professional philosopher as well, I
have drawn upon my personal experiences in the discipline itself and in academic departments.
Finally, paying attention to unusual or alarming words and behaviors, that is waving the red flag,
allowed me to highlight participants’ extreme reactions while focusing on their expressed
emotions will add to recording potentially non-verbal communication.
When it comes to data collected from the documents, I used it primarily for establishing
the organizational culture and context in which the promising practices at stake have taken place.
I looked in the documents for things such as explicit and implicit messaging, language, as well as
graphics and cataloged them in the appropriate Appendixes. I analyzed documents using the
same a priori codes that were used in analyzing data from interviews. These codes were related
to knowledge, motivation, and organizational influences. Moreover, and also similarly to
analyzing interviews, I looked for any new empirical codes that emerge naturally through the
process of document analysis.
Credibility and Trustworthiness
Since I have experience as a member of the field in which the study took place, potential
assumptions and biases must be addressed. Addressing my position, that is, how I affect and am
affected by the study, is called reflexivity (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016). The point of reflexivity is
to establish trustworthiness of the study and to strengthen the integrity of the researcher. I belong
to the historically marginalized group in the field of philosophy. In this promising practice study,
I investigated what specific practices the organization in question has employed that allowed it to
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reach gender parity within the field of academic philosophy. Given my personal interest in the
topic, special attention was paid to the methods of data collection and data analysis to minimize
the danger of creating flawed or biased study (Maxwell, 2013). To mitigate consequences of
personal motives on the study, I worked on identifying these subjectivities and monitoring them
throughout the study. Some of these subjectivities might include implicit biases and assumed
knowledge based on personal experiences. By doing so, I employed disciplined subjectivity
(Merriam & Tisdell, 2016).
To further advance credibility and trustworthiness, I adequately engaged in data
collection and data analysis. I took scrupulous notes and created memos to keep track of not only
data but also the process and circumstances in which data was collected and analyzed. This
systematicity and transparency of methods showcased the rigor and strictness of the qualitative
methods I employed (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016).
Finally, although qualitative studies cannot be statistically generalized due to their unique
nature, some authors suggested that qualitative research might be externally transferred and
extrapolated (Patton, 2015; Lincoln and Guba, 1985). For instance, Patton (2015) explains that
“Extrapolations are modest speculations on the likely applicability of findings to other situations
under similar, but not identical, conditions” (p. 713). Thus, I hope that my unique adaptation and
application of Clark and Estes (2008) gap analysis model to this promising practice study can be
potentially utilized by other organization experiencing performance problems. I consciously
aimed to facilitate this process by being immensely detailed in her descriptions of participating
stakeholder, organizational context, and methodological approach to her study.

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Ethics
This qualitative study focused on research participants’ personal experiences. As such,
this study sought to understand how participants interpret their experiences, what meaning do
they assign to those experiences, and how they construct their worldviews (Merriam & Tisdell,
2016). Working with human participants entails a variety of ethical considerations. In this case,
because much of data was collected through face-to-face interviews on Zoom that asked
sensitive questions, special precautions were taken to minimize possible harms that may have
come to research participants.
The nature of conventional relationship with research participants involves power
asymmetry with more power (almost always) on the side of the researcher (Glesne, 2011).
However, informed consent can help to level the playing field and contribute to empowering
research participants. Glesne (2011) explains in detail the importance of informed consent in
research where participants might be exposed to physical or emotional risk. Through informed
consent, Glesne continues, participants learn about aspects of research that might be risky or
harmful to their well-being. They are also made aware that their participation is voluntary, that
they can withdraw from the study at any point without penalty, and that their right to privacy will
be respected (Glesne, 2011). Hence, I distributed the informed consent forms to all participants
at the commencement of the study. The informed consent forms were sufficiently explained to
each participant and all questions or concerns were addressed. Moreover, to eliminate all
unnecessary risks to subjects and to ensure their safety, this study was submitted to the
University of California Institutional Review Board (IRB) and it sought its approval prior to
proceeding with data collection. However, I was committed to surpass the IRB standards, if only
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necessary, in order to provide maximum protection, confidentiality, and safety to the
participants.
All recruited participants had to verbally agree to participate in the study at the beginning
of data collection. The interviews followed a strict protocol. Prior to the interviews, I obtained
permission to audio record the interviews. Additionally, during the interviews, I sporadically
reminded participants that their participation is voluntary and that their identity will be kept
confidential. However, because the interviews took place in a small academic department, I was
committed to eliminate participants’ identity markers. Thus, I used gender-neutral names to
prevent identity leaks and avoid potential recognition by other research participants. Finally,
participants were informed about storage and security of the data. All data was safely stored to
preserve participants’ anonymity on my personal computer and my mobile phone, both of which
are password protected. Additionally, data was backed up on an external drive that is also
password protected.
In-depth interviews might have unintentional and unanticipated long-term effects
(Merriam & Tisdell, 2016). During or after the interviews, painful memories might surface.
Thus, out of respect for persons that is both morally and unconditionally required, I actively
listened to the participants and honor their boundaries of comfort (Kant, 1785). This means that I
respected the participants’ decision to not answer certain questions, and to not record or report
certain answers. Only one such request was made during the interviews, and I respected the
wishes of the participant. The participant asked not to include a portion of their response in the
report of the study. Excluding that information from data analysis phase did not affect the
research findings since other participants corroborated that finding. Moreover, I was vigilant
about possible emotional distress experienced by participants and ready to provide them with any
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extra accommodations that they might need, such as time, breaks, and more than one interview
session.
The data collection phase of this study took place in the UU Department of Philosophy. I
had no relationship to the organization under investigation. The one thing in common that I had
with the research participants is that we both were professional philosophers. Thus, no conflict of
interests is detected at this point of time.
This study was not incentivized in order to avoid coercion. However, upon completion of
the study, I sent a thank you note to all participants. This small gesture of reciprocity intended to
show gratitude for time and effort that the participants have invested in this study.
Limitations and Delimitations
The focus of this study was to conduct a gap analysis to examine root causes of reaching
gender parity within academic philosophy. Some limitations and delimitation come inherently
from the research design of this project. The first limitation is the lack of triangulation of data.
Conducting observations together with administered interviews and documents that were
reviewed might have helped with providing more details about the research phenomenon.
However, observations were not possible due to time constraints. The second limitation is any
possible bias resulting from participants giving answers that they believe to be in the best interest
of their department and/or institution. Such answers might not align with the participants’ true
reflection on their experiences.
The primary delimitation of the study is that it is context-specific to UU Department of
Philosophy. By extension, this project addresses only this particular organization’s context,
mission, values, and goals and it cannot be externally generalized. However, other higher
institutions may benefit from the potential transferability of the research findings by adopting a
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contextually tailored approach to Clark and Estes (2008) gap analysis and bring about
performance improvements.
Another delimitation of this project is the focus on one stakeholder group, the faculty
members. This decision was guided by three considerations: 1) the resources available to commit
to this study, 2) the faculty role in developing departmental climate, and 3) the faculty role in the
process of hiring new faculty members. However, students and administration perspectives on
reaching gender parity in academic philosophy are just as invaluable and require their own
investigation.
The final delimitation is assuming the binary notion of gender and focusing specifically
on gender discrimination without additionally exploring intersectionality. I acknowledge that the
concept of gender can be understood pluralistically and, on the spectrum, rather than as a
dichotomy. However, this study frames gender as binary and further assumes that term “women”
encompasses the following categories: White, women of color, transgender women, and women
differently able. As a consequence, this project does not examine gender in combination with
race, ethnicity, sexuality, or ability. Hence, intersectionality, although crucial in contemplating
gender discrimination as it adds an important dimension to the challenges that women face, is not
a purposeful area of study in this project.

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Chapter Four: Results and Findings
The purpose of this chapter is to report the findings from the interviews and documents
analysis described in the previous chapter. This study gathered qualitative data through 10
interviews conducted via Zoom between October and December 2020. All interviews ranged in
length between 30 and 150 minutes. Each one of them was recorded, transcribed, and coded
according to the assumed faculty knowledge, motivation, and organizational influences that
might have impacted the department’s ability to reach gender parity among its regular full-time
faculty members. Documents were coded in a similar way. Both the interview and document data
were then analyzed to assess validity of the assumed factors and identify any emergent themes.
As mentioned in Chapter One, this study was guided by the following questions:
1. What faculty knowledge, motivation, and organizational factors support achieving and
maintaining gender parity among the faculty?
2. What recommendations in the areas of knowledge, motivation, and organizational
resources may be appropriate for solving the problem of practice at another organization?
To answer these questions, I assumed 12 a priori influences about the participants’
knowledge, motivation, and organizational factors that might have contributed to the
stakeholder’s success in closing gender gap among its regular full-time faculty members. The
influences were validated as assets based on the following three principles: 1) the influence was
validated if and only if 80% or more of the participants confirmed it, 2) the influence was
partially validated if and only if 50% or more of the participants confirmed it, and 3) the
influence was not validated if less than 50% of the participants confirmed it. In addition, for the
purpose of validating the 12 respective influences, I combined emergent themes within each
influence. It must be noted that the confirming of multiple themes by any individual participant
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is only counted towards the total validation of a particular influence once, such that no single
participant can count for more than their own share of possible validations in a single influence.
Thus, a single participant cannot make up more than 1/10 of the total validation of any particular
influence. In other words, no single participant can be counted more than once towards a single
theme.
In general, the research findings validated as assets nine and partially validated two out of
12 a priori influences; these influences were assumed to be critical in the faculty members ability
to reach gender parity within their department. Only one influence was not validated. Moreover,
there were several important themes discovered within the few of the assumed influences and
there was one new and previously unanticipated emergent theme found. The new emergent
theme was categorized as the organizational culture influence.
The remainder of this chapter discusses research results in greater detail. The chapter is
organized by the three main categories of findings: knowledge, motivation, and organizational
factors. First, knowledge findings are discussed following the order of assumed influences.
Second, motivation findings are described. Next, the chapter presents organizational findings.
Within each section, I highlight important themes that emerged within the assumed a priori
influences. Finally, the one emergent theme is explained and discussed. The chapter ends with a
brief summary of all research findings.
Participant Profile
All 20 regular full-time philosophy faculty members were contacted by their department
chair, informed about the study, and PROVIDED with the opportunity to participate. Ten of
these faculty members agreed to participate. All study participants were regular full-time faculty
members within the UU Department of Philosophy and held a Ph.D. in philosophy. Ninety
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percent of interview participants worked in the department for an extensive period of time. Seven
interview participants were female; three were male. Table 4 presents participants’ pseudonyms
using gender-neutral names in order to help with keeping their identities confidential, their
respective faculty rank, and a number of years associated with the UU Department of
Philosophy.

Table 4
Interview Participants (n = 10)
Pseudonym Years Associated With the
Department
Taylor
31+
Houston 31+
Drew 31+
Charlie 20–30
Brooklyn 20–30
Blake 11–20
Alex
≤10
Skyler
≤10
Reese
≤10
Parker
≤10

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The purpose of this study was to better understand why and how the philosophy faculty
participates in gender-equitable hiring and retention practices and to create a set of
recommendations for other organizations to solve similar problems of practice. The study
confirmed that all interview participants valued diversity, equity, and inclusion of women in
philosophy and most of the participants engaged in behaviors and activities considered to fall
under promising practices used in this study. Additionally, the departmental success in closing
gender gap in the field can be attributed to their time and collective effort invested in developing
a family-friendly and women-welcoming environment.
Knowledge Findings
The knowledge component of the study focused on exploring whether the UU philosophy
faculty members are aware of the historical barriers and current challenges facing women in
philosophy and how such challenges potentially affect gender distribution in the profession.
Furthermore, this section also examined participants’ ability to implement gender-equitable
hiring practices as well as their level of awareness of their own gender biases. There were a total
of five knowledge influences identified based on Anderson & Krathwohl’s (2002) taxonomy of
knowledge types that include factual, conceptual, procedural, and metacognitive knowledge. The
study specifically assumed three declarative influences, one procedural, and one metacognitive
influence. All influences were validated to be assets. Table 5 presents a summary of assumed
knowledge influences and their validation status.

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Table 5
Assumed Knowledge Influences and Validation Status
Assumed Knowledge Influence Validated
Partially
validated
Not
validated

Faculty knowledge of the historical
barriers that kept women from
entering philosophy.
X
Faculty knowledge of the challenges
facing women in philosophy.
X
Faculty knowledge of the gender
disparities in the discipline.
X
Faculty ability to implement gender-
equitable hiring practices.
X
Faculty knowledge of their own
gender biases.
X

Each of the participants showcased vast knowledge about the past and present
circumstances underpinning women’s underrepresentation in philosophy, which, although
somewhat improved, still leaves much to be desired. Eight out of 10 participants shared strong
anecdotal evidence, in a form of personal stories, supporting the notion that women were, and
often still are, victims of sexual abuse, sexual harassment, sexism, misogyny, and gender bias
within the profession. Moreover, nine out of 10 participants were aware of the gender
distribution within academic departments nationwide. Additionally, eight out of 10 participants
provided examples of successful implementation of gender-equitable hiring practices and
procedures and all 10 participants confirmed that they were aware of their own implicit biases
both on the individual and the departmental level. The latter was also supported by the fact that
the department has faculty experts working specifically on implicit bias within social
epistemology.
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Faculty Knowledge of the Past and Present Challenges Facing Women in Philosophy and
Knowledge of How These Challenges Affect Gender Distribution in the Profession
The first three assumed knowledge influences were classified as declarative knowledge,
and these were combined together for validation purposes. These influences were the following:
faculty knowledge of the historical barriers that kept women from entering philosophy, faculty
knowledge of the current challenges facing women in philosophy, and faculty knowledge of the
gender disparities in the discipline. The interview question that helped with the validation of all
the three assumed declarative knowledge influences was: “Based on your own experience in
your carrier and observations of the professions, what challenges, if any, have you noticed that
women face in philosophy?” Participants were further probed on the details of their responses,
including their personal experiences and a few controversial insights that they have shared about
the old-fashioned practices within the profession. In what follows, a few significant themes are
outlined to provide evidence for the validation of the three declarative knowledge influences
mentioned above.
Sexism, Misogyny, and Sexual Harassment
Seven out of 10 participants explicitly mentioned that philosophy has a problem with
treating women as outsiders and as second-class citizens that are less reliable, less smart, less
serious, and less likely to contribute to the field because they have children. This is evident, a
few participants explained, by looking at the history of philosophy and reading its traditional
canon. For instance, Alex said that “you don’t have to read much of philosophy to know that they
think of women as not real persons.” Alex continued that when reading traditional cannon, early
students very soon encounter “gross and pervasive” examples of what women are and what their
place should be. Notable figures, such as Aristotle, Kant, and Nietzsche, just to name a few,
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spoke bluntly about the atrocious nature of women. Nietzsche wrote, “But she does not want
truth: what is truth to woman? From the beginning, nothing has been more alien, repugnant, and
hostile to woman than truth – her great art is the lie, her highest concern is mere appearance and
beauty” (Nietzsche, 1886). There are ways in which professors can try to contextualize such
important philosophical writings right out of the gate in order to minimize harm and prevent
female students from getting turned away from philosophy. However, Alex insisted, “the way
that philosophy is taught, and the way people read and interact with it is personal and is kind of
big deal.” It takes a lot of time, on the teacher side, to prepare students for reading classical
philosophy texts, but it takes even more effort to prepare female students to not internalize the
offensive and derogatory language used against them in those writings.
The overall philosophical climate and the current environment in which the discipline is
practiced leaves as lot to desire, although the situation has improved for women significantly, at
least in some respects. Charlie specified that, in general terms, women face different challenges
depending on how they engage in the profession. He classified these problems in four groups:
challenges in presenting at conferences or giving talks, challenges during job interviews
situations, challenges in teaching situations, and finally challenges in getting work published.
Skyler, Parker, and Brooklyn confirmed that women are less cited, less invited to conferences,
more frequently confronted with aggressive questioning and scrutiny regarding their scholarly
work, and more frequently challenged concerning the so called “philosophical genius.” The three
participants attributed it to the gender bias and sexism.
Five participants, both men and women, spoke extensively about their personal
experiences with sexual harassment, sexism, and misogyny directed especially at female
graduate students and female junior faculty members. Alex mentioned that “the field is a horror
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and sewer” and that “sexual harassment is extremely prevalent and very little is done,” while
Charlie added that “a lot of people who don’t know much about the field would be profoundly
shocked” finding out what kinds of behaviors have been tolerated in the discipline for years.
Charlie and Blake described a process of how the Eastern American Philosophical
Association (APA) used to interview candidates for new positions in philosophy back in the 90s
and early 2000’s. Blake attributed this process to be an important cause of perpetuating gender
disparity in the field and Charlie called it a “hideous situation” and “traumatic process,” full of
abuse and discomfort for all candidates, but especially women. Blake explained that Eastern APA
meets every year around Christmas and New Years and during those meetings, initial job
interviews would take place. Candidates would send files to all schools that were advertising,
and they would receive calls and emails back to meet with the schools at the conference where
the first round of interviews would take place. Blake described it as following:
One way they would do interviews is you would go to the hotel room and you’d have the
interview in the hotel room. And often that meant you’d go in the hotel room, with three
to five men, you sit on the bed, or you sit on the chair underneath the light in the corner
and you get grilled by everybody in there. I mean, it’s hard enough to do that as a man,
but if you are not, if you are part of an out group, that’s incredibly intimidating. I mean,
that’s terrible way to interview people. It’s really in an uncomfortable setting, to be
interviewed while sitting on a bed. Like, it’s not okay, right?
In passage above, Blake argues that one of the largest philosophical association in the nation
contributed to the creation of a peculiar set of recruitment conditions that were especially
challenging for women. However, two male research participants who also participated in that
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recruitment process described shared that they also felt uncomfortable going through this
experience. As such, these practices may be difficult for a variety of candidates.
Another way APA would interview during their annual meetings was through what was
unofficially called Smoker, which got its name from an informal event where everybody would
go and have drinks and smoke. Well-established philosophers would bring their graduate
students there and introduce to their colleagues. Students would then have rounds at different
tables, where they would drink and smoke and philosophize, with previously introduced hiring
committee members. Blake experienced this APA hiring process in 2005 and called it an
“incredibly uncomfortable and vulnerable situation.” Charlie referred to these types of interviews
as leading to a long-term trauma. The participants reported that the UU Department of
Philosophy has never participated in the Eastern APA interview processes done at their annual
meetings.
Boys-Club Climate and Boys-Club Behavior
Eight participants referred to philosophy departments as unfriendly and hostile places.
Charlie called departmental climates “awful” while Drew contested that “women should be like
men” if they want to succeed in the field because the discipline holds double standards for
women and they are expected to choose either work or kids – preferably work, if they want to be
taken seriously. Skyler further mentioned that the historical underrepresentation of women in the
field caused the development of practices and habits that discouraged women from entering the
discipline. Skyler referred to it as “boys-club climate” that perpetuated “boys-club behaviors.”
This is how Skyler described it:
Because women were underrepresented, it created a kind of boys-club climate, which
contributed to sort of boys-club behaviors, which kind of then, fed off itself. There is lots
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of history on this. Histories of sexual harassment, everything from just realty abhorrent
criminal stuff to subtler things. The tone that people would take with women in
classrooms, at conferences, the whole professional climate was one that made it feel a
very unsafe place for minority populations generally, basically anybody who is not a
White male.
This suggests that the general climate that the field of philosophy is not welcoming toward
women, and that men have acted as gatekeepers, either completely preventing women from
entering the profession or impeding their success.
Seven participants agreed that women are objectified and disrespected much too often in
the professional philosophical settings. The undermining tone directed at women and common
cases of abuse and harassment cause many of women to leave the field. Alex shared that “one
harasser meets a lot of people, most of whom leave the field, and since nothing is done about it,
that right there is a reason” for women to stay away from philosophy. The apparent tolerance of
abuse of power that academic philosophy exhibited for years, and its inability to respond
properly to many ongoing cases of harassment, resulted in the discipline having its own #MeToo
movement between 2010–2012. Skyler elaborated on the prominent philosophers at prestigious
universities, such as University of Miami, Yale, UC Berkley, Northwestern, and University of
Colorado, that were accused of sexual harassment and multiple cases of sexual assault by a
growing number of female graduate students. More cases started surfacing on yearly bases with
victims claiming that the abuse went on for years, but the institutions always managed swipe
everything under the rug, Skyler stated. The settlements between the institutions and the female
students regularly took place partially because the colleges did not want to carry the stigma of
promoting predatory behaviors, and partially because the colleges did not want to lose their
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philosophical superstars. (Berkeleytoo, 2020; Rothfeld, 2017). Alex concluded that, “it would be
a healthy thing for the profession to actually have mechanisms where people who abuse are held
responsible and paid some kind of penalty.” So far, Alex added, there is nothing like that in the
field.
Overall, all participants demonstrated vast knowledge of the historical barriers and
current challenges facing women in philosophy and how these past and present difficulties affect
gender distribution in the profession. They shared significant insights, including personal
experiences, that fully validated the assumed influences related to their declarative knowledge.
This knowledge was assumed to play and important role in the stakeholder’s capacity to reach
gender parity because it provides background, context, and magnitude of the problem of
women’s underrepresentation in the field. Moreover, the participants’ declarative knowledge
confirmed the existence of patriarchal attitudes many male philosophers, and many academic
departments, still have toward their female counterparts (Beebee, 2013; Haslanger, 2008;
Hutchison & Jenkins, 2013; Macnell, Driscoll & Hunt, 2015; Stewart & Valian, 2018).
Faculty Ability to Implement Gender-Equitable Hiring Practices
The fourth assumed knowledge influence, faculty ability to implement gender-equitable
hiring practices, was classified as procedural knowledge and it was assessed through a
combination of interviews and documents analyses. The documents that helped with validating
the procedural knowledge influence were the three most recent job ads for the assistant/associate
professor in the department of philosophy. The interview question that further supported the
validation process was: “Drawing on your own experience, describe your department’s hiring
process?” This question was followed by a number of probes that focused on retrieving specific
details concerning hiring practices and procedures performed at UU’s Department of Philosophy.
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For instance, participants were probed to describe how it was for them to be hired by Utah as
philosophy faculty members, and how this process might had differed from processes
implemented at other institutions that they have worked for before.
As highlighted in Chapter Two, faculty knowledge of how to implement gender-equitable
hiring practices and procedures was assumed to be critical in closing gender gap among its
regular full-time faculty members because this is the ability that has direct power to influence,
perhaps even cause, the permanent increase of the number of women in the profession. It was
assumed that faculty needed to know how to attract women to their department by using strategic
marketing and advertising, and how to retain them by creating conditions in which women
faculty could strive without being objectified, stereotyped, or penalized for having children
Moreover, it was assumed that the department needed to have some sort of anti-implicit bias
education and professional development for the members of search committees. The department
of philosophy at the UU successfully implemented a variety of gender-equitable hiring practices.
Below are three critical themes that emerged among participants in support of the validation of
the procedural knowledge influence.
Intentional Job Ads Aiming at Candidates Working Between Areas
Six out of 10 participants mentioned that the department does not advertise open hires.
Open hires are job advertisements that do not contain specific information under areas of
concentration (AoC) and area of specialization (AoS) of the desired candidate. Charlie scolded
philosophy departments that do practice open hires and referred to them as “lazy” and called the
process itself “kicking the can down the road.” On the contrary, UU’s Department of Philosophy
has a clear idea of who they look for and write intentional and detailed job descriptions. An
important trend that five of the participants discussed was that they often engage in “non-
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traditional search.” Specifically, Charlie said, the department looks for people that can bridge to
other disciplines and work between areas. Parker added that the department actively searches for
multidisciplinary qualities in the candidates, and that they carefully write job advertisements to
fulfill this need. Skyler confirmed this with emphasizing that framing and phrasing job
descriptions is very important to them. It starts with, Skyler continued, asking the faculty, “how
can we frame what we’re looking for, in a way that will be of interest to a diverse population of
applicants?”. Brooklyn mentioned that the department “puts effort in writing job ads,” and Blake
said that “we are intentional about the way we write those because we think that makes a huge
difference in what signal is sends.” Blake referred to the idea that the department tries to signal
to people that they are open to creative new ways of thinking about what it is that they study.
Blake continued:
Instead, what we do is when we write our ads, we write them so that we’re really looking
for people who can work between areas of specialization. And we specifically want
people who will cross boundaries and have creative views of what they’re doing. And one
of the reasons that we think about doing that is we think that if you just hire in really
traditional areas, in really traditional ways, you probably won’t get as diverse of a group
of people applying.
Three different job ads were analyzed as part of the document review process of this study.
Appendix D on page 148 shows the UU Department of Philosophy job ad from Fall 2018 for the
assistant professor in applied ethics. This document was reviewed as part of data analysis process
because this ad clearly speaks to the candidates that can bridge the gap between the philosophy
department and school of medicine. It highlights the department’s multidisciplinary focus and its
creative, more applied, approach to how philosophy can be practiced by having faculty that
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communicates well across areas. Eight out of 10 participants were clear that it was important for
them that the department makes connections with other disciplines on campus and that they write
job ads to align with this objective. This is because the department values embracing new topics
and new ways of doing philosophy and has a goal of practicing, what Reese called, an “engaged
philosophy.”
Deliberate Effort to Recruit Broadly and Advertise Inclusivity
Besides using intentional language in job advertisements that encourages minority
populations of versatile and multidisciplinary specializations to apply, UU’s Department of
Philosophy diversifies the initial pool of job candidates by deliberately advertising their strong
core values. Among them, Blake named “gender parity,” Charlie referred to “inclusivity,” Drew
mentioned “diversity,” and Taylor listed “welcomeness.” Evidence of advertising their
department to a diverse audience is visible in their job ads (Appendix D) as well as their
formalized diversity statement on the department’s website. Appendix E on page 149 includes
the department’s official diversity and inclusion statement. In this statement, the department
acknowledges that philosophy has a history of marginalizing certain groups of people and
assures its commitment to actively prioritizing diversity and inclusion for the sake of social and
as well epistemic considerations. It is important to note that a formalized diversity and inclusion
statement is rare among philosophy departments.
Reese, Skyler, Drew, Taylor, Blake and Alex elaborated on the importance of diversifying
the initial pool of candidates with advertising themselves as a diverse department. Reese
mentioned that “we advertise ourselves as department that cares about diversity” and this helps
attract and breed more diversity. Taylor, Drew, and Houston agreed that the department
established itself as being known in the circles to value women and to actively pursue women
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and this might be helping with more women applying for their open positions. This is how Drew
described the department’s reputation: “…we have something of a reputation now as being a
place where diversity is not only valued, but we actually act on it to try to increase diversity.”
Additionally, Skyler stated that the department also makes a point of sending out their listings to,
in addition to the standard philosophy venues, often overlooked places of recruitment such as
Women’s Caucus at the Philosophy of Science Association and Historically Black Colleges and
Universities. Skyler further emphasized that the department is actively “trying to get these
positions out to as many people as possible, so that they reach non-standard channels.”
Diversifying pool of initial candidates by advertising broadly with intentional job ads that
look for candidates that work between different academic areas became the hallmark of UU’s
Department of Philosophy. Nine participants agreed that this is their high priority in the overall
recruitment process. Blake referred to it as “cracking the code for hiring.”
Spousal Hires
In addition to intentional job ads and deliberate effort to recruit broadly and advertise
inclusivity, six participants also motioned spousal hires as a critical part of gender-equitable
hiring practices. Spousal hire is a process where a partner of a new hire, usually also a
professional academic, is able to receive an offer from the same institution. This helps with not
only recruitment but also retention of desired candidates. Houston labeled spousal hires as a
“two-body problem” that is especially troublesome for women. This is how Brooklyn framed the
problem:
Well, people just, they want to hire women and it never occurs to them that most women
don’t have wives that just go where they go. Right? The way of the old days. Even the
men don’t anymore. But you know, it’s like you don’t hire one person and then, what are
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the odds that a woman philosopher is going to have an academic husband? Pretty high.
Much higher, I think, than the odds that an academic, that a man is going to have an
academic wife. So, you have to be prepared for that. If you want to hire women, you have
to figure out something for their spouses or partners, you know? And we have been able
to do that in some cases.
Brooklyn shared that if departments want to retain women philosophers, they have to find ways
to help with employment for their partners who so often are also academics. Houston
acknowledged that their own department, and in some instances also the university, is generally
willing to provide supplements and special considerations to accommodate spousal hires. Blake
added a “fun fact” that in the case of their workplace, “it’s kind of a funny thing about our
department too that the partner hires that we have made are career-line lectures, not tenure-line,
but they have been the male partners.” This indicates that the department is committed to
providing support for women and their families in terms offering employment for their partners.
However, four participants agreed that the spousal hire efforts are mostly on the
departmental level and not the institutional level. Taylor, for instance, said that “our department
has always been an enormously cooperative department across the university for spousal hiring
and I think you have to be that way.” But this is not the case across the university. Taylor
continued that “it sometimes is very infuriating because you can encounter departments that
aren’t so nice about that.” This suggests that if the spousal hire is in power of the philosophy
department, it usually does take place, but if the spousal hire requires help of another department,
the situation is not as easy. A number of other participants confirmed this idea.
In summary, the three themes highlighted above played a crucial role in gender-equitable
hiring practices and procedures performed by UU’s Department of Philosophy. These themes are
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intentional job ads aiming at candidates working between areas, deliberate effort to recruit
broadly and advertise inclusivity, and spousal hires. The themes make a strong case for the
validation of the assumed procedural influence and provide important details for future
recommendations to help close gender gaps in other institutions. Additionally, the themes
corroborated findings of multiple studies on diversity hiring (Aldamero, 2017; APA, 2020,
Kayes, 2006; Williams & Wade-Golden, 2013).
Faculty Knowledge of Their Own Gender Biases
The fifth assumed knowledge influence, faculty knowledge of their own gender biases,
was classified as metacognitive knowledge and it was validated by interviews alone. The
interview question that helped with advancing the validation of the influence was the following:
“When you and your colleagues reflect on gender bias, how is it framed?” Two probes were
particularly helpful in providing additional information to supplement this question. They were:
“How do you work together to limit the role of such biases in the hiring process?” and “What
professional development exists for the faculty concerning bias education, if any?”
As highlighted in Chapter Two, metacognitive knowledge was of special interest for the
study as it was assumed to be the second, next to gender-equitable hiring, most critical influences
affecting the stakeholder’s capacity to reach gender parity among its regular full-time faculty
members. This study assumed that faculty needed to be self-aware of their own potential gender
biases in order to effectively minimize them This is because implicit biases often play an
invisible, yet persistent and persuasive, role in evaluating women and their abilities. Specifically,
gender bias causes favoring men over women when assessing candidate’s credentials in hiring
(Biernat & Kobrynowicz, 1997; Eagly & Karau, 2002; Macnell, Driscoll & Hunt, 2015;
Uhlmann & Cohen, 2007). Various studies proposed that metacognitive knowledge is imperative
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in successfully shielding hiring committee members from acting on their own biases (APA,
2000; Saul, 2013). One way to do so is through anti-implicit bias education and professional
development (Williams & Wade-Golden 2013). All 10 participants in the study confirmed that
before each new hiring process, the hiring committee members participate in formal university’s
implicit bias training. However, five participants noted that the department “takes it further” and
engages in other activities that promote self-awareness and potentially minimize implicit bias.
Two of these features are described below.
Graduate Student Practicums
Six participants mentioned that the department regularly organizes graduate student
practicums. Three participants called practicums immensely helpful in actively reflecting on their
own implicit biases. Blake referred to these practicums as teaching graduate students “unwritten
rules of academia.” Practicums cover a range of topics such as: what are microaggressions and
how to minimize them, how to use personal pronouns, how to diversify syllabi, how to ask
questions at conferences in a respectful and inclusive manner that is not hostile or biased against
people, and a variety of other topics concerning diversity, equity, and inclusion. Sometimes,
Parker mentioned, philosophers from underrepresented groups, such as LGBTQ community, are
invited as speakers to raise awareness of the problem of exclusion and bias in the field. Blake
added that these practicums are a proactive way of minimizing biases and promoting inclusivity
and equity among graduate students. This is what Reese, who actively runs practicums, had to
say about these meetings:
This is one thing that makes a huge difference. I think it’s also one of the ways that we
sort of keep that (self-awareness of the biases) baked in our identity. Because even
though we all feel it, actually having to go talk to a room of grad students about it makes
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you think actively about it and about your own recent experiences in a way that you
wouldn’t if you weren’t doing that exercise. So, it sort of makes the faculty engage,
engage with the things that we care about. And then figure out how to instill the same
values in the grad students.
According to Reese, graduate practicums turned out to be an effective way for the faculty to
consciously engage in self-reflection about topics such as implicit biases, diversity, equity, and
inclusion within philosophy. The practicums also invite graduate students to contemplate these
issues together with the faculty and help to instill the departmental core values in the students’
day-to-day philosophical practices.
Hence, graduate practicums at UU’s Department of Philosophy are one of the means that
faculty uses to reflect on their own implicit biases. Moreover, through this active and continuous
reflection, faculty not only adjusts their own biases and academic practices, but also promotes
these mindsets and behaviors among graduate students. Taylor mentioned that practicums allow
both students and teachers to discuss difficult topics concerning philosophical practices both in
classrooms and in academia.
Faculty Experts on Implicit Bias
Five participants noted the presence of faculty experts in the department working
specifically on implicit bias within social epistemology. Charlie called these faculty “prominent
feminist philosophers,” while Parker, Alex, and Houston defined their expertise as working on
“implicit bias,” “women issues,” and teaching “feminist theory.” The five participants agreed that
working among faculty experts that highlight the turbulent past of women in philosophy and
publish on issues such as implicit bias and gender stereotyping allows all faculty to stay vigilant
and up to date on the latest research regarding these difficult to grapple with topics. Alex
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mentioned that having a group of people in the department who are interested in and actively
produce scholarly work on implicit bias and gender issues helps with the hiring processes as
well. Alex continued that, “a lot of us in the department work on related issues, and so bring the
expertise related to that to every stage of the process unavoidably.” The process Alex referred to
is recruitment and retention of women. Alex added that the department is sensitive to avoiding
gender bias:
This department doesn’t seem to have that (implicit bias) built in, in a way, and in fact the
awareness of that, being a factor in philosophy and trying to overcome it has been part of
the discussion since I have joined the department. And so, concern with the bias and
awareness of the bias and then trying to get away from it has been a fat part of the fabric
of this department, since my first encounter with it. It’s something that I think a lot of us
are aware of.
This indicates that the awareness of gender bias and active efforts to avoid it became the
department’s priority early in the formation of the current group of faculty. In addition, Alex
implied that working with the faculty members who are experts on gender-related issues helps
with advancing the departmental dialogue on how to minimize implicit biases and stay vigilant
about gender stereotypes.
Many philosophy departments across the nation, especially the top ranked programs, do
not engage in feminist philosophy, according to Drew, because this subfield is considered “not a
real discipline.” Just like gender studies, women studies, or certain types of ethics, feminist
philosophy is often viewed as the non-classical and derogatory approach to doing philosophy.
The same is said about the journals that publish this type of work. They generally receive less
recognition, Drew continued, and are considered less prestigious. But the department of
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philosophy at the UU holds a different conviction. They believe that feminist theory is important,
and that philosophical topics concerning women, and those done solely by their female faculty
members, are sophisticated and valuable. This is why they engage in research and publications
concerning these ideas and they promote departmental dialogue that helps to minimize gender
bias among the faculty, their hiring practices, and the student body.
I was interested in learning about UU’s Department of Philosophy’s view on feminist
philosophy, gender studies, and other related disciplines because these very subfields are
historically devalued and unwelcome in many of the top ranked philosophy programs and the
presence of these subfields may correlate with the number of women in these programs. I
hypothesized that a department with gender parity would be more welcoming to these subfields
and these assumptions were confirmed. The UU Department of Philosophy did reach gender
parity and it does value feminist philosophy and other closely related fields of study.
Summary of Knowledge Findings
Overall, the research participants exhibited deep knowledge with regards to the five
knowledge influences assumed before the study took place. These influences were generated
based on an extensive literature review and the interview participants successfully validated all
of them. Based on the content analysis from the interviews and the collected documents, four
themes seem especially important. They are:
1. Writing intentional job ads aiming at candidates working between areas,
2. Deliberate effort to recruit broadly and advertise inclusivity, and
3. Spousal hires, as part of the faculty procedural knowledge, and
4. Organizing graduate practicums as part of the faculty metacognitive knowledge.
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This study assumed that procedural knowledge and metacognitive knowledge would be
particularly important for the stakeholder’s capacity to reach gender parity and the research
findings confirmed this stipulation.
Motivation Findings
The motivation portion of the study aimed at understanding what caused participants to
start pursuing and continue sustaining the goal of diversifying tenured and tenure-line faculty
members. Seli and Dembo (2019) stated that motivation is influenced by a variety of internal and
external factors. Among them, there are personal beliefs and perceptions as well as sociocultural
influences. Rueda (2011) argued that motivational beliefs often stem from others with whom we
interact in social settings. This means that motivation is context-specific and depends heavily on
organizational culture. Thus, departmental climate and environment in which faculty operates
might have helped or hindered the formation of motivational beliefs concerning closing the
gender gap in the field. There were specifically two motivation constructs assumed to be crucial
in influencing faculty’s ability to reach gender parity: attainment value and self-efficacy.
Attainment value refers to the faculty perception of the importance of reaching gender parity
within their department while self-efficacy refers to the faculty confidence in their ability to
implement gender-equitable hiring practices. Both influences were validated as assets by all
study participants through interview questions and there were no new influences that have
emerged. Table 6 shows a summary of assumed motivation influences and their validation status.

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Table 6
Assumed Motivation Influences and Validation Status
Assumed Motivation Influence Validated
Partially
Validated
Not
Validated
Faculty perception of the importance of
reaching gender parity within their department.
X
Faculty self-efficacy to implement gender-
parity-oriented hiring practices.
X

Faculty Perception of the Importance of Reaching Gender Parity
The first assumed motivation influence was attainment value. According to value theory,
the degree of attainment value predicts active choice (Seli & Dembo, 2019). This means that the
more the faculty valued gender parity, the more they actively chose to pursue it. The attainment
value construct was validated by the following question: “What is your department’s perspective
on gender parity among faculty?” This was followed by a few context-specific probes. No
documents were reviewed while validating this influence. Nine participants said that they value
gender parity. Among them, three said that they are “extremely proud,” of closing the gender gap
in their department, Reese said that they “celebrate the unique status,” and Parker mentioned that
“it’s not just pride, also maybe relief.” Parker described the sense of relief in the following
manner: “Like, thank goodness we get to be in, in such a, a fantastic environment to do good
thinking in, um, it’s privilege, it’s a huge privilege.” Moreover, participants naturally
distinguished between two types of value that they perceive in reaching gender parity - social
and epistemic. Below these two values are described more in detail.

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Social Value
Five participants emphasized the social value of reaching gender parity in the department.
Blake alluded that diversity and inclusion means better place to work: “And when you have
departments that are more supportive and inclusive and diverse, uh, it’s more fun. And it’s a
better place to work and it’s a better place to be.” Drew said that “diversity keeps the department
alive and healthy” while Parker mentioned that the department sees diversity among faculty as
“sort of critical asset.” This is how Parker described the social value of reaching gender parity:
“It wouldn’t be any fun to hang out with, uh, or it’d would be like socially really taxing to, to
hang out with someone who didn’t value diversity in the way that we do.” Moreover, Skyler
emphasized that the department is not focused primarily on gender parity, but rather, on diversity
and inclusion within the field more in general. Parker said:
I don’t think of gender parity as like a goal in and of itself. It’s more we value diversity.
And we’ve implemented processes that we think maximize the potential of having
diverse applicants, and then diverse candidates, and then diverse job offers. And that has
resulted in gender parity.
This shows that, rather than gender parity itself, one of the department’s core values is their
commitment to diversity and inclusion. However, through implementing practices and policies
that maximize diversity, gender parity followed as one of the consequences.
Moreover, based on the participants’ comments, for UU’s Department of Philosophy,
valuing diversity and inclusion also means that different voices are not only allowed to speak,
but that they are also heard and listened to. This is precisely the social aspect of the value that
gender parity brings. This is how Drew described women’s position in the department:
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See, it’s not just that they (the faculty) put women in those positions, we got the jobs after,
you know, being in a pool. And we were selected. Having women in those positions is, I
think, extremely important because we bring our voices to the table. And it, and not just to
the table, but sometimes we were the ones running the meetings, calling people to the
table. And Utah has always had, the university has always been this, kind of, frontier,
sorta school.
This indicates that not only the department of philosophy but also the university as an institution
cares about creating conditions that allow women to obtain leadership positions. Drew made
clear that philosophy department cares about having women in tenured and tenure-track positions
because this allows different voices, women voices, to be heard all the time. Drew also
highlighted that increasing the number of women and leveling the playing field of academia, that
used to be completely dominated by men, was something that the whole university cared about
and participated in for years. This means that the department of philosophy values align, at least
in some respects, with the university values. Thus, perhaps the two influence each other in the
terms of forming motivational beliefs to instigate and sustain the goal of reaching gender parity.
Epistemic Value
Besides social value, research participants also highlighted the epistemic value that
diversity brings into their philosophical research and practice. Four participants agreed that
knowledge in general and philosophy in particular benefits from diversity. This is because
diverse people bring more diverse ideas and practice more diverse philosophy. Drew stated that
“diversity makes us better teachers, researchers, and citizens,” and Parker mentioned that the
department sees diversity among faculty as “sort of critical asset.” This is how Parker described
the epistemic value of reaching gender parity and promoting diversity among faculty:
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I put it this way before, homogenous systems are, are quite brittle, right? If you have
people who all sort of think the same way, then they’ll be able to solve a small group of
problems really well. Um, but when things come from left field, I guess, they won’t have
the right resources to, to solve the problem. Um, whereas, um, where you have a
heterogenous sorts of groups of people, you have a wider domain, um, of, of, uh, problem
solving, I guess, power, right. Because you have people will be able to, um, bring
considerations that the other members of the faculty might not have thought of before.
(…) So, this is actually a power, a philosophy power that we have.
With this, Parker argued that having a diverse group of faculty work together helps with solving
philosophical problems and maximizes the quality of knowledge produced. Parker further
insisted that having people from a variety of different backgrounds allows for a wider
perspective and greater insight into whatever it is they work on.
Parker added that it is important for the department to continue to grow and evolve as a
group and to cultivate the things that they value so highly. This includes gender parity and
diversity among faculty, students, and philosophical ideas. With this, the Utah philosophy faculty
confirmed my assumptions about the significance of women’s underrepresentation in the field
described in Chapter Two. I argued that it is important to close the gender gap for two reasons:
fairness of organizational practices and the quality of philosophy itself. It seems that research
participants care for and value both of these aspects of reaching gender parity.
Faculty Self-Efficacy to Implement Gender-Parity-Oriented Hiring Practices
The second assumed motivation influence was self-efficacy. Self-efficacy is one’s own
belief, or confidence, that one can successfully complete a specific task (Parajes, 2010). The
study assumed that the faculty needed to believe that they have what it takes, in terms of abilities
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and skills, to implement gender-parity-oriented hiring practices. The specific question that
supported the validation of self-efficacy was: “How confident are you, as a department, in your
ability to recruit female candidates?”
All 10 participants, without hesitation, confirmed their confidence in hiring female
faculty members. More specifically, two participants said that they were confident, four
participants said that they were very confident, and four participants said that they were
extremely confident in recruiting female candidates. This is how Drew explained the
department’s confidence:
I have seen all kinds of departments try to do this and fail and some of them, I think, just
as committed to diversity as the philosophy department is and I, but they didn’t, there
was something that was missing. There was, like, always that one big, distinguished
professor in the background who would get in and muck things up or something. I don’t
know. But for philosophy department, I’m absolutely, I have no. Yeah, they shouldn’t
even ask us if we’ve done our because it’s obvious, we had.
Drew’s response reflects a high level of confidence that all faculty members reported about their
ability to attract and retain women faculty. Furthermore, Drew attributed the success the
department has had to their prioritization of diversity, which helped achieve the goal gender
parity.
Blake spoke about a strong sense of who the faculty are, collectively, as a department. A
majority of faculty members share the same values and core beliefs. They care about diversity,
equity, and inclusion and they try to attract candidates that have similar priorities. Houston added
that “women don’t have to worry to be women” in their department and they remembered people
who first joined the department and said: “Wow! I didn’t know it could be like this, this is so
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freeing.” Parker agreed that the department has a unique and welcoming environment and that its
faculty can simply be who they are, without any reservations, and that this might also attracts
more women. This is how Parker answered the question about how confident the department is
in its ability to recruit female candidates:
Extremely confident. I mean, it would be extremely surprising to me if a candidate didn’t
feel, um, more welcomed here than they did in other places. Obviously, there’s other
considerations they have. So, you know, people have families across the country. The
U.S. is a big place. You can’t necessarily move too far away from your partner or where
your kids are in school. You might care about, um, a particular, um, subject matter that
isn’t necessarily our strength, but all other things being equal, working here is the
greatest.
Parker made clear that working at UU’s Department of Philosophy is a terrific experience that is
quite remarkable in the field. She also indicated that, all things being equal, new hires report
feeling more welcomed at the UU than at other institutions.
Taylor also said that departmental confidence in recruiting female candidates comes from
earning a certain reputation. Afterall, UU’s Department of Philosophy is the only one in the
nation, ranked in top-50 doctoral programs according to several different rankings, that achieved
gender parity among its regular full-time faculty members. Charlie added that the department
worked hard to reach this goal and started actively, and formally, addressing hiring about 15
years ago. The reputation of being number one gender-equitable philosophy department in the
country continues to boost the faculty confidence in attracting and generating a diverse group of
initial job candidates, including women and other minority populations. Now, Parker mentioned,
the department is focused on attracting more ethnically and racially diverse candidates. This is
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the next goal the faculty hopes to reach by implementing similar diversity-oriented recruitment
methods.
Summary of Motivation Findings
Participants were able to successfully express their motivational beliefs behind reaching
gender parity among its regular full-time faculty members. About half of the participants focused
on describing the social value of closing the gender gap in philosophy while the other half
highlighted the epistemic value. These findings confirmed my assumptions about the significance
of women’s underrepresentation in the field. Moreover, all participants indicated that they are
confident, and some even mentioned that they are extremely confident, in recruiting female
candidates. This indicates that the faculty possess high self-efficacy. Furthermore, several
participants mentioned that their confidence comes from seeing the success that they have
achieved. This confirms Seli & Dembo (2019) assertion that success raises an individuals’ self-
efficacy while failure lowers it.
Organizational Findings
The organization portion of the study, following the Gallimore and Goldenberg' (2001)
categorization of organizational influences, focused on examining a variety of organizational
models and settings assumed to play an important role in allowing faculty to successfully reach
their performance goal. As explained more in detail in Chapter Two, cultural models are values,
beliefs, and norms that are shared by an organization while cultural settings are physical
manifestations of such cultural models. Cultural settings can take a form of policies, resources,
and people. Gallimore and Goldenberg (2001) explained that organizational models, commonly
refer to as organizational cultures, exist and are formed in organizational settings and that the
two are “manifestly interconnected” (p. 48). Thus, because organizational factors can either help
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or hinder stakeholders’ performance, I aimed at understanding how the department of philosophy
functions within a larger unit of the college of humanities as well as the UU itself. Data analysis
validated as assets the two organizational models assumed about the department of philosophy.
However, from the three influences concerning the organizational settings of the UU, two were
only partially validated as assets while one was not validated as an asset. Table 7 displays a
summary of assumed organizational influences and their validation status.

Table 7
Assumed Organizational Influences and Validation Status
Assumed Organizational Influence Validated
Partially
Validated
Not
Validated
The departmental culture that actively works to
address historical injustices, promotes
inclusivity, and affirms the value of
philosophy to everyone.
X
The departmental culture that embraces change
and promotes gender equity.
X
The university’s provision of effective role
models who have integrated diversity goals
into hiring practices.
X
The university’s provision of high-quality anti-
implicit bias education and professional
development for search and hiring
committees.
X
The university’s provision of effective support
and accountability measures that encourage
departments to willingly participate in
promoting diversification of their faculty
members.
X

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The Departmental Culture that Promotes Inclusivity and Affirms the Value of Philosophy
to Everyone
The first assumed organizational influence was a cultural model related to the
development of departmental culture that actively addresses historical injustices, promotes
inclusivity, and affirms the value of philosophy to everyone. The study assumed that the
department needed to develop shared beliefs, values, and priorities that guided the faculty while
instigating and sustaining their goal of reaching gender parity. The presence of inclusive
departmental culture was validated by the question: “What is your understanding of how the
department came to have gender parity?” The question, in all instances, was followed by the
same probe: “Based on your own experience, would you say that the department prioritizes
addressing historically marginalized groups? If so, in what ways?” The influence was validated
by all 10 participants and two themes seemed especially significant: presence of men who cared
and were not themselves gender biased and consistent and continuous diversity efforts.
Men Who Cared and Were Not Themselves Gender Biased
Five study participants mentioned that one of the features of the department that helped
with inclusion of women was the presence of men who cared about women’s underrepresentation
in philosophy and were not themselves gender biases. These men, according to the participants,
understood that philosophy lacks certain kinds of perspectives that ultimately come from having
diverse practitioners and made a deliberate effort to work toward change and increase the
number of women in the department. For instance, Taylor said that, “I think part of why we
ended up with a number of women was we had really, um, interesting male faculty who weren’t
themselves gender biased.” Drew made an even stronger claim asserting that these very men
were the cause of the big shift in the department: “But the big shift didn’t occur until we hired
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men who thought it was wrong that women were discriminated against.” Drew continued that
having men who were prominent philosophers in their respective subfields and who additionally
cared about making changes in the field tremendously helped the department with promoting
inclusivity. This is how Alex explained men’s advocacy for gender parity within their department
more detail:
We have faculty members who are mostly male, who made a very explicit effort to build
that side of the department as well and link it as thematically and so there’s nice
connections in research area with people working in practical reasoning and medical
ethics, research ethics and philosophy of science and sort of finding way, again, picking
people by area, that will fit and really thrive in the, in the department. And they did that
in a way that has encouraged, uh, continued gender parity for a long time. … there was a
very deliberate effort. Along with building the strengths of our department, building them
in a way that would achieve gender parity or help, help to have it.
Alex’s response suggests that the presence of men who care about women underrepresentation in
philosophy and who put deliberate effort into working toward closing the gender gap played a
critical role in helping the faculty reach gender parity.
Alex and Drew continued that when the department was establishing its areas of
expertise, it did so while onboarding men who were not gender biased. In turn, these men were
then welcoming of female philosophers that could add to the department’s strengths and expand
its research focus. Brooklyn confirmed this stating that the department started getting momentum
when they hired “people accepting feminist philosophy and accepting women, which aren’t
exactly the same thing, but they kinda go together.” Reese added that the department hired “right
people” early on who valued diversity and focused on advancing it: “We made sure we hired
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people that valued these things. And that, we, um, that we made that like a core value of our
department and instilled that in our new faculty and we just kept hiring people that we made sure
cared about these things.” Making sure that the new faculty cares about the same things is first
initially assessed during hiring, and then later reinforced by the faculty mentoring program.
Consistent and Continuous Diversity Efforts
Throughout the interviews, participants mentioned several different ways in which the
department consistently and continuously advances their diversity efforts. Among them, there
was formalized diversity and inclusion statement, diversifying syllabi, enriching old classes to
appeal to a broader audience, organizing graduate student practicums, carefully phrased,
detailed, and targeted job ads, marketing inclusivity and gender parity, caring for graduate
students, and faculty mentoring program. Mentoring is an extension of hiring and helps the
department with diversity retention efforts. Charlie mentioned the following about the
mentoring:
For us, hiring starts at recruitment and ends once the person we’ve chosen in in the door.
But then we instantly switch over to mentoring, so that hiring kind of runs seamlessly
into retention efforts. And our retention efforts are not throwing money at people. The
making sure that people have mentorship and support from among the existing faculty.
So, so we think of hiring as kind of a big, long things that runs out into retention.
With this, Charlie explained the continuity of the department’s diversity efforts. These efforts
start from diversity-oriented hiring practices and soon after onboarding of a new faculty
transition into retention efforts. The transition is seamless and does not involve any extra
financial resources. It does, however, involve substantial amount of time and effort and
establishing more personal relationships between faculty.
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Caring for, respecting, and paying attention to the needs of graduate students and junior
scholars is yet another departmental effort to continue advancing equity and inclusion. Blake
mentioned that the department is very active and engages with students and young faculty
members in a variety of different ways which turned out promising while diversifying the pool of
initial candidates when hiring. This is what Blake said:
We have a lot of activities in our department, and we’re involved in the field in different
ways, that we see a lot of junior scholars’ work. And we see them when they are graduate
students. For example, (…) we host graduate student conferences. And we what we do,
part of the department culture is we notice really good junior scholars. And when people
are in graduate school, we keep tabs on people, we keep track of who people are. And
especially… So, it’s not just if they are from underrepresented groups, but if they are, we
especially notice that too. Because we know that that’s such an important part of the field
and an important part of who we are as a department.
Blake’s response provides additional evidence of the department’s continuous, consistent, and
multifaceted diversity efforts. In addition to diversity-driven hiring and retention practices, the
department actively engages with and keeps track of graduate students and junior scholars who
are promising in their respective subfields. If these students or junior scholars come from
underrepresented groups, the department pays special attention to their early scholarly efforts and
reaches out to them with information about new job openings.
Houston confirmed that the department has certain customs concerning graduate students
that are influential when promoting equity and inclusion within the field of philosophy. Houston
described the departmental tradition of letting graduate students ask questions first whenever a
speaker comes. Normally, faculty asks questions first, and students follow later, but Houston
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insisted that showing respect to students in such seemingly insignificant way strongly contributes
to the departmental continuous diversity and inclusivity efforts. This is what Houston said:
We let graduate students go first. And that makes all the difference in the world. And of
course, the graduate students are more varied. There are, um, people with different ethnic
backgrounds, they’re women, men, all that stuff, but it, it treats them as equals in a
discussion rather than, you know, because if you let the faculty go first, the students shy
back and, you know, in this they have to talk first. And it, that really makes a huge
difference, I think, in a department. And it’s such a, seems like such a trivial thing, but it’s
not.
Houston’s comment indicates that graduate students play a key role in the department’s diversity
efforts. This is because students at Utah generally come from more diverse ethnic and racial
backgrounds than the faculty, and by encouraging them to speak and share their ideas in public
settings, entire department benefits from a wide variety of viewpoints and perspectives.
All study participants shared substantial evidence that supported the validation of the first
cultural model assumed in this study. The UU’s Department of Philosophy successfully created a
departmental culture that promotes inclusivity, addresses marginalized populations, and affirms
the value of philosophy to everyone. More specifically, the influence was confirmed by the two
themes: presence of men who cared and were not themselves gender biased and consistent and
continuous diversity efforts.
The Departmental Culture That Embraces Change
The second assumed organizational influence was a cultural model concerning the
collective departmental perspective on embracing change. I assumed that the faculty needed to
be willing to change and embrace the change while working towards reaching the goal of closing
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gender gap among their regular full-time faculty members. The second cultural model was
validated by the following question: “In what ways, if at all, does your department culture
embraces change?” The influence was validated by nice participants. These are a few ways in
which the study participants described the department’s perspective on change: “department is
extremely willing to change,” “change is built in our core values,” “we are very welcoming of
change,” “we stay up on new trends,” and “department embraces change throughout.”
Skyler mentioned that the department is open for change but not just for any kind of
change. Rather, the department embraces change that represents inclusivity and tolerance. This is
what Skyler had to say about embracing change within the department:
I think we take ourselves to be, you know, a department that values inclusivity, that
values tolerance, that values social justice. Um you know, unfortunately those become
politicized concepts and there are members of society that find that stuff threatening. But
I think when you think of like the way we hire, the kind of courses we teach, the people
we bring to give lectures, um, our efforts at the university and in the community, they’re
oftentimes in the name of, you know, inclusivity, tolerance and social justice. (…) As a
result, I think we’re very welcoming of changes that are in keeping with that, you know,
sort of vision of the world.
Skyler’s comment shows that the department embraces both the social and philosophical changes
that align with the declared faculty values and core beliefs. More specifically, through their
hiring, teaching, and scholarship, the department aims to advance inclusivity, tolerance, and
social justice.
Alex confirmed that the department is “extremely willing to change” and she provided as
an example one of the departmental meetings where the faculty discussed their effort to create
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more classes that would bring underrepresented groups into the center of the class. Alex
continued that the discussion concentrated on bringing that into the courses that already exist, but
also expanding and creating new courses that would actually speak to the areas of increasing
interest in philosophy among underrepresented groups and minority cultures. Although such
efforts are not new in humanities, Alex said, they are new in philosophy. This is one way in
which the department embraces change, Alex concluded - it encourages cultural diversity
through revising old curricula and adding new courses that focus on minority populations in the
field.
Another example of the department embracing change comes from their multidisciplinary
focus and an innovative approach to studying non-mainstream philosophical topics. With this,
comes hiring for the positions that bridge to other fields and other parts of campus. Six
participants mentioned that department is open for creative and innovative ways of thinking and
that this is what they also look for in their new hires. Blake said that the department is intentional
and strategic with how they onboard new hires. Blake continued that the department generally
looks for people who reflect the department’s current strengths but also extend to new strengths,
people who can take the department in new directions. This is what Blake had to say about their
hiring strategy that builds in change:
And especially in the more recent hires what we’ve really stressed connections to other
programs on campus or other communities. That pushes us to continue to expand and
change what we’re doing. (…) I think our hiring strategies have built in change rather
than stagnation. We’re not just looking to cover stuff we’ve always covered; we’re
looking to build from strength outwards. I think that that really values challenging
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ourselves and expanding the way we think about what we’re doing, which is a kind of
change.
Blake’s comment indicates that the department actively pursues change in terms of people that it
hires and their relative fields of expertise. Blake mentioned that the faculty like to challenge
themselves and explore new topics and new territories previously dismissed or only scarcely
addressed by the field. To help them with that goal, the department seeks to hire
multidisciplinary faculty that can be a bridge from their department to other fields and close
potential gaps in knowledge.
Overall, based on the participants’ comments, the department of philosophy at the UU
engages in change and embraces change in a variety of different ways. The faculty refuses to be
stagnant and promotes change in terms of designing new courses, diversifying old syllabi, hiring
people that take the department in new directions, and practicing philosophy that connects the
discipline with other fields. Parker referred to the multidisciplinary focus of the department as
“reaching out in ways that are fairly radical for the way philosophy is traditionally done, so this
is progress in the sense of moving and branching out from the Western canon into other exciting
territories.” Moreover, the department continuously tried to stay up on new philosophical trends
such as public philosophy, philosophy of psychiatry, empirically informed philosophy of mind
and philosophy of science.
The University’s Provision of Effective Role Models
The third assumed organizational influence was a cultural setting concerning the UU
provision of effective role models. The study assumed that organizational leaders are in a rare
position to create organizational culture and context which mobilizes employees to reach their
goals and objectives. More specifically, the study stipulated that effective organizational role
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models, such as president, dean, and department chair could play a crucial role in creating and
maintaining faculty diversification initiatives. The presence of effective role models was
validated by the question: “Are there exemplars at the University of Utah or elsewhere that you
and your colleagues looked for an inspiration in how you approach recruitment and hiring? If so,
what practices did you adopt as a result?” Each participant was also probed about specific roles
that the chair, the dean, and the president play in setting and integrating diversity goals when it
comes to hiring. The influence was partially validated by five study participants who listed
consecutive department chairs and a group of core senior female faculty members as their role
models. Furthermore, three participants mentioned that the involvement of the past deans was
scarce. Alex said that “It’s definitely not the dean” that helps with diversification initiatives, and
they continued that “my sense is it pretty much comes from our department.” Charlie implied
that it was sometimes difficult to work with different deans and they added that “it’s been
different with different generations of administration.” Drew confirmed this by saying that
“There was not a lot of active help. I think that has changed, but I don’t really know.”
Overall, nine participants said that there are no role models outside of the department that
they looked to for inspiration in how they approach recruitment and hiring, and one participant
said that they have no idea about the existence of any role models that the department looked up
to. Reese commented that, “I don’t feel like we’ve been looking elsewhere, because of course
we’ve been doing, we’re the one that a lot of other departments are looking to.” This is what
Skyler had to say about the department’s own introspection rather than looking outside for an
inspiration:
My sense is it’s been much more internalized in terms of we know we have something
good here. We value it. We think it’s a terrific department, both in terms of its intellectual
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output, and in terms of the collegial environment that it created. And we want to maintain
it. And so, we’re constantly thinking like how we make sure that we, you know, keep
doing what we’re doing well. So that’s more internal looking though. I don’t know of an
example that we’ve held up and said, “That’s what we want to start doing better.”
This suggests that the department did not look outward for an inspiration when setting their
diversity goals. Rather, the faculty focused on maintain their status quo which, as reported by
Skyler, was something that they all cherished and were proud of, both in terms of the produced
knowledge and created climate.
Skyler continued explaining that the chair would always incorporate processes and
delegate people who would incorporate the processes that generate the outcomes that the
department is happy with. Skyler explained that the chair is “one of us” and they want to keep
doing what works well and maintain the department’s extraordinary status of being gender-
equitable. Brooklyn confirmed this by stating that, “We were sort of trying to do things that a
little more innovative so there just really weren’t any exemplars in that respect.” Thus, the study
participants confirmed that the diversification efforts come primarily from the department itself
and that instead of looking outside for inspirations when hiring and retaining women, other
departments are looking at them.
Moreover, six participants referred to a group of senior female faculty members that
played an important role in reaching gender parity. The department was “lucky,” according to the
four participants, in having “strong female scholars” early on who drove the diversity and
inclusion efforts. Blake said that many of the faculty members look up to these women for an
inspiration and guidance. Blake continued that, “I look to my senior colleagues, right? I mean
that’s who I look to. They’ve taught me how to do recruitment.” Parker also mentioned that the
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group of senior female faculty played a significant role in how the department has developed.
Parker said,
There was a core group of women scholars as early as the 70s and 80s. Um, and by the
core group, I mean, there was a least two or three. And it’s, I would think that it’s likely
that they had a huge influence of how the group of faculty developed from there. I don’t
know if you’d want to call that luck… Because as I said, it’s true that this is something
(diversity) that we’ve actively pursed, but it wouldn’t have been the case that we actively
pursed it, if not for that early core group, I think.
Parker’s comment indicates that the early core group of senior female faculty members both
instigated and continued to inspire others to purse diversity goals. The origin of the
circumstances that led to the creation of the senior female faculty members group at the UU is
not entirely shown for, but the deliberate effort of this core group to purse diversity is evident.
Charlie reinforced the idea that the core group of senior faculty members first initiated
the diversity efforts by calling one of them “role model supreme.” Charlie continued to say that it
was very important for the department development to have women chairs early. Charlie
mentioned that having administrative roles filled by women was crucial for structural reasons,
such as having people get used to the fact that women are in these kinds of positions. One of
these core senior female faculty members later became a dean. Charlie added that this was also
helpful for the department as it highlighted the problem of lack of women in philosophy for the
whole university.
In summary, the study participants only partially validated the presence of effective role
models to be an asset. Six participants mentioned a core group of senior female faculty members
that played an early role in early diversification efforts. However, almost all of the participants
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implied that there are no role models outside of the department that they look for inspiration in
how they approach recruitment and hiring. Specifically, three participants said that the deans
were not very helpful and that the diversity and inclusion efforts come primarily from within the
department.
The University’s Provision of High-Quality Professional Development
The fourth assumed organizational influence was a cultural setting concerning the
university’s provision of high-quality professional development and anti-implicit bias education.
Clark and Estes (2008) stated that individuals need information and training to reach their
performance goals. Hence, this study assumed that the philosophy faculty needed to receive a
regular and up-to-date professional development focused on bias education and diversification of
faculty. The presence of high-quality of training for the members of search committees was
validated by the following question: “In what ways, if any, does the university participate in
preparing your department for its active search in the hiring diverse candidates?” This influence
was partially validated. Although there is a required implicit bias education training that all
search committee members must complete before any new hire, four participants agreed that the
training is not high-quality, and one participant said that the training is not very helpful, if at all.
Reese mentioned that to the extent that it is possible, the training is somewhat helpful.
This is how Reese described the usefulness of the implicit bias education offered by the Office of
Equal Opportunity:
I wouldn’t say it’s one of those things that you have to do, and you wish you didn’t. It’s, I
think to the extent that its possible, it’s, sort of, impossible to anticipate, like the
particular questions and the situations (while hiring). So, I think to the extent that it’s
possible, it remains a little generic because it has to. But to the extent that it’s possible, I
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think they do a really good job of, like, making sure to highlight the issues that might
come up, so that we’re better able to recognize them and be prepared, you know, to deal
with them.
As the comment indicates, Reese’s feelings about the usefulness of implicit bias education were
mixed. Other faculty exhibited similar concerns.
Brooklyn, for instance, mentioned that the training is not very useful because rather than
informing about the best practices in diversity hiring, it focuses on the things that are not allowed
or illegal. This is how Brooklyn framed it:
It’s more of a negative thing where you have to take that, that training and then it used to
be, I think before it was online, they actually brought someone from that office, and they
would tell you all the rules about this. So that would be, sort of, like, they are involved,
but they are involved in a way that tells you what the restrictions are on this.
Charlie confirmed that the involvement of the Office of Equal Opportunity in the departmental
hiring practices in rather insignificant. Charlie described the office as “the policing body” - “But
they very much see themselves as, um, sort of policing body. They want to make sure that you
do things right by the law. So, the university can’t get sued.” Charlie continued that the office
has always been involved in all of their searcher, just like they are involved in searchers on the
whole campus, but their involvement is standardized and quite generic and it does not change
depending on the discipline or the department. This suggests that the Office of Equal
Opportunity might not be sensitive to or aware of the specific diversity and inclusion issues that
are often field-specific.
Overall, although all 10 participants confirmed that there is a required implicit bias
training for the search committee members before each new hiring cycle, the influence was only
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partially validated because four participants agreed that the training is not high-quality, and one
participant asserted that the training is not very useful. However, despite the lack of high-quality
training offered by the institution, the department members remain self-aware of their own
implicit biases and work internally to limit them.
The University’s Provision of Effective Support and Accountability Measures
The fifth assumed organizational influence was a cultural setting focused on the
university’s provision of effective support and accountability measures that encourage
departments to willingly participate in promoting diversification of their faculty members. In
alignment with several different research findings, the study assumed that accountability
measures can help with synchronizing organizational culture with organizational behavior (Clark
& Estes, 2008; Williams & Wade-Golden, 2013). The presence of university’s expectations and
support that might have helped the philosophy department in reaching gender parity among their
regular-full-time faculty members was validated by the following question: “What kind of
support, if any, does the philosophy department receive from the university to help with diversity
hiring?” The influence was not validated. Most of the participants agreed that there is no robust
diversification infrastructure offered by the university. Drew said that the department invented it
themselves as they were undertaking their first attempts to diversify faculty, while Blake
contested that the department could have been getting more help with their diversification efforts
from the university. As an example, Blake spoke about spousal hires that used to be better
funded from a higher administration level but are now initiated and supported by the department
alone.
Moreover, a few participants mentioned that although the department gets praised by
other philosophy departments due to their gender-equitable status, the university does not
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necessarily recognize it as a reason to celebrate. This might be because, Brooklyn asserted,
people generally do not know that philosophy has gender issues, so they do not applaud the
departments that have more women among their tenured or tenure-track faculty members. If
what Brooklyn said is true, then perhaps precisely because philosophy belongs to arts and
humanities, and those two are dominated by women, the university takes for granted that the
department reached gender parity years ago. Brooklyn further reflected on this prospect by
describing a situation when directors of graduate studies created a special fellowship for racial
minorities and White women. To be eligible, students had to be in STEM fields. Brooklyn
announced to the directors that philosophy needs this fellowship as well, but the directors were
clueless about the minority and women underrepresentation in the field. Brooklyn continued,
“Like no one knew. Like, it’s so famous that there aren’t women in science. Everyone knows it.
No one knows there are not women in philosophy. And you know what else? There are tons of
women in biology!”
Furthermore, although participants generally agreed that university cares for and
encourages diversity and inclusion efforts, there are no formal accountability measures put in
place that would encourage such efforts. For instance, Brooklyn said that, “I think college of
humanities made it a priority to do diversity hiring,” but there is no enforcement of that policy.
Drew affirmed this by saying that “There was not a lot of active help. (…) It was more a matter
of you have to do this or you’re gonna have to figure out how to do it.” Drew continued that the
department does not get nearly enough of what they need for their active diversification efforts.
Drew stated, “My sense is that we’ve been carrying our own water for the whole time … we are
pretty much taking care of ourselves,” and they later added, “I feel they should give us much
more.”
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Overall, the study participants agreed that the UU cares about diversity and inclusion,
both in terms of their students and faculty members. However, participants also agreed that they
do not receive enough support from the university and that there are no formal accountability
measures put in place that would generally encourage departments to purse their own
diversification efforts. Despite lack of robust diversification infrastructure, the department of
philosophy “created,” according to the study participants, the set of their own best practices that
they continue to implement and reinforce with each new hire.
Summary of Organizational Findings
Study participants fully validated as assets the two cultural models assumed about their
department: (a) culture that promotes inclusivity and affirms the value of philosophy to everyone
and (b) culture that embraces change, but the participants only partially validated as assets the
two cultural settings influences assumed about the university: (c) university’s provision of
effective role models, and (d) university’s provision of high-quality implicit bias education and
professional development. One influence was not validated as an asset: university’s provision of
effective support and accountability measures. Additionally, one new organizational culture
influence was discovered: family-friendly department. The new emergent theme is discussed
below.

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Emergent Theme: Family-Friendly Environment
Throughout the interviews, the research participants referring repeatedly to one particular
feature of their workplace that they believed made a difference in hiring and retaining of women
faculty. This feature was not assumed before the study, but because of its presumed positive
impact on the status of women in the department, it can be categorized as an asset. This asset
appears to fit a cultural model criterion because it stems from creating a certain type of
departmental climate and the overall university environment which many of the faculty and
administrators at Utah have partaken in forging a family-friendly environment.
These are a few general terms that the faculty used to describe the departmental climate:
supportive, inviting, comfortable, welcoming, freeing, accommodating, and inviting. More
specifically, Charlie, for instance, said that the department is “a good place for everybody to
carry out and complete their career,” and that “there is an immense amount of respect for junior
people once they come in the door.” Blake added that “people are happy here,” and Alex
confirmed this with stating, “I am happy here.”
This kind of departmental climate, several participants mentioned, create a feeling of
welcomeness for women. It is not uncommon that women get penalized, in terms of tenure
promotion, when they get pregnant, Houston said. The promotions are delayed or discontinued.
Houston highlighted the issues that women with children encounter in academia and explained
that their department does not engage in any such disincentives. Houston mentioned that the
department is very accommodating to women with kids. Houston continued:
This department has been quite, I’m gonna say generous or at least accommodating about
women having children… And that makes a huge difference. So, you don’t have to
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apologize for having children. You don’t have to hide the fact that you have children, you
don’t have to, it’s ok to be pregnant. (…) Having kids is just a natural part of the scene.
Houston’s remark bolsters the notion that UU’s Department of Philosophy supports women
having children and accommodates their needs as much as possible. Houston further noted that
the department’s approval of women having families makes an important difference in the way
that women feel about their professional and personal commitments.
Moreover, Drew and Parker both added that the idea of family and faculty having
personal lives outside of work is valued and cherished by the department. Parker said that the
department prioritizes making sure that people can live their non-philosophy lives which is
crucial for women that often carry a larger burden of social duties outside of the workplace.
Parker said that, “making sure that faculty have the right support and resources when their kid is
sick or whatever is happening in their personal lives” is particularly important for women that
are usually the families’ primary caregivers.
Reese confirmed that the department has “a really family-friendly policy” in two ways.
One of the ways is that the department organizes events that are family-friendly so that the
faculty can bring their kids and if they do, they are not ignored or disregarded because they need
to pay attention to them. The second way is that the department does not have required meetings
that are scheduled outside of the normal 9 to 5 hours so that the faculty is released on time to
attend to their families outside of work. Houston concluded that in the department, “women do
not have to worry that they are women” and they can both work and have kids.
In addition, in 2006, the university adopted a parental leave policy. Brooklyn said that
one of the reasons why the policy passed was to make the UU an attractive place for families. It
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is a gender-neutral policy, which means that men can take it as well. Brooklyn confirmed that
both men and women in the department have taken parental leave.
It seems that the departmental climate, alongside spousal hires, and parental leave policy
contributed to the emergent theme labeled family-friendly environment. Women reported to feel
welcomed at Utah because they do not have to hide the fact that they have families and personal
obligations outside of work. Moreover, women appear to be attracted to Utah because of its
parental leave policy and potential spousal hires that, among women scholars, might be more
frequently needed than among male scholars.
Summary of Knowledge, Motivation, and Organizational Influences Findings
In conclusion, data obtained from the interviews and documents review fully validated as
assets nine out of 12 a priori influences, partially validated two and did not validate one
influence. Additionally, one emergent theme was discovered. The theme was categorized as an
organizational influence.
All knowledge influences and all motivation influences were validated as assets. This
indicates that study participants did have necessary knowledge and motivation needed to achieve
gender parity within the department. Furthermore, the study validated as assets both of the
cultural models assumed about the department itself. This is to say that the department of
philosophy was especially successful in creating a welcoming and supportive environment that
contributed to their capacity to diversify faculty and ultimately reach gender parity. However, the
research findings did not fully validate as assets the three organizational influences concerning
the UU: two cultural setting influences were partially validated, and one was not validated.
Chapter Five will discuss the research findings more in depth. It will also highlight the
specific key factors that played a role in closing the gender gap at UU’s department of
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philosophy as well as propose a set of transferable promising practices that could suit other
organizations experiencing similar problems of practice. Each generalizable recommendation
will be described with its implementation strategy together with required human and financial
resources.

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Chapter Five: Transferable Practices
The purpose of this promising practice study was to examine the UU Department of
Philosophy performance related to a larger problem of practice, that is, the lack of gender parity
in American academic philosophy. More specifically, this study examined the knowledge,
motivation, and organizational influences that were assumed to play a critical role in the
stakeholder’s capacity to close the gender gap among its regular full-time faculty members.
Chapter One described the problem of practice and the stakeholder of focus and embedded the
study in the two research questions:
1. What faculty knowledge, motivation, and organizational factors support achieving and
maintaining gender parity among the faculty?
2. What recommendations in the areas of knowledge, motivation, and organizational
resources may be appropriate for solving the problem of practice at another organization?
Chapter Two reviewed in detail existing literature focused on the topics of women in
academia and women in philosophy. This chapter also surveyed a number of hypotheses
explaining women’s underrepresentation in field, such as social factors, hostile environment,
lack of role models, gendered interests, and gendered intuitions hypothesis. Chapter Two ended
with the identification and description of the assumed knowledge, motivation, and organizational
influences to be validated through the study. Chapter Three described the research methodology
and outlined the plan for the study. Chapter Four reported the findings from the qualitative data
obtained from the interviews and documents analysis.
The purpose of this chapter is threefold: (a) to concisely discuss research findings from
Chapter Four, (b) to briefly highlight the specific key factors that played a significant role in
closing the gender gap at UU’s Department of Philosophy, and (c) to share generalizable
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recommendations that are appropriate for solving the problem of practice at other organizations.
These transferable practices are divided into two groups: hiring and retaining. The chapter
concludes with suggestions for future research.
Discussion of Findings
As mentioned in Chapter Four, the study validated as assets nine and partially validated
two out of 12 a priori influences that span across the knowledge, motivation, and organizational
categories. Within almost each category, there were several important themes highlighted in
order to support the validation of the 12 assumed hypotheses. It is important to note that only one
influence concerning the organizational setting at the university level was not validated as an
asset. Additionally, one emergent theme was discovered. The emergent theme reinforced the idea
that the department of philosophy together with the UU were exceptionally successful in creating
the environment that was welcoming for women and their families. Table 8 displays a summary
of all 12 a priori influences reported in Chapter Four and the new emergent theme together with
their validation status.

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Table 8
Influences and Validation Status
Gap Analysis
Component
Assumed Influence

Validated Partially
Validated
Not
Validated
Knowledge
Faculty knowledge of the historical
barriers that kept women from entering
philosophy
X
Faculty knowledge of the challenges
facing women in philosophy.
X
Faculty knowledge of the gender
disparities in the discipline.
X
Faculty ability to implement gender-
equitable hiring practices.
X
Faculty knowledge of their own gender
biases.
X
Motivation
Faculty perception of the importance of
reaching gender parity within their
department.
X
Faculty self-efficacy to implement
gender-parity- oriented hiring practices.
X
Organization
The departmental culture that actively
works to address historical injustices,
promotes inclusivity, and affirms the
value of philosophy to everyone.
X
The departmental culture that embraces
change and promotes gender equity.
X
The university’s provision of effective
role models who have integrated
diversity goals into hiring practices.
X
The university’s provision of high-
quality anti-implicit bias education and
professional development for search
and hiring committees.
X
The university’s provision of effective
support and accountability measures
that encourage departments to willingly
participate in promoting diversification
of their faculty members.
X
Emergent
Theme
Family-friendly environment X
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The knowledge section of the study focused on examining whether the department of
philosophy faculty possessed sufficient knowledge about the historical barriers and current
challenges facing women in philosophy and how these challenges affect gender distribution in
their profession. Moreover, this section also explored the stakeholder’s capacity to implement
gender-equitable hiring practices and the awareness of their own gender biases. All five
knowledge influences were validated. Each of the faculty members exhibited a vast knowledge
about the past and present challenges that women face in the field of philosophy. Several
participants shared personal stories that provided strong evidence for sexism, misogyny, and
gender bias still present within the profession. Additionally, the majority of participants
described a unique method which they apply to hiring new faculty members, from writing job
advertisements and advertising the department to interviewing candidates. Several of these
procedures are described below as potentially transferable promising practices. Finally, the
knowledge section of the study also validated that all faculty members were conscious of their
implicit biases both on the individual and the departmental level. On the departmental level, the
department has several faculty experts on gender-related issues and on the individual level, the
faculty members actively participate in graduate practicums that reinforce their continuous
reflection on gender bias.
The motivation portion of the study sought to understand how, if at all, philosophy
faculty members valued gender parity and whether they were confident in closing the gender gap
in the first place. More specifically, the study assessed two motivational constructs: the faculty
attainment value and their self-efficacy. Both of the assumed influences were validated by all
study participants. Philosophy faculty organically discussed two different kinds of value that
they found in reaching gender parity among their regular full-time faculty members. These two
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values were social and epistemic. The study participants shared that their active work towards
closing the gender gap in the profession was due to social justice considerations as much as it
was for the sake of the quality of philosophy and knowledge that they produce. The interviewees,
collectively, held a deep conviction that more diverse departments create a better place to work,
that is, to teach, research, publish, and to be. Finally, the study found that the participants were
very confident in their abilities while closing the gender gap. This is to say that the faculty had
high self-efficacy to implement gender-parity-oriented hiring and retention practices.
The organization section of the study examined two organizational models and three
organizational settings assumes to play a critical role in the faculty capacity to reach their
performance goal, that is, to close the gender gap among their tenured and tenure-track faculty
members. The organization influences were divided into those that apply on the departmental
level alone (models) and those that apply on the higher university level (settings). The two
assume organizational models concerning the department of philosophy itself were fully
validated, whereas from the three assume organizational settings concerning the university, two
were partially validated and one was not validated. Study participants confirmed that they have
created a departmental culture that promotes inclusivity and affirms the value of philosophy to
everyone. This, in part, was possible because the department had a core group of senior female
faculty members early on and several men that cared about the presence of women in the field
and were not themselves gender bias. Moreover, the study also validated that the department of
philosophy embraces social change, holds progressive philosophical outlooks, and promotes
gender equity among faculty and students alike. On the university level, however, participants
were divided on their perspective of how well the college supports their diversity efforts.
Specifically, the faculty partially validated the notion that the university provides effective role
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models and high-quality professional development and implicit bias education. Finally, the
faculty did not validate the assumed influence concerning the university provision of effective
support and accountability measures that encourage departments to willingly participate in
promoting diversification of their faculty members. The study participants agreed that their
diversification efforts come primarily from within the department.
In addition to the validation of the assumed knowledge, motivation, and organizational
influences, the study discovered one emergent theme labeled family-friendly environment. The
participating stakeholder listed several different features of the department and university-wide
practices that have contributed to, in their opinion, the creation of the environment that is
welcoming to women and their families. This theme was categorized as an organizational
influence or asset. This asset consists of, once again, the department’s ability to create a climate
where women feel like they belong, or as Houston put it, “women do not have to worry that they
are women” – they can work and have kids. Furthermore, the department was fortunate to be in a
position to offer a few spousal hires which, arguably, reinforces the notion that the department
cares to accommodate the families of their new hires. Moreover, the family friendliness feature
extends to the university through its adoption of gender-neutral parental leaven policy. The
policy appears to be successful in attracting scholars to come to Utah.
In sum, the study validated as assets all knowledge and all motivation influences assumed
to play a role in UU’s Department of Philosophy’s ability to reach gender parity among its
regular full-time faculty members. In addition, the study validated as assets two organizational
influences concerning the department itself and partially validated two influences concerning the
university. Only one organizational influence was not validated as an asset. Furthermore, the
study found one emergent theme that also seemed to play an important role in closing the gender
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gap in philosophy. That theme, labeled family friendliness, is a feature that extends beyond the
department and encompass university-wide policies and practices.
Practices Discovered to be Assets in Reaching Gender Parity
Data analysis highlighted several key factors that played a significant role in closing
gender gap at UU’s Department of Philosophy. Some of these factors are Utah context-specific
practices that are a matter of instance. Others, however, seem more generalizable and could serve
as recommendations that are appropriate for solving similar problems of practice at other
organizations. The transferable practices are divided into two groups: hiring and retention. Table
9 compiles the list of practices specific to UU as well as those potentially generalizable to other
organizations.
Table 9
List of Promising Practices
Utah Context-Specific Practices Transferable Practices
1. Faculty experts on gender-related issues

2. A core group of senior female faculty
members

3. Men who care and are not themselves
gender biased
Hiring:

1. Use of intentional and diversity-oriented
language in job advertisements

2. Deliberate efforts to recruit broadly and
advertise inclusivity and diversity

3. Spousal hiring

Retention:

1. Shared commitment to diversity, equity, and
inclusion

2. Family friendliness

The next sections describe factors that were found to be assets in reaching gender parity
among philosophy faculty members. The first group of assets described are those specific to
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Utah. The second group of assets lists promising practices that are generalizable and that could
be applied in other settings.
Utah Context-Specific Practices
Among all the validated influences and the one emergent theme, there are a few key
factors, that turned out to be significant in the stakeholder’s ability to close the gender gap, that
are specific to the department of philosophy at Utah. These factors may not be necessarily
transferable to other settings or organizations; they are the following:
1. Faculty experts on gender-related issues
2. A core group of senior female faculty members
3. Men who care and are not themselves gender biased
Each of these three departmental assets is described in detail below.
Faculty Experts
The UU’s Department of Philosophy is fortunate to have several faculty experts that
research, publish, and teach on topics within social epistemology such as implicit bias and
feminist theory. These faculty also help to develop new philosophy courses that incorporate
elements of feminist philosophy, gender studies, and critical race theory and aim at putting
underrepresented populations at the center of their focus. Having scholars that actively work on
the topics related to women underrepresentation as well as diversity and inclusion is a
tremendous asset. Not only do they produce new knowledge that contributes to the progression
of the discipline itself, but they also participate in revamping the department’s curriculum
through providing guidance on how to improve the old courses or design new ones.
However, faculty experts in feminist theory, gender studies, or critical race theory are not
present in all departments. This is precisely why this asset may not be transferable to other
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settings. Some philosophy departments do not specialize in these sorts of topics, while others, as
mentioned in Chapter Four, simply do not recognize it as valuable or worthy of pursuit. Having
faculty experts on gender-related issues in the department is an asset because it drives regular
reflection on gender bias. Nonetheless, I do not yield the lack of such experts as detrimental to
reaching the goal of gender parity among faculty members.
Senior Female Faculty Members
The UU Department of Philosophy the was in a favorable position, as the study
participants described it, to have a core group of three senior female faculty members that played
an important role in the formation and development of the department. These “strong female
scholars” were effective role models, two of which became department’s chairs, that first
initiated then later helped to sustain the diversity and inclusion efforts. Philosophy faculty shared
that many of their members look up to these women for inspiration and guidance with how to
approach hiring, retention, and other diversification efforts. Moreover, one of these core senior
female faculty members later became a dean. The study participants emphasized that this also
helped with exposing the rest of the university to the gender issues within the field of
philosophy.
Presence of effective role models in the form of senior female faculty members might not
be a transferable asset discovered at Utah. Most of the philosophy departments do not have a
core group of senior female faculty members because either they do not have female faculty at
all, or if they do, they are not senior. Utah found itself in a unique position to have a group of
women as early as in 70’s and 80’s that had a significant impact on how the group of faculty
developed. Two of these women remain an inspiration for the rest of the faculty as they are still
working in the department. One of them retired at the end of 2020.
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Men Who Care
The third context-specific asset was the presence of men who care about women
underrepresentation in philosophy and are not themselves gender biased. Majority of participants
agreed that having men who made a deliberate effort to work toward change and increase the
number of women in the department was a tremendous help in closing the gender gap. These
men were allies who understood that for one, it is wrong to discriminate against women, and for
two, that the field itself suffers from the lack of diversity. They played an active part in
promoting inclusivity and minimizing the collective gender bias.
Having men who care about gender disparity in philosophy is not necessarily a
transferable asset. Caring is not something that can be adopted as a policy. Utah had active and
vocal male faculty members that were willing to address gender bias and other forms of gender
discrimination, as if they affected them personally.
The three departmental assets described above seem to be Utah-specific. They are unique
in nature, very fortunate, and a matter of instance. Hence, they are not necessarily generalizable.
However, any of these three assets alone, or a mix of any two, might be relatively beneficial and
facilitate the closing of gender gap in philosophy. Hence, purposefully creating any of these
assets is worthy of pursuit at other organizations experiencing similar problems of practice. In
addition to context-specific assets, the department of philosophy did engage in several other
promising practices that seem best at hiring and retaining women and could be readily
transferred to other settings and organizations. They are described below.
Transferable Practices
The main purpose of this study was to understand why and how the philosophy faculty at
the UU participated in gender-equitable hiring and retention practices to create a set of
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generalizable and transferable recommendations to be used by other organizations that struggle
with similar problems of practice. This study found five promising practices to be potentially
transferable. They are divided into two groups: 1) hiring practices, and 2) retaining practices.
Below is the list of the transferable practices:
I. Hiring practices:
1. Use of intentional and diversity-oriented language in job advertisements
2. Deliberate efforts to recruit broadly and advertise inclusivity and diversity
3. Spousal hiring
II. Retention practices:
1. Shared commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion
2. Family friendliness
Promising Hiring Practices
The study found three particularly promising hiring practices at UU’s Department of
Philosophy. These practices were mostly developed and implemented by the department alone,
with little supervision or guidance from the university. These practices were distilled from the
research interviews as well as a few documents analyses. Moreover, the first two promising
practices corroborate Williams and Wade-Golden (2013) findings on strategic faculty
recruitment procedures.
Intentional and Diversity-Oriented Language in job Advertisements
The philosophy faculty at Utah is intentional with the wording of their job
advertisements. They put a significant amount of time and energy into phrasing each position
description while intentionally using language that appeals to the underrepresented populations.
In doing this, the philosophy department is to attract specific types of new hires. At the same
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time, open hires are never advertised. They seek candidates that can work between different
areas and create bridges to other disciplines because this, by its very nature, promotes diversity.
Moreover, their job ads contain a note on their departmental commitments to diversity and
inclusion in addition to information about their gender-equitable reputation.
Williams and Wade-Golden (2013) listed diversity-enriched position descriptions as one
of the strategies for diversifying faculty. The researchers proposed that to attract diverse pool of
candidates, position descriptions should be “designed to reinforce the departmental and
institutional commitment to diversity” (p. 296). It seems that the philosophy faculty at Utah do
just that. Most of the study participants agreed that their carefully crafted job ads generate a very
diverse pool of initial candidates. This is what Blake referred to as “cracking the code” for
diversity hiring.
This promising practice can be implemented by other institutions. It does not require
extra financial resources, nor any special human resources. Writing job ads is something that all
departments already do and cannot opt out of. Utah provided evidence that there are effective
ways to do so. The ads should be crafted so that they appeal to the broader audience and generate
a diverse pool of initial candidates. One of the research participants mentioned that if their initial
pool of candidates isn’t diverse enough, then they must have done something incorrectly when
writing the job ad.
Deliberate Effort to Recruit Broadly and Advertise Inclusivity and Diversity
With addition to investing time and effort in wording job descriptions and creating ads
that appeal to diverse groups of minority populations, the UU philosophy faculty makes sure to
send these postings to often overlooked places of recruitment such as Women’s Caucus at the
Philosophy of Science Association and Historically Black Colleges and Universities. This is an
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example of their intentional and continuous attempt to recruit broadly and attract historically
marginalized groups. The department of philosophy shares their job posting with as many
candidates as possible to ensure that they reach non-standard channels, in addition to obvious
philosophy venues. Moreover, the department clearly and openly communicates their
commitment to repairing the status of the profession on their website. In the diversity and
inclusion statement, the faculty addresses the historically damaging practices that took place in
philosophy for years and pledges to do their part in promoting inclusivity and social change.
Furthermore, the UU philosophy faculty actively engages with and keeps track of
promising graduate students and junior scholars working in other institutions. Study participants
shared that if these students or junior scholars come from underrepresented populations, the
department pays special attention to their educational efforts and reaches out to them with
information concerning new job postings. This is an example of the UU philosophy faculty
multifaceted efforts aiming at diversifying pool of initial job candidates.
These promising practices once again supports the findings of Williams and Wade-
Golden (2013). Among strategic faculty recruitment practices, Williams and Wade-Golden
highlighted multicultural marketing and outreach. They stated that marketing and outreach
should be designed “to maximize the likelihood that diverse faculty will become aware of and
attracted to the potential job opportunity” (p. 296). The philosophy faculty process of recruitment
fits this description. They reach as many candidates as possible by sharing their ads with
“atypical” venues, and they advertise diversity and inclusivity efforts to attract previously
underrepresented populations, such as women.
The promising practice of diversifying a pool of initial candidates by advertising broadly
in addition to effectively marketing their diversity efforts is yet another transferable asset found
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at Utah. This, similar to carefully crafted job descriptions using diversity-enriched language, can
be implemented by other institutions without any extra financial or human resources. Once
again, this is already a recruitment process that all academic and non-academic departments have
to go through. Part of this process is writing job advertisements and sharing it with large groups
of potential candidates. The department of philosophy at Utah provides us with the evidence to
believe that there are effective ways to reach a more diverse audience by making an intentional
effort to advertise inclusively.
Spousal Hiring
The final promising practice, although its transfer might be more challenging than the
previous two, related to recruitment efforts is spousal hiring. The department of philosophy at
Utah was able to secure some of the hires as a result of offering employment for their partners.
Spousal hires were easier to obtain for those couple who were both philosophers as the
philosophy department did not need help from or coordination with others outside their own
department. A few study participants shared that in some instances, however, when the partner of
their potential new hire was associated with a different field, other departments were not as
helpful, or not as ready to cooperate and offer an appointment for the spouse. This suggests that
in some cases, if it was up to the department, they were able to accommodate hiring the spouses,
but in others, they were not.
Spousal hiring can potentially play a critical role in recruiting, and also in retaining,
women. Spousal hiring is important because, as Brooklyn framed the problem in Chapter Four,
there is a significantly higher chance that a woman philosopher is going to have an academic
husband than a man is going to have an academic wife. If this is true, and a woman becomes the
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top candidate for the new position offered, it seems that spousal hiring could do two jobs in one:
recruit women while retaining them for good.
This corroborates the findings of Hyer, Eckel, Layne, and Creamer (2005). The authors
stated that employment of faculty spouses is particularly important for women faculty because
women are significantly more likely to be married to other academics, than their male peers. The
authors recommended that dual hires opportunities should be visible to potential employees in
job announcements and colleges’ websites. Additionally, the authors suggested that the
traditional language used to refer to spousal hiring, such as “accommodation,” or “two-body
problem” should be replaced with more neutral language, such as “dual-hire” and “initial” or
“second” hire, in order to communicate a positive and welcoming climate (p. 6).
However, this particular promising practice could be more difficult to implement in some
organizations. This is because it requires a significant amount of added financial resources. This
is one of the limitations of this practice as almost certainly not all departments could allow
themselves, or be allowed by higher level administrative structures, to create extra positions in
order to accommodate spousal hires.
Promising Retention Practices
In addition to the three promising hiring practices described above, this study also found
two promising retaining practices that were implement by the department of philosophy together
with the UU. These two practices are described below. One of them is the new emergent theme
discovered through the content analysis of the research interviews.

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Departmental Culture That Appreciates and Promotes Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Thus
Affirming the Value of Philosophy to Everyone
Philosophy faculty showcased a vast knowledge about the historical barriers that kept
women from entering the field as well as current challenges that women face in academic
departments. Many of those obstacles are products of the hostile and unsafe environments in
which women practice philosophy. Belligerent and bitter workspaces, the study participants have
shared, cause many women to leave the profession indefinitely. Moreover, such adverse
professional climates often contribute to a development of long-lasting emotional, and
sometimes even physical, traumas.
The UU’s Department of Philosophy intentionally invested in creating a departmental
culture that made women feel equal to their male counterparts. This culture appreciates its
gender-equitable status and continues to promote racial and ethnic inclusivity among faculty and
students alike. The philosophy faculty, as a team, appears welcoming, accommodating, and
reliable. The departmental climate cultivates diversity and actively pursues community outreach
of those that are historically underrepresented in philosophy.
Creating a departmental culture that is safe, trustworthy, and welcoming to women is one
of the best practices to retain them in the field. Women and their ideas need to be recognized,
attended to, and valued as much as we see the field valuing men and their ideas. Only then
women will stop feeling like the other, like the second-class citizen-philosopher. This promising
practice does not require any financial resources, but it does require significant amount of time
and effort invested by all, or at least most, faculty members within a given department or an
organization. Creating such environment requires equal work on women and men side. Women
need to be able to voice their concerns, discomforts, and difficulties and men need to be able to
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actively listen, receive them, and adjust their behaviors accordingly. This promising practice also
demands that the faculty involved cares about women underrepresentation in the field and that
they knowingly value equal representation. It appears these two motivations are largely
responsible for Utah’s ability to close the gender gap among its philosophy faculty.
Family Friendliness
The final promising retaining practice is derived from the new emergent theme that the
study found through the content analysis of the research interviews. This practice comes from a
collective effort of the department of philosophy and the UU. The climate created by Utah
illuminates their commitment to valuing their employees personal and family lives and sends a
message of acceptance and appreciation to all newcomers. Gender-neutral parental leave policy
together with children-friendly events and welcoming atmosphere allow women to feel well
supported without having to compromise either their carrier or their family’s well-being. This
promising practice seems especially important for retaining women because women are usually
the families’ primary caregivers. Hence, creating organizational infrastructure that provides
women with extra help and support for their families appeared to be successful in making them
stay at Utah.
On a departmental level, philosophy faculty at Utah make it a point to not penalize
women for getting pregnant. This is important because, as Houston shared, women often fear
that pregnancy will affect their tenure promotion status, which can often result in women hiding
the pregnancies, or postponing pregnancy all together. Moreover, the department organizes
family-friendly events where women and men alike can bring their children to. Finally, the
department requires the faculty to be available during business hours on weekdays so that the
mothers, and fathers can have reliable schedules. On a university level, in 2006 Utah introduced
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gender-neutral parental leave policy to encourage families to come work at Utah. This policy, in
addition to what the department of philosophy does on its own, appears to contribute to the
family-friendly feature of the department.
When it comes to implementation, this promising retaining practice, on a departmental
level, it appears possible that it does not require any additional financial or human resources. It
directly connects to creating a departmental climate that is welcoming and supportive of women
and all that they come with, or without. On a university level, gender-neutral parental leave
policy might be more challenging to adopt, although, it does not have to be. Many believe that
women, and men alike, should not have to choose between working or having families. At Utah,
having children is a natural part of the scene.
In summary, this study offered five promising practices that appeared to be successful at
closing the gender gap at UU Department of Philosophy. These transferable practices include
three hiring recommendations: (a) use of diversity-oriented language in job ads, (b) recruit
broadly and diversely, (c) offer spousal hiring; and two retaining recommendations, (a) develop
departmental culture that appreciates and advances diversity, equity, and inclusion, and (b)
promote family friendliness. Most of these generalizable hiring and retaining practices may
possibly not require additional financial or human resources to implement. What they certainly
require, however, is change in attitudes and values that countless philosophy departments have
held since the creation of academic philosophy.
Future Research
One of the key delimitations of this study was that it was context-specific to UU
Department of Philosophy. As such, this study examined only one set of practices, motivations,
and behaviors exhibited by one college and one department. In order to get a more complete
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picture of what other promising practices exist, and how they apply in a variety of different
settings, future research could examine other philosophy departments that are successfully
moving toward closing the gender gap in the field.
Another important delimitation was that this project focused on one stakeholder group,
that is, regular full-time faculty members. However, as described in Chapter One, there are other
groups of key stakeholders that are important to consider. For instance, investigating philosophy
students, both undergraduates and graduates, could yield important information as well. Learning
about their subjective experiences in philosophy classes may provide valuable insights to why so
many undergraduate female students leave the field after taking just one introductory course, or
why female graduate students holding a philosophy degree look for jobs in different, but often
related, disciplines. Knowledge of the challenges that philosophy female students experience
might in turn help with addressing the issue of “the leaking pipelines.”
Finally, as explained in Chapter Three, intersectionality was not a purposeful area of
study in this research project. However, intersectionality provides a sophisticated analytic
framework that aids in understanding how different dimensions of a person’s social and political
identities interact to create different degrees of discrimination and privilege. Hence, future
research could investigate the interconnected nature of gender, race, ethnicity, and ability and
how this interconnectedness of social categories manifests itself in the field of philosophy.
Conclusion
The purpose of this promising practice study was to apply a modified gap analysis and
examine the root causes of reaching gender parity among philosophy faculty members at the UU.
This qualitative project adopted a case study approach and examined the knowledge, motivation,
and organizational influences assumed to play a critical role in closing the gender gap in the field
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of philosophy. Through content analysis of the conducted interviews and documents reviews,
majority of the assumed influences were validated, and five promising and generalizable
practices were recommended to help other organizations, including other philosophy and non-
philosophy departments, reach gender parity among its members.
The circumstances underpinning women’s underrepresentation in philosophy are related
to the larger problem of practice, that is, gender discrimination. Although women status in
American academia significantly evolved in the last 20 years, some fields have found themselves
resistant to organizational progress and social change. Philosophy remains the only field in arts
and humanities with such pronounced gender imbalance. This study argued that the status of the
profession depends fundamentally on the status of women. The exclusion of women from
practicing philosophy is a marker of a flawed profession. Furthermore, the participation of
women would strengthen the field by strengthening the knowledge that it produces.

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142

Appendix A: Recruitment Email
Dear ______________,
My name is Magdalena Bogacz and I am a doctoral candidate at USC Rossier School of
Education. I’m emailing to invite you to participate in a study. I received your contact
information from your department chair, Dr Matt Haber, with whom I have previously discussed
this research project. This study is about gender parity in American academic Philosophy. As a
faculty member at University of Utah, who works in the department that have successfully
closed the gender gap in the discipline of Philosophy, I know that you are well poised to provide
input that can contribute to my knowledge in this area. Your input and participation are very
valuable, and your thoughts will guide my understanding about what recommendations may be
appropriate for solving this problem at other organizations.

I would like to conduct online interview between September 25
th
, 2020 and December 15
th
, 2020.
The interview will be recorded and should last approximately 1 hour. You might opt out of the
recording and still participate in the study. Participants in the study will meet three criteria:

1) be regular full-time faculty members,
2) work in the department for at least five years, and
3) have a graduate degree in Philosophy, either a master’s or a Ph.D.

If you’re interested in participating, and fulfill the selection criteria, I would greatly appreciate a
response from you at your earliest convenience about what days and times might work for you.
I hope you will be able to participate. Should you have any questions about the interview, please
feel free to contact me via email (bogacz@usc.edu) or at 661-496-0755.
Thank you so much and I look forward to hearing from you soon.

Sincerely,
Magdalena Bogacz
Doctoral Candidate – Rossier School of Education
University of Southern California

143

Appendix B: Information Sheet for Interview Participants
INFORMATION SHEET FOR EXEMPT RESEARCH

STUDY TITLE: Gender Parity in American Academic Philosophy: A Promising Practice Study

PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR: Magdalena Bogacz

FACULTY ADVISOR: Mark Power Robison, PhD

You are invited to participate in a research study. Your participation is voluntary. This document
explains information about this study. You should ask questions about anything that is unclear to
you.

PURPOSE
The purpose of this study is to examine the University of Utah Philosophy Department
performance related to a larger problem of practice, that is, the lack of gender parity in academic
Philosophy. The analysis will focus on the Philosophy faculty members’ assets in areas of
knowledge and skill, motivation, and organizational resources. We hope to learn what specific
strategies, practices, and policies contributed to your department’s success in reaching gender
parity and formulate appropriate recommendations for solving similar problems of practice at
other organizations. You are invited as a possible participant because you are a Philosophy
faculty member at University of Utah.

PARTICIPANT INVOLVEMENT
As the study participant, you will be invited to an interview. The interview will last
approximately one hour. The interview will be recorded. However, you might decline to be
recorder and continue with your participation. In case if you decide to decline the recording, the
researcher will take notes during the interview. You might be invited for a follow-up interview,
at some later time, if deemed as necessary by the researcher.

CONFIDENTIALITY

The members of the research team and the University of Southern California Institutional
Review Board (IRB) may access the data. The IRB reviews and monitors research studies to
protect the rights and welfare of research subjects.

When the results of the research are published or discussed in conferences, no identifiable
information will be used.

144

The interview is confidential. This means that your name will not be shared with anyone outside
of the research team in connection to the information and perspectives that you provide. The
researcher will not share your personal information with other faculty members, your department
chair, dean, provost, or the president of your institution.

You will be asked for a verbal consent and permission to record before the start of the interview.
However, you might decline in which case the interview will continue without the recording.
Each recorded interview will be transcribed using Zoom. The researcher will share the
transcribed interview upon your request.

The researcher might validate your responses. This means that the researcher might check with
you if the meaning and interpretation created is true and reflective of your authentic experiences.
This will be done by sharing aggregated results of the study with selected research participants.

The data from this study will be presented in a form of report. Although the researcher plans on
using some of what you say as direct quotes, for the purpose of presenting potential emerging
patterns, none of this data will be directly attributed to you. The researcher will use a gender-
neutral name to protect your confidentiality and avoid any potential recognition by other research
participants.

All data will be kept in a password protected computer as well as on a password protected
external drive to which the researcher only has access. Furthermore, all data will be destroyed
after 2 years.

Moreover, the researcher will notify the participants and the organization before publicizing any
research findings. The researcher will seek the permission to share all research findings.
However, both the participants and the organization will have a right to not include certain things
in the publication. Which exact aspects of the findings the researcher will agree to leave out of
the publication will depend on the significance of these findings

INVESTIGATOR CONTACT INFORMATION
If you have any questions about this study, please contact the principal investigator, Magdalena
Bogacz at bogacz@usc.edu (or 661-496-0755), or the faculty advisor, Mark Power Robison,
PhD, at mrobison@usc.edu.

IRB CONTACT INFORMATION

If you have any questions about your rights as a research participant, please contact the
University of Southern California Institutional Review Board at (323) 442-0114 or email
irb@usc.edu.

145

Appendix C: Interview Protocol for Philosophy Faculty Members
Respondent (Name): ____________________________________________________________
Location of Interview: ___________________________________________________________
Time in / Time out: _____________________________________________________________

I. Introduction

I would like to sincerely thank you for agreeing to participate in my study. I appreciate the time
that you have set aside to meet with me today and answer my questions. As I mentioned in the
recruitment email, the interview should take about an hour, does that still work for you?

Before we proceed with the interview, I would like to give you an overview of my study and
answer any questions that you might have about your participation. I am a doctoral student at
USC Rossier School of Education, and I am conducting a study about gender parity in American
academic Philosophy. I am particularly interested in understanding what made this department
successful in closing gender gap among its regular full-time faculty members. To learn about
this, I am talking to multiple faculty members in the department. I am also reviewing some of
your documents regarding hiring practices and procedures as well as marketing and outreach that
intentionally targets philosophers that are women. My hope is that knowledge gained from this
specific study will help with recommendations in the areas of knowledge, motivation, and
organizational resources that may be appropriate for overcoming gender disparity in Philosophy
at other institutions.

I want to assure you that I am here strictly as a doctoral researcher. The nature of my interview
questions and review of the documents are not evaluative. I will not be judging your
performance, beliefs, or opinions. Moreover, this interview is confidential. This means that your
name will not be shared with anyone outside of the research team in connection to the
information and perspectives that you provide. I will not share your personal information with
other faculty members, your department chair, dean, provost, or the president.

The data from this study will be presented in a form of report. Although I plan on using some of
what you say as direct quotes, for the purpose of presenting potential emerging patterns, none of
this data will be directly attributed to you. I will use a gender-neutral name to protect your
confidentiality and to avoid any potential recognition by other research participants. I would be
more than happy to share my final paper with you if you are interested.

As mentioned in the Study Information Sheet I shared with you prior to our meeting, the data
will be kept in a password protected computer as well as on a password protected external drive
to which I only have access. Furthermore, all data will be destroyed after 2 years.

Do you have any questions about the study before we begin?
As mentioned earlier, this interview will be recorded. However, you may opt out of the recording
and still participate in the study. The recording is solely for the purpose of accuracy and to help
with analyzing the information that you will provide. Moreover, I will be the only person
146

accessing this recording after our interview. May I have your permission to record our
conversation?

II. Setting the Stage

For the purpose of the recording, would you please state your name and title? Thank you.

III. Heart of the Interview:

First, I would like to ask you some questions about the visibility and circumstances of women
in Philosophy in general.

1. Based on your own experience in your carrier and observations of the professions, what
challenges, if any, have you noticed that women face in Philosophy?
a. Probe: In what ways do you believe that these challenges affect gender
distribution in the profession?

Now I would like to ask few questions now about your hiring procedures and practices.

2. Drawing on your own experience, describe your department’s hiring process?
Two Main probes:
a. Probe: What was is like for you to be hired by Utah as a Philosophy faculty
member?
b. Probe: If you serve on a hiring committee, how did you become acquainted with
the hiring process?
Additional probes:
c. Probe: What role does gender play in choosing between closely competing
candidates, if any?
d. Probe: How do you advertise, if at all, this department to women?
e. How do you diversify the pool of potential candidates?
f. Probe: How do you review resumes?
g. Probe: Do you practice blind resume review?

3. When you and your colleagues reflect on gender bias how is it framed?
a. Probe: How do you work together to limit the role of such biases in the hiring
process?
b. Probe: What professional development exists for the faculty concerning bias
education, if any?

4. What is your Department’s perspective on gender parity among faculty?

5. How confident are you, as a Department, in your ability to recruit female candidates?

We are now reaching the final stage of the interview. Here, I would like to talk about the
departmental and institutional climate.

147

6. What is your understanding of how the Department came to have gender parity?

a. Probe for Q4: Based on your own experience, would you say that the Department
prioritizes addressing historically marginalized groups? If so, in what ways?

7. In what ways, if at all, does your Departmental culture embraces change?
a. Probe: By culture I mean departmental environment, or climate, that is, shared
beliefs, values, and norms.

8. Are there exemplars at University of Utah or elsewhere that you and your colleagues
looked for inspiration in how you approach recruitment and hiring? If so, what practices
did you adopt as a result?
a. Probe: What are some of the roles of the chair in your department when it comes
to hiring diverse candidates?
b. Probe: What role does the dean play in setting and integrating diversity goals
when it comes to hiring?
c. What roles does the provost play in setting and integrating diversity goals when in
comes to hiring?
d. Probe: What role does the president play in setting and integrating diversity goals
when it comes to hiring?

9. In what ways, if any, does the University participate in the preparing of your department
for its active search in the hiring diverse candidates?

10. What kind of support, if any, does the Philosophy department receive from the University
to help with diversity hiring?

IV. Closing Question:

Are there any other insights that you would like to share with me regarding your department’s
capacity to reach gender parity among your faculty members?

V. Closing Comments:

Thank you for sharing your thoughts and perspectives with me today. I truly appreciate your time
and willingness to participate in my study. Everything that you have shared is very helpful for
my research project. If I find myself if any follow-up questions, I am wondering if I might be
able to contact you again, and if so, if email would be ok? Again, thank you for participating in
my study.

148

Appendix D: Job Ad for the Assistant Professor in Applied Ethics
UNIVERSITY OF UTAH, SALT LAKE CITY, UT – ASSISTANT PROFESSOR: The
Department of Philosophy seeks to hire a tenure-track Assistant Professor to begin Fall 2018. We
are seeking applicants with an AoS in Applied Ethics. "Applied ethics" here is broadly
construed to include work in philosophy of science, philosophy of medicine, bioethics, research
ethics, socially engaged philosophy of science, philosophy of race, research
reproducibility/replicability, or other related areas. Our ideal candidate will become an active
member of the School of Medicine’s Division of Medical Ethics and Humanities, a long-standing
and important partner of the Department of Philosophy. Teaching load for tenure track faculty at
the University of Utah is two courses per semester and includes a mix of undergraduate and
graduate teaching. Given teaching needs associated with the Department's goal of developing a
new 'Philosophy of Science' major, candidates capable of teaching research ethics are
particularly attractive.

The Department values its top-ranking in terms of percent of women appointed in tenure line
positions (see: women-in-philosophy.org) and is committed to pursuing the benefits that such
inclusiveness can bring to philosophical inquiry and the classroom. We enthusiastically welcome
applications from candidates who share these values, and who possess a strong commitment to
improving access to higher education for historically underrepresented students and can help the
Department recruit these students as Philosophy Majors. Information pertaining to these issues
should be included in your cover letter.

Applicants should provide a cover letter; research statement; teaching statement; writing sample;
and at least three letters of recommendation.
The University of Utah is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity employer and does not
discriminate based upon race, national origin, color, religion, sex, age, sexual orientation,
gender identity/expression, status as a person with a disability, genetic information, or Protected
Veteran status. Individuals from historically underrepresented groups, such as minorities,
women, qualified persons with disabilities and protected veterans are encouraged to apply.
Veterans’ preference is extended to qualified applicants, upon request and consistent with
University policy and Utah state law. Upon request, reasonable accommodations in the
application process will be provided to individuals with disabilities. To inquire about the
University’ s nondiscrimination or affirmative action policies or to request disability
accommodation, please contact: Director, Office of Equal Opportunity and Affirmative Action,
201 S. Presidents Circle, Rm 135, (801) 581-8365.

149

Appendix E: Philosophy Department Diversity and Inclusion Statement

Home / About / Diversity & Inclusion Statement
DEPARTMENT OF PHILOSOPHY DEPARTMENT OF PHILOSOPHY
College of Humanities College of Humanities
Diversity is important. It is important to us as a department, and for how we envision the !eld of philosophy. It is important for moral reasons of
fairness and inclusivity, as well as human "ourishing. It matters because it is one way we can respect each of our individual stories and
experiences, and how those intersect across the various groups with which we identify. It matters intellectually, as philosophy is a discipline that
depends on the ability to argue about ideas , and a broader range of voices better re!nes and tests our ideas. It matters because diverse
institutions are good antidotes to harmful factionalization and polarization; philosophy should serve as a model and training grounds for how to
productively have hard conversations with those whom you disagree. It matters because diverse teams are more e#ective, more creative, display
better comprehension and retention of ideas, and are more enduring and more interesting than homogeneous ones. Supporting diversity matters
at di#erent levels of resolution, from broad institutions to academic departments to our classrooms.
The University of Utah Department of Philosophy a$rms the value of philosophy for everyone. We also recognize the value to philosophical
inquiry of including people from a diverse array of backgrounds.
To this end, we aim for a departmental climate that is open to all and mutually-supportive for all our community members. We fully endorse
university policies prohibiting sexual harassment as well as discrimination “on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, sex, age, status as a
disabled individual, sexual orientation, gender identity/expression, genetic information or protected veteran’s status.” We also share the
university’s commitment to ensure accessibility to all community members. In addition, we aim to cultivate a positive, respectful, and collegial
departmental climate, so our department can be an inclusive space safe for learning and inquiry.
We acknowledge that the discipline of philosophy has a history of excluding disadvantaged individuals, which continues to be manifested in
various ways, including underrepresentation in the profession, especially of those from disadvantaged groups. Our department actively works
towards addressing historical injustices and contemporary biases, though we recognize that this must be an intentional, ongoing commitment.
If You Experience A Problem
While we hope that everyone in our community experiences the positive and respectful climate that we aim to cultivate, incidents of harassment
and discrimination occur in every institution. Such incidents must be dealt with appropriately if we are to maintain a safe and supportive
environment for learning and research. If you have experienced or witnessed an incident of harassment or discrimination in our department, we
encourage you to seek help and bring it to our attention.
Any department faculty or sta# member can assist with concerns and direct you to relevant o$ces and services. You can also contact the
Department Chair, the Director of Graduate Studies, the Director of Undergraduate Studies, or any member of the Department Diversity
Committee. Any concern will be brought to the attention of the chair and heard by the Department Diversity Committee. The University has many
resources for students who have experienced harassment or discrimination, or are just in need of support. The O$ce of Equity and Diversity has
additional services for students from underrepresented groups.
Department members will do their best to respect your con!dentiality, but may be required by law to report some instances of violence or
harassment to university authorities. Counselors at the University Counseling Center and the Women’s Resource Center may be able to meet with
you without being subject to the same reporting requirements.
Department of Philosophy Diversity Committee (AY19-20)
Erin Beeghly
Matt Haber (Committee Chair)
Carlos Santana
WHERE WE ARE
DEPARTMENT OF PHILOSOPHY
CAROLYN TANNER IRISH HUMANITIES BLDG
215 S CENTRAL CAMPUS DR., 4TH FLOOR
SALT LAKE CITY, UT 84112
(801) 581-8161
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Abstract (if available)

Abstract The main purpose of this study was to examine the University of Utah Department of Philosophy performance related to a larger problem of practice, that is, the lack of gender parity in American academic philosophy. More specifically, this study examined the knowledge, motivation, and organizational influences that were assumed to play a critical role in the stakeholder’s capacity to close the gender gap among its regular full-time faculty members. Understanding the circumstances that underpin gender disparity in American academic philosophy may help identify solutions to the larger problem of gender discrimination and women’s underrepresentation in academia. Thus, the secondary purpose of this study was to create a set of generalizable and transferable recommendations to be used by other organizations that struggle with similar problems of practice. This study found five promising practices to be potentially transferable. They are divided into two groups: 1) hiring practices, and 2) retaining practices.

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Asset Metadata

Creator Bogacz, Magdalena Teresa (author)

Core Title Gender parity in American academic philosophy: a promising practice study

School Rossier School of Education

Degree Doctor of Education

Degree Program Global Executive

Degree Conferral Date 2021-08

Publication Date 07/26/2021

Defense Date 05/27/2021

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag gender gap,gender gap in philosophy,gender parity,OAI-PMH Harvest,women in academia

Format application/pdf (imt)

Language English

Contributor Electronically uploaded by the author (provenance)

Advisor Robison, Mark Power (committee chair), Hinga, Briana (committee member), Seli, Helena (committee member)

Creator Email bogacz@usc.edu,mttbogacz@aol.com

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-oUC15622688

Unique identifier UC15622688

Legacy Identifier etd-BogaczMagd-9889

Document Type Dissertation

Format application/pdf (imt)

Rights Bogacz, Magdalena Teresa

Type texts

Source University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

Access Conditions The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the author, as the original true and official version of the work, but does not grant the reader permission to use the work if the desired use is covered by copyright. It is the author, as rights holder, who must provide use permission if such use is covered by copyright. The original signature page accompanying the original submission of the work to the USC Libraries is retained by the USC Libraries and a copy of it may be obtained by authorized requesters contacting the repository e-mail address given.

Repository Name University of Southern California Digital Library

Repository Location USC Digital Library, University of Southern California, University Park Campus MC 2810, 3434 South Grand Avenue, 2nd Floor, Los Angeles, California 90089-2810, USA

Repository Email cisadmin@lib.usc.edu