By academic standards, Rebecca R. Richards-Kortum has it made. She is a full professor of bioengineering at Rice University, runs a thriving cancer-research laboratory, and is a member of the prestigious National Academy of Engineering. But with four children at home, she sometimes feels like an academic outcast. In fact, Ms. Richards-Kortum says…

At North Dakota State University, only 10 of 156 full professors are female. This places the university near the bottom of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP)'s report ranking 1,445 institutions on the basis of what proportion of their tenured faculty members are female. At a time when recruiting women has become a top…

Reports on a growing movement to document and attack gender discrimination at institutions of higher education following an internal study that documented gender bias against women in the School of Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Stresses the value of such broad studies over individual complaints of discrimination. (DB)

A salary-equity lawsuit filed against Illinois State University begun by three women faculty has become a major court battle over sex discrimination, involving 80% of the university's female professors and many who have left the institution. Some see discrimination as pervasive at the university; others have few complaints but want to support…

Explores how Virginia Tech's aggressive push to hire female and minority professors has led to questions about its fairness and legality. (EV)

A generation after women regularly began combining motherhood with careers, female academics find that balancing the demands of the tenure system and the timing of motherhood is difficult. Some are delaying childbearing, some are asking for delay of tenure decisions, and others are job-sharing to accommodate family and career. (MSE)

Female college professors feel pressure to plan childbirth for the summer because maternity policies don't accommodate mid-academic-year births and finding a substitute instructor may be difficult. A few institutions offer paid maternity leave. Wesleyan University (Connecticut) offers mothers and fathers the option of part-time pay for leave or…