With respect to the distribution of women at high ranks and to compensation, UB compared relatively unfavorably with peer institutions, and was, for most comparisons, rated below average. A thick glass ceiling seems to be in place at UB. From the persistent, pervasive, and systematic exclusion of women from the high-paying, policy-forming ranks of faculty and administration, it seems clear that responsibility cannot be assigned to one office, unit, or process within the university. No single action is, therefore, likely to serve to improve the situation. The record shows conscientious and successful efforts by some units to achieve gender equity. Unfortunately, improvements overall have been achieved much too slowly. At the present rate, appropriate representation of women at UB is unlikely to be achieved until the third decade of the twenty-first century. Fiscal constraints are almost certain to reduce the present rate of employment of women.

The Task Force was especially surprised to realize that the proportion of women in undergraduate student ranks is also below average. It would appear that an important part of the student "market" is presently lost to us.

From discussions with consultants, members of the UB community, and each other, it is evident to the Task Force that most men and women have not fully appreciated the magnitude and penetration of gender-linked disparities in rank and/or salary. Most people expressed a desire to see those disparities eliminated.

Finally, it should be noted that compilation of these data required many hours of work by many Task Force members. The information was not located in a central file, but was divided among a variety of offices, each with a different focus of inter est and responsibility, none specifically charged and/or provided with adequate staff to produce the detailed analyses and comparisons in this report.

2. Charge 2: Strategies for addressing any inequities

a. Existing strategies

At present, UB has two major institutional strategies for addressing any inequities. The first strategy, which has been in place since 1973, is a rigorous af firmative-action search and hiring process. The President's Panel for the Review of Search Procedures checks the documentation for each appointment before final approval, to ensure that appropriate efforts were made to identify qualified candidates from underrepresented populations, including women. The requirement for thorough documentation and review of search procedures and the commitment to affirmative action at hiring are reassuring policies that should continue to receive strong support.

Unfortunately, the data collected as part of Charge 1 reveal that this approach has had relatively little impact on the overall gender imbalance. Systematic underrepresentation of women is a persistent phenomenon: UB is below average among peers in many categories for which comparative data were available. In faculty ranks, women have long represented a substantial fraction of the newly hired. In general, the more troublesome aspects of gender imbalance are manifested at higher-level ranks rather than entry-level ranks, reflecting difficulties women experience with retention and/or promotion after they have been hired. It is also evident that, despite the mandate for rigorous affirmative-action searches, many units continue to choose only men. That behavior is especially disappointing in the face of considerable evidence (including UB's graduate student body composition) that women scholars are not at all rare in the vast majority of fields. For many of the recalcitrant hiring units, the approach to affirmative-action searches has become cynical, with close attention paid to the form but not to the substance of identifying qualified members of underrepresented groups. There would seem to be considerable room for tougher administrative enforcement of affirmative-action hiring policies, especially for departments/schools/units in which women have been most dramatically and persistently excluded.

A second UB approach to improving the gender imbalance, aimed at improving career success rates of all faculty, has been the 1994 establishment of the Office of the Vice Provost for Faculty Development. A major function of that office has been education, with the goal of increasing gender and racial diversity in hiring, and strengthening those cultural and institutional mechanisms that contribute to career success. The efforts of the vice provost are absolutely necessary and should receive the broadest and strongest possible support. Many members of the UB community, like their peers in other institutions, have not yet come to fully appreciate the importance of equitable, balanced representation for the financial and academic prosperity of public universities.

b. Recommended strategies

Reviewing the strategies in place at, or proposed for, peer institutions, the Task Force recommends the following new policies:

(1) Setting Targets

• Specific short- and long-term goals should be set for individual hiring units to increase representation of women. An emphasis should be placed on increasing representation of women of color. Special attention should be paid to those units in which the gender imbalance is greatest and/or most inappropriate.

• Short- and long-term goals should be set to eradicate persisting race and gender disparities in salary. A substantial portion of all discretionary pay increases should be committed to achieving full pay equity for women at UB in as short a time as possible, with more immediate attention paid to those units in which disparities have been greatest.

• A program of rewards and/or incentives should be established for units that succeed in meeting targets for equitable representation and for equitable pay.

• Special attention should be paid to hiring women at the top, in senior faculty and administration ranks in which women, at present, are so conspicuously absent.

• Systematic "exit interviews" should be conducted to determine why women applicants refuse jobs at UB, and why women faculty and staff leave to take other jobs.

(2) Mandate significant, not token, representation of women on important committees, including

• search committees for hiring at any and all levels;

• promotions committees at all levels;

• resource allocation committees, executive steering committees, etc.; and

• committees to bestow honors and awards.

In many units, past hiring and promotions practices have resulted in serious shortages of women to serve on policy-making committees. As a consequence, gender imbalances in those units are inevitably perpetuated. Women's needs, points of view, and accomplishments remain poorly appreciated. To compensate, until those demographic deficiencies are corrected, the Task Force proposes that qualified women might be "borrowed" from other departments or schools. For example, the Faculty of Natural Sciences and Mathematics might turn to Medicine, Dentistry, and Health Related Professions for experienced women scientists to supplement the sparse ranks of women in biology and chemistry. To increase the participation of women as expert consultants in federal programs, lists of qualified, willing women have been compiled at many agencies in Washington. That approach has been quite success ful at the national level and should be easy to implement in our relatively small community.

(3) Conduct open, well-publicized, committee-run searches for all administrative positions, including chairs, associate deans, deans, vice presidents, etc., especially when interim and/or internal appointments are contemplated.

3. Charge 6: Developing a process of accountability at all levels regarding the progress being made toward achieving equity for women

a. General comments

At this time, the Task Force would rather not be overly prescriptive in recommendations to ensure accountability. We believe that the community needs to review the contents of this report and become familiar with present circumstances, as described here, before comprehensive institutional responses are formulated. A few general remarks and suggestions do seem appropriate now.

Leadership-based accountability with vigorous enforcement of guidelines is essential for accomplishing change. Gender imbalances and disparities at UB have been so pervasive, systematic, and widely experienced that responsibility cannot be as signed to particular individuals, offices, departments, schools, etc. Major changes in the culture of academe, in general, and UB, in particular, are re quired for gender equity in institutions that have traditionally been, and remain, centered around men. For that reason, the attitudes of local leaders, especially the president and the provost, are the most potent forces to direct change. Publicly disseminated position papers, such as the recent affirmative-action policy statement of President Greiner, are laudatory measures. Actions are even more important than words in communicating leadership commitment to gender equity. Unwavering enforcement of the strategies recommended above (see Charge 2), for example, could significantly improve the opportunities for women at UB in a relatively short time. In the absence of definitive action by UB's highest leaders, virtuous professions of intent will be perceived as hollow statements. Many university workplaces will remain as cynical, half-hearted, and insincere about achieving gender equity as they have been in the past.

b. Specific recommendations

A few specific actions are proposed to facilitate leadership-based accountability.

• Maintenance of a database similar to that presented in this report. Responsibility for recording/keeping analysis should be assigned to those with a vested interest in those records. A continuing Task Force on Women at UB or an Office for Women's Affairs would be an ideal body for this responsibility. Task Force members have a record of commitment to gender equity and are now extremely knowledgeable about local conditions. Furthermore, the Task Force is a committee of volunteers whose efforts have been available without additional costs to UB.

• Monitoring on a regular, perhaps biannual, basis of the responses of individual units to targets (see Charge 2). The annual reports of departments and schools might be a convenient mechanism for collecting this information.

• Disclosure of findings to the UB community at large. One potentially effective way to change our male-oriented culture is to make everyone aware of the nature and magnitude of gender inequities. Many UB employees, administrators, students, etc., would be much more cooperative and energetic in efforts to eradicate existing imbalances if they were fully informed about the pervasiveness and magnitude of the problems.

B. Subcommittee B: Charges 3 and 5

1. Charge 3: Improving the campus climate for women, with full consideration of the special needs of diverse groups

a. Insights from other institutions: Factors that may limit full participation of women in the life of educational communities.

(1) Introductory comments

The UB Women's Task Force was successful in collecting sixteen recent reports prepared at other academic institutions. All were studied carefully, but special attention was paid to those from schools most similar to UB and those concerned with issues relevant to the charges for our Task Force. Among the most valuable reports were those from Stanford; Purdue; Northwestern; and the Universities of Michigan, Delaware, and Maine.

A variety of methods had been used to assess the climate for women. For a majority of reports, systematic written surveys had been conducted. Panel discussions, focus groups, and open forums had also been used at some schools to sample the attitudes and opinions of women and men in the community. Campus publications, activities, events, and organizations were reviewed and analyzed. Despite substantial heterogeneity of the institutions from which reports were available and the methods used to evaluate the climate for women at those institutions, patterns were readily detected. In the sections that follow, the main consensus views have been summarized.

(2) A "chilly" climate prevails

All reports were in agreement that women faculty, students, and staff in academic institutions function in an environment that is often cool and, sometimes, hostile. Women frequently experience more isolation, marginalization, and powerlessness than men, no matter how enlightened parts of their respective university communities might be.

(3) Underrepresentation: A generic problem

It is the consensus view that both improvements in the quality of working life for women in academic institutions and the future competitiveness and prestige of academic programs within those institutions will depend on the achievement of full representation of women at all ranks of staff, faculty, and administration. For women students, the paucity of senior women faculty and administrators delivers an explicit message that they also will be highly unlikely to attain positions of stature in their chosen fields. For junior women employees, the deficiency of women in high ranks significantly limits introduction to the "culture" of success in their profession.

Senior administrators establish, foster, and maintain the values of an institution. Most extramural Task Force reports revealed that women administrators remain clustered and barely visible in middle-level posts, with little or no opportunity to formulate and/or influence important policies.

Underrepresentation of women is pervasive in U.S. academe. As a consequence, American educational institutions respond poorly, if at all, to women's aspirations, potentials, needs, and accomplishments. A vicious circle exists: The absence of women in strategic, influential positions prevents and discourages women from aiming for and achieving those positions.

(4) Low priority of women's concerns

An important corollary to the systematic underrepresentation of women is the relatively low priority assigned to issues deemed "women's problems." Safety, child care, salary disparities, spousal accommodation at hiring, maternity leave, family leave, and nepotism rules are matters affecting the quality of personal and family life for all men and women employed by universities. Marginalized as "women's" rather than "people's" problems, those issues have for too long been superficially discussed, if not entirely overlooked, and incompletely resolved. Most extramural Task Force reports acknowledge that as society becomes more egalitarian, with family responsibilities well-divided among both parents, successful recruitment and retention of the best students, faculty, and staff will depend increasingly on gender-free workplace accommodations.

(5) Critical mass, not token representation

According to many reports, past responses to the problem of underrepresentation have resulted in appointment and/or promotion of small numbers of women in various units. It has been a universal experience that such token appointments do not contribute significantly to promoting women's concerns or to filling the leadership gap for women. When women constitute a small minority in a group discussion, their voices go unheard, their interests remain unrepresented. Many observers noted that outspoken and assertive women often suffered marginalization and negative career consequences.

b. Brief Reports on Special Topics

(1) Child-care facilities

The expression of a need for increased child-care facilities at UB was more widespread, and considerably more vehement, than had been anticipated by many Task Force members. Campus child care was identified as an essential element in improving the climate for women at UB. Expert consultants to the Task Force from the Offices of Personnel, Student Life, UUP, and CSEA testified to the urgent need for campus-based child care among all female constituencies: graduate and undergraduate students, and professional and classified staff and faculty. In the informal written surveys conducted by the Task Force, child-care issues emerged consistently as one of the pressing needs shared by many women at UB.

In the present economy, the great majority of parents find it necessary to work. In so-called "traditional" two-parent families, it is the rule rather than the exception for both parents to work outside the home; nontraditional families, in which either the male or female parent may be raising children alone, are increasingly common. Changing social circumstances make the university of the 1990s a very different place from the academic institutions of the 1950s and 1960s in which many of the senior faculty and administrators at UB were "raised." Increasingly, competition for the successful recruitment of high-quality female students, faculty, and staff will require the provision of amenities, such as child care, that could make UB a uniquely attractive environment for women to study and work. Adequate child-care facilities could be an important factor in a woman's decision to join the UB community. The provision of child care should be appreciated as a marketplace issue, an essential element in the healthy financial future of a competitive university. Child-care arrangements must be seen not as a luxury to be deferred until some convenient future time, but as a necessity for acquiring and retaining the best possible students, faculty, and staff, men as well as women.

Since 1985, UB has had an excellent facility on the South Campus. There is, however, universal agreement that the existing facility is too small for the needs of the community, and that the South Campus is prohibitively inconvenient for the vast majority of potential users working on the North Campus.

The Task Force was delighted to learn that an outstanding, comprehensive, and detailed report of child-care needs had been prepared by a blue-ribbon panel in 1994. That study could rapidly be updated; implementation is long overdue.

The Task Force recognizes that many constraints (fiscal, regulatory, technical, etc.) may influence the plans for a child-care facility and hinder their realization. It is our observation, however, that the UB community includes many enthusiastic, energetic, and needy young parents who would be more than willing to develop innovative, low-cost solutions to difficulties that may have seemed insurmountable in the past. We recommend that the child-care "problem" be placed primarily in the hands of those with a vested interested in a successful outcome, including, but perhaps not limited to, those in the previous Child-Care Advisory Committee (see Appendix).

(2) Athletics

There appears to be considerable agreement that women's athletic programs at UB have not received either the resources or the attention accorded to programs for men. The recent association of UB with the NCAA Division I has brought a new focus on the opportunities and facilities provided to women. The standards for gender equity imposed by the NCAA promise to have a long-term sanguine influence on local policies. As with many university practices, however, change can be slow and resistance to change considerable. In the past, the budget for women's athletics has been only about three-quarters of the expenditures for men when all football costs are removed from the calculation. Future budgets have been planned to be more equitable, but close monitoring for compliance is recommended in this period of fiscal austerity.

The local (UB) NCAA Commitment to Equity Subcommittee, chaired by Mary Ann Sharrow, has made several strong recommendations for improving the situation for women athletes at UB. First, the subcommittee suggests that more sports programs be developed for women's participation, and second, it urges the hiring of more women in head coaching and senior administrative staff positions. It also urges regular monitoring of the perception of women students about equity issues in athletics.

The Task Force felt that the chilly climate in athletics could be considerably, and rapidly, improved by concerted university-wide efforts to enthusiastically honor women athletes, attend women's games, and publicize women's events. The outstanding annual February celebration for National Girls and Women in Sports Day was initiated by students themselves, and remains to this day largely a student undertaking. A university-wide Office for Women's Affairs could play an important proactive role in promoting appreciation of and participation in women's sports. Publicity, fund raising, ticket distribution, award ceremonies, etc., are among the kinds of support that could be centrally coordinated to enhance the efforts of the Division of Athletics on behalf of women. It is our conviction such centralized, visible encouragement of women's sports could also have a very positive influence on successful recruitment of women coaches and women student athletes.

(3) Women's studies

In reviewing the status of women, many academic institutions have come to appreciate a strong correlation between the overall climate for women students, faculty, and staff, and the institutional commitment to academic programs on women and gender. The University of Michigan's Agenda for Women, issued by their president in 1994, speaks clearly to this point. It is the University of Michigan's vision to "become the leader among American universities in promoting the success of women of diverse backgrounds, as faculty, students, and staff." In the agenda, five goals are cited as "necessary to achieve this vision." One is to make the University of Michigan "the leading [U.S.] institution for the study of women and gender issues."

As an academic discipline, women's studies has produced a significant body of scholarship that has influenced and changed the direction and substance of scholarly activities in many fields. Gender has gained recognition as a significant, often essential, category of analysis in many disciplines.

Women's studies at UB has a long and distinguished history. Our program is widely recognized as a national pioneer in the field. Courses were first offered in the late 1960s, spurred by the late Professors Ann Scott (English) and Daphne Hare (medicine), and the late Bernice Poss of the administrative staff. By the mid-1990s, women's studies at UB has developed as a center for research and teaching about women and gender. To overcome increasing impediments to program development imposed by financial constraints, women's studies helped to found the Graduate Group in Feminist Studies, which has fostered highly productive, collegiate, scholarly, in terdisciplinary interactions among faculty and students in many departments and schools.

UB women's studies faculty have contributed importantly to the development of the National Women's Studies Association and have made scholarly contributions to feminist pedagogy. The faculty serving women's studies at UB over the years have included Ellen DuBois, Endesha Mae Holland, Masani Alexis DeVeaux, Elizabeth Lapovsky Kennedy, Hester Eisenstein, and Lillian Robinson, all highly regarded nationally for their scholarly and/or creative output.

To consolidate declining resources and to compensate for the recent departure of Professor Eisenstein, women's studies spent 1995­96 devising a realistic academic and research plan for the immediate future that could protect the extraordinary re sources and reputation accumulated during the last twenty-five years, and permit UB to retain its national visibility and stature.

The 1996 Proposal for the Future of Women's Studies reflects the collective efforts and collaborative commitments of more than thirty faculty from the schools and faculties of Law, arts and letters, social sciences, education, medicine, and dentistry. Interdisciplinary programs of lectures, workshops, and internships on issues of women and gender are planned to facilitate scholarly and pedagogical interactions among departments, schools and faculties, and campuses at UB. The month-long women's history celebration in March 1996 provides an exciting example of the potential of women's studies to enhance intellectual life on campus and in the Buffalo community, to honor women and focus attention on their accomplishments, to integrate activities on women and gender among different academic units, and to maximize the use of limited financial resources.

Despite these accomplishments, women's studies has been persistently undervalued and inadequately appreciated by faculty colleagues and the university administration. In that respect, the low status of women's studies in the academic hierarchy at UB may be viewed as paradigmatic for all women at UB. Any plan to improve the climate for women and develop women leaders must include a commitment to the stability of existing women's studies activities in teaching, research, and service, and a plan for strengthening and enhancing those activities in the near future.

(4) Family needs (other than child care)

UB has been slower than many academic institutions to adopt policies that address the needs either of two-career families or single parents. Other universities and colleges, as well as other businesses, have come to realize family responsibilities are no longer clearly divided on gender lines. Mechanisms have been developed to accommodate family needs without imposing severe limitations on the opportunities for individual professional development within the institution. Policies and practices that are gaining widespread acceptance include spousal accommodation at hiring, abolition of nepotism rules, maternity leave, caregivers leave, flexible working hours, and job sharing. Institutional sensitivity to the special needs of families is increasingly recognized to be a distinct advantage for hiring and retaining high-quality faculty and staff. Working conditions that facilitate necessary caregiving without jeopardizing career development are attractive incentives for choosing a place of employment and for choosing to remain there.

Some steps in the right direction have been taken at UB. In the last few years, spousal accommodation at hiring has been encouraged, supported, and rewarded by the administration. It remains, however, to formulate and promulgate an official university-wide policy on this practice. In addition, the recent policy statement from the provost on conditions for stopping the tenure clock is a heartening, positive attempt to deal realistically with family responsibilities that could disrupt an academic career.

There are at UB a large number of individuals in the faculty and staff who have coped with child rearing and other forms of caregiving while also working productively and successfully at their jobs. Most, but by no means all, are women; many have spouses who are also UB employees. (The Task Force on Women at UB includes many such women and men.) Practical, fair, and successful strategies to integrate responsibilities of modern family life into university employment should rely heavily on the experiences and advice of those faculty and staff. In the past, proposals for family-need policies have been reviewed and evaluated by governance bodies (senates, councils of deans, vice presidents, etc.) in which men predominate and the proportion of major family caregivers is low.

In keeping with U.S. federal guidelines, personal résumés and curriculum vitae nearly always omit details of past or present family responsibilities. That policy is designed to protect employees and job applicants from prejudicial use of the information in personnel decisions. Such omissions are extremely unfortunate, especially when they might explain a period of lower productivity or absence from the workforce. In addition, and much more important, such personal information is often revealing of an individual's managerial and organizational skills, dedication to a profession, commitment to a career, effective performance under stress, sense of responsibility, and physical stamina. With guarantees of suitable protection by managers, employees might be encouraged to disclose evidence from caregiving histories of attributes and experiences that could have a positive impact on the job. Documentation might go a long way toward dispelling the myths that family responsibilities can only have detrimental effects on careers and that caregivers are a liability as employees.

c. Summary and conclusions

In reviewing campus-climate issues at UB and making comparisons to similar academic institutions, Subcommittee B concluded that administrative leadership was urgently needed in several areas that affect women in all university constituencies.

• A child-care center on the North Campus should be arranged without further delay.

• Flexible work time and job-sharing policies should be developed, encouraged, and promoted to permit effective integration of work and family responsibilities for both men and women at UB.

• A group of experienced caregivers, with senior positions in university faculty and administration, should serve as the main counsel for future strategies and policies to facilitate and promote careers for those with important family responsibilities.

• Women's studies programs should be given strong academic and administrative support to continue the highly visible and widely respected contributions made by UB scholars.

• Athletics programs for women should be strengthened with more equitable distribution of resources, appointment of women coaches and administrators, and investment in efforts to promote local enthusiasm for women's athletic events.

• A rigorous survey should be conducted to assess an accurate current climate for women at UB. The survey would provide a baseline for monitoring changes. It would also help to sort out those climate issues that are real problems from misconceptions, myths, and/or misunderstandings.

2. Charge 5: Methods for identifying, encouraging, and developing women leaders

a. Demonstration projects

At the strong recommendation of Subcommittee B, the Task Force responded to Charge 5 by undertaking two major demonstration projects aimed at developing women leaders and promoting positive "network" interaction among all women in the UB community. The first was a career-development workshop open to all women at UB; the second was a campus-wide program for National Take-Our-Daughters-to-Work Day.

Career-Development Workshop

A career-development workshop was held on March 7, 1996, titled Women's Voices: Insights for a Successful Career. The workshop had three specific goals: to identify women leaders at UB, to encourage leadership among women, and to provide practical advice about career development. To accomplish those goals, five outstanding women were selected to represent the diversity of careers within the university. The panelistsDistinguished Teaching Professor Beverly Bishop, Spectrum Editor-in-Chief Bonnie Butkas, Assistant Provost for Resource Management Elmira Mangum-Daniel, Law School Staff Assistant Gloria Paveljack, and WBFO General Manager Jennifer Rothwere each given an opportunity to share the strategies of their own successes in a plenary session and then to conduct small workshop sessions on specific skills, recommendations, problems, etc., relevant to career promotion. Topics of the breakout sessions included workplace dynamics, networking, voice modulation, teaching skills, and juggling many roles.

Invitations to the workshop were sent to more than 2,500 women; the final attendance of 240 was limited only by the capacity of the facilities at the Center for Tomorrow. The response of all organizers, panelists, and attendees was overwhelmingly positive. Evaluation reports revealed that participants look forward to more, and perhaps more frequent, workshops.

The process of planning and coordinating the activities of the workshop was itself an enormously gratifying and job-enhancing experience for workshop organizers. Many constituencies in the university community were brought together advantageously to cooperate with and contribute to this workshop project. The University Bookstore prepared a table of current books by UB women authors, offering them for sale and highlighting the accomplishments of those published scholars. The UUP chapters, especially the Health Sciences Chapter, accepted a large financial responsibility for refreshments and mailing. The Offices of the Provost and the President were also especially helpful in defraying costs, which allowed the workshop to be made available at no cost to participants. A more detailed summary report on finances, demographics, and evaluationsprepared by State Purchasing Director Judy Miller, who served as chair of the Voices workshopis included in the appendix materials on reserve in Lockwood Memorial Library.

National Take-Our-Daughters-to-Work Day

For the first time, UB formally participated in the April 26 nationwide project, sponsored by the Ms. Foundation, to bring young girls to work. The program, which targets girls ages 9­14, is aimed at promoting their self-esteem and informing them about career opportunities. For UB, the project had the additional advantages of informing girls about the wide range of educational facilities at UB and providing another forum for pleasurable, productive network interactions among women students, faculty, staff, and administrators. The program was judged an enormous success by organizers and participants. Enrollment was at full capacity. More than 150 girls and their parents spent a rewarding day that included organized visits to selected work sites (see Appendix), a self-esteem workshop, a group luncheon, and an awards ceremony (see Appendix).

The orchestration of this complex activity required an extraordinary commitment of time, energy, and professional expertise by the coordinating committee and other volunteers. Financial support and/or professional services were contributed from all corners of the campus; among the many sponsors were the UUP, CSEA, Public Employees Federation, Office of Student Life, School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, Partners' Press, the Counseling Center, Women's Health Initiative, Department of Chemistry, Association for Women in Science, Office of the President, Office of Conferences and Special Events, and Office of Public Safety. The volunteers on the coordinating committee came from academic departments, Office of Development, Public Safety, Computing and Information Technology, Office of the Vice President for Student Affairs, Office of Student Life, and Office of the President. Presentations at the awards ceremony were made by Deputy to the President for University Relations Molly McKeown and WBFO General Manager Jennifer Roth. Work site sponsors were equally varied and representative of the rich resources and energetic goodwill of UB employees. Those sites included the Center for the Arts, School of Pharmacy, School of Dentistry, School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, Computing Center, WBFO, Lockwood Memorial Library, Public Safety, Ellicott Complex, Department of English, and others.

Many parent participants, site sponsors, and interested observers have already volunteered for next year's Take-Our-Daughters-to-Work Day.

b. 1995 calendar of activities

The 1995 calendar year included many events similar to the demonstration projects undertaken by the Task Force in 1996. Unfortunately, most of these 1995 events were organized in isolation and some, sadly, were poorly attended because of a failure to inform the widest potential audience. Women's History Month celebrations were not an important focus in 1995, which was a major disappointment. That void was filled successfully in 1996 by a coalition effort of interested groups, among them the Program in Women's Studies, Graduate Group for Feminist Studies, Department of History, the Baldy Center for Law and Social Policy, Graduate School of Education, and the Women's Center. A central coordination, as well as centralized advertisement, fund raising, and planning, of activities recognizing women's activities and honoring women's accomplishments would increase their visibility, improve quality, reduce costs, and serve the function of drawing wide attention to the interests and contributions of all women at UB.

c. Summary and conclusions

• Regular frequent events, analogous to the Voices career-development workshop, Take-Our-Daughters-to-Work Day, and Women's History Month observances, should be part of the university calendar, organized, coordinated, and administered through an appropriate central office or standing committee.

• A mechanism should be developed, again through an appropriate central office, to identify women at UB who are qualified for and interested in administrative and/or managerial positions.

• Leadership training programs should be devised to facilitate the progress of those women in their careers. An effort should be made to identify and celebrate current women leaders at UB, as well as accomplished alumnae.

• Regular public ceremonies honoring women leaders in the faculty, staff, and student body should become an integral part of annual university activities, perhaps with named awards, significant internal and external publicity, and strong support of university administrators, deans, chairs, etc. These events high light the needs and the accomplishments of women, and they provide the opportunity for women across the university to become acquainted, to share general and specific information about career paths, and to focus their energies for the benefit of all women at UB. In the view of the Task Force, these kinds of events can serve as both powerful employee morale boosters and a source of excellent internal and external public relations for UB.

C. Subcommittee C: Charge 4

1. Charge 4: Methods for developing a campus environment that is free of sexual harassment

a. Introduction

The Task Force Subcommittee C sought "hard facts" to help them assess the nature and magnitude of sexual harassment problems on the UB campus. Institutional data on this issue were not available. To draw a picture of present circumstances and formulate recommendations, the Task Force relied heavily on local expert consultants from the Offices of Student Life and Affirmative Action, the UUP and CSEA, and the Law School. In addition, insights were derived from informal surveys, careful scrutiny of campus publications, and many anecdotal reports. To place the situation at UB in an appropriate perspective, the Task Force studied extramural reports from other universities, scholarly reviews, and national media.

b. Existing strategies

Sexual harassment is a violation of federal law (Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, Title IX of the 1972 Education Amendment and Executive Order 11246). A New York State executive order and the policies of the SUNY trustees also forbid sexual harassment of employees and students. UB has a comprehensive policy that is consistent with, and in compliance with, state and federal guidelines. At orientation, incoming students receive a clear written statement of those policies (prepared by the Affirmative Action Office); the Office of Student Life goes to considerable efforts to ensure that all students, male and female, are properly informed on the matter.

A number of weaknesses and/or limitations of the existing strategies were identified by all the UB consultants. First, there is widespread ignorance among both men and women, faculty, students, staff, and supervisors about federal law on workplace harassment. In particular, most people do not realize that sexual harassment is recognized as a form of illegal discrimination, and that illegal harassing behavior is not limited to well-described quid pro quo behaviors, but includes the creation and maintenance of a hostile, intimidating, or offensive work environment. Second, most individuals are poorly informed about UB channels of grievance for alleged violations of the law. Third, those reporting channels are overloaded and/or otherwise inadequate, especially for students. As a consequence, often only the most troublesome cases and/or the most determined complainants are dealt with. All local experts were in full and independent agreement that formal complaints and grievances represent only a very small proportion of unacceptable behaviors.

Fourth, in the present system, the supervisors and administrators responsible for the first hearing of complaints are themselves frequently poorly informed about the law, and sometimes have personal conflicts of interest that interfere with an objective and balanced review of grievances. Victims, with little confidence in the reporting channels, are often reluctant to report improper behavior, fearing unsympathetic hearing, little or no action, and possible reprisals.

A variety of sources, including written surveys of graduate and undergraduate students and of UUP members, provided clear evidence that harassment can occur on campus in all work/study areas, and may involve faculty-faculty, faculty-student, student-student, and staff-staff relationships. At UB, as elsewhere, the overwhelming majority of inappropriate behaviors are directed against women, but men may also be victims. Some student publications are distressingly insensitive to the creation of a hostile environment for women students. The Task Force heard many anecdotes describing instances of the use by faculty of sexist language and off-color humor as a teaching device.

There was consensus among the expert advisors to the Task Force that the otherwise excellent sexual harassment policy at UB is in urgent need of a carefully crafted mechanism to ensure enforcement. The present system accomplishes little but crisis management of the most overt problems, and does far too little to encourage the deep-seated charges in attitude and behavior that will be required to free UB of sexual harassment.

The expectations of American women for harassment-free work settings have become markedly elevated in the last decade. Throughout the United States, rates of complaints have increased and the proportion of legal decisions in favor of victims has also increased, in many cases with substantial financial compensation for the victim. Our consultants were in agreement that if UB does not respond proactively to rapidly changing public standards of behavior, the institution will be at high risk for potentially embarrassing and possibly expensive legal action.

c. Recommended strategies

There are now many models for effective university programs to develop a campus environment that is free of sexual harassment. The Task Force recommends that development of a carefully crafted, written program be an extremely urgent priority for the academic year, 1996­97. Knowledgeable Task Force members should work to develop such a program together with other interested and experienced parties, including representatives of the Affirmative Action Office, Student Life, the Counseling Center, the UUP and CSEA, and the Law School. The essential elements for a successful plan are discussed below.

• Education is the most crucial factor for promoting a campus environment that is free of sexual harassment. There is widespread misunderstanding about legal definitions of sexual harassment. Many behaviors that were widely accepted in the past, and well within old cultural norms, are now proscribed by the law. Education to recognize harassing behavior is especially needed in a community as diverse as UB, which comprises people of very different ethnic, socioeconomic, religious, and educational backgrounds. Students, faculty, staff, and administrators must be brought up-to-date on current legal and social standards of sexual harassment. Achieving community consensus on such a complex and often emotional issue will require much guided discussion and professionally supervised training. In each unit, regular sessions should be instituted to heighten awareness and increase sensitivity to the workplace problems created by inappropriate behaviors. Qualified, experienced professionals should conduct those sessions. Regular follow-ups to monitor the effectiveness of training should be part of the educational program.

• A well-defined mechanism for reporting and dealing with complaints should be developed. The process must include guarantees of full protection and confidentiality for all parties. To establish the credibility of the process and encourage confidence, scrupulous care must be taken to ensure that reporting channels are entirely free of conflicts of interest. The process should be timely and efficient, with an emphasis on achieving satisfactory informal resolution at the lowest levels of reporting.

• An effective policy must include the imposition of sanctions and/or disciplinary action when informal resolutions cannot be achieved. A sexual harassment policy without "teeth" will be worse than none at all.

• A program of incentives and rewards should be established to recognize units that take innovative and effective steps to develop and maintain a work place free of harassment.

• A strong, unwavering leadership commitment is required to generate a truly harassment-free environment at UB. The attitudes, behaviors, and enforcement decisions of senior management will be the key to effective strategies aimed at eliminating inappropriate behaviors.

• Regular monitoring of the UB climate should be instituted. A rigorous, formal, broadly based survey should be conducted as soon as possible to establish a baseline for existing community perceptions about the magnitude and impact of harassment. Regular follow-up studies should be conducted to document improvements, the effectiveness of education, and enforcement strategies, and to identify persistent trouble spots.

d. Summary and conclusions

• UB policies on sexual harassment must be backed with carefully crafted enforcement mechanisms that protect victims and impose sanctions on perpetrators. Development of timely, efficient mechanisms to deal with harassment complaints should be an urgent priority for the academic year 1996­97.

• Educational programs, supervised and administered by trained, experienced professionals, should be instituted as soon as possible.

• A survey should be conducted to monitor present community perceptions and attitudes, and to provide a baseline for tracking improvements.