dn 3 10 the
Too soon to tell
Big two
Legalization hasn’t affected Nebraska’s marijuana crimes
2 players combine for 51 points as NU takes down Iowa
dailynebraskan.com
monday, february 3, 2014 volume 114, issue 087
Jessica West Bower, drag queen and co-owner of Karma Nightclub, performs on Thursday night to celebrate the opening of Lincoln’s new gay nightclub. Karma Nightclub, previously known as the Q, is located at 226 S. 9th St.
GOOD KARMA P H O T O S
B Y
S H E L B Y
Adrian Virgen, a drag queen performer from Omaha, dances at Karma Nightclub on Thursday night.
W O L F E
The Thursday night crowd at Karma Nightclub, Lincoln’s new gay nightclub, watches a performer, who would not give his name, do a strip tease on stage.
University trails Big Ten peers in female faculty LANE CHASEK DN University of Nebraska-Lincoln Mathematics chairwoman and professor Judy Walker doesn’t believe there’s such a thing as “men’s mathematics” or “men’s academics.” Walker believes great ideas can come from anybody, regardless of gender. But even though Walker doesn’t believe in “men’s academics,” academia continues to be male-dominated – especially at UNL. At 30.3 percent women, Walker ’s employer ranks dead last among Big Ten schools when it comes to percentage of female full-time faculty members. That’s several percentage points lower than the Big Ten average of 35.9 percent women. UNL’s female employment has increased about 5 percent during the last decade, according to UNL data. Meanwhile, the percentage of female students has remained relatively stable. In fall 2013, 47.3 percent of the student body was female. UNL Women’s Center Director Jan Deeds said the lack of female faculty is an unfortunate trend. “We need both men and women here to make things happen,” Deeds said. Biochemistry professor Concetta DiRusso said women are an integral part of not only academia but of any workplace. “You just can’t exclude 50 percent of the population from your workforce and expect to be at top performance,” DiRusso said. “In
this economy, most of us can’t afford to have capable adults not working at a paying job outside of the household.” But while differences persist in hiring patterns, pay inequities are not as extreme at UNL. According to UNL Director of Institutional Research Judy Joy, salary models of UNL faculty members reveal no statistically significant differences between the salaries of male and female faculty. The studies conducted to obtain these results took into account such gender-neutral variables as department, area of study, faculty status, education level, tenure status and others, Joy said in an email. However, agricultural economics professor and former chair of the Faculty Compensation Advisory Committee Wes Peterson said possible correlations may exist between other factors in these studies. For example, correlations may exist between rank and gender. “If rank and gender turn out to be related, this raises difficult statistical problems for these models,” Peterson said. Peterson said these correlations may undermine the reliability of the results of these studies in regard to pay equity between male and female faculty. Some departments struggle more than others when it comes to hiring female faculty. Matthew Dwyer, acting chairman of the computer science and engineering department, remembers there being one fe-
male on the computer science department faculty when he began working at UNL. Now, he said, there are five female faculty members in their department. “We didn’t preferentially hire women, but we had some excellent female candidates, and we are very lucky to have them at UNL,” he said. “We have very active women in our department. Female faculty are no different than male faculty.” Other fields in academia are not as male-dominated. One such field is sociology, UNL sociology chairwoman Julia McQuillan said. Two posters hang on McQuillan’s office door. Both reflect important aspects of McQuillan’s life. The first poster displays illustrations of characters from the Divine Comedy. These illustrations were done by her husband, Stephen Lahey, an episcopal priest, ex-Marine and associate professor of classics and religious studies at UNL. The second poster relates to her a bit more directly: It displays pictures of influential women in the arts and sciences. McQuillan has had many offices since arriving at UNL, but this bottom poster — a gift from a friend when she first arrived here — has been a fixture in all of them. McQuillan’s experience as a female professor has not been typical of her peers. She spent nine years in graduate school at University of Con-
FACULTY: see page 2
Percent of full-time female faculty members The University of Nebraska-Lincoln has the lowest number of full-time female faculty members in the Big Ten Conference — but other schools aren’t much better. Compiled from each school’s data sets.
30.33% 31.55% 32.31% 32.80% 35.60% 36.47% 37.08% 38.49% 38.61% 38.82% 39.03% 40.18% 0
20
@dailyneb | facebook.com/dailynebraskan
40
60
80
100
–Compiled by Lane Chasek