Table of Contents

Abstract

POLICY INITIATIVES, CURRICULAR REFORM, RESEARCH, and grassroots organizing have all contributed to advancing equity and shaping women's status in U.S. higher education. Nearly four or more decades have passed since key legislation, including the Equal Pay Act, Title VII, and Title IX, was passed and efforts were begun to broaden and create more inclusive curricula. Significant gains have been made in women's access to and representation in higher education as evidenced by enrollment figures and graduation rates. Yet these measures are only part of the full gender equity picture. For instance, when taken in the aggregate, enrollment data do not portray the persistent lack of gender parity among students studying engineering, computer science, and other science and technology fields, nor do they depict the quality of classroom and campus experiences. Even today, data reveal that women studying and working in postsecondary institutions bump up against glass ceilings and sticky floors, experience pay disparities linked to gender, and experience the threat and reality of sexual harassment and violence on campus.Since 1988 more than half of all undergraduate students have been women, and 60 percent of students in graduate and professional programs in 2007-08 were women (King, 2010). These improvements in women's access to and representation in higher education are indeed impressive and worthy of note. Headlines based on these data alone, however-that is, drawing conclusions that equity has been achieved based on the overall proportion of faculty or students who are female-fail to acknowledge ways in which gender representation tends to be stratified across types of institutions and by rank Published online in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com) •