Females: faculty rarities
Editor's Note: This is the first of a two
part series on the roles of women on
college faculties. Today's article will
examine these roles on a national level.
Tomorrow's article will focus on the
situation of the University's' women edu
cators.
By ANDY LINKER
Daily Collegian Staff Writer
The late musician and human rights
spokesman John Lennon wrote about the
plight of the female in today's society in
the song "Woman is the Nigger of the
World." But for years before Lennon's
words and in the years since, women
have been treated as second class work
ers in their roles as faculty members of
colleges and universities across the coun
try.
Though statistics show an increase of
women on college faculties today, many
women still gravitate toward education,
health services and the social sciences
all traditionally considered women's
fields.
Last'year, women represented 53 per
cent of the country's population, yet they
accounted for only 24.3 percent of the
total collegiate faculty.
And at Penn State, women last year
made up 14.2 percent of the 2,790 full
time faculty members, Robert Kidder,
manager of the University's employment
division, said.
According to statistics gathered by
Kathryn M. Moore, associate professor
of education and research associate at
the University's Center for the Study of
Higher Education, the percentage of
women joining the ranks of professor,
associate professor, assistant professor
and instructor increases as the rank
decreases.
"It's the principle of the-higher-the
fewer," Moore. said.
At public universities in 1980, women
accounted for only 6.7 percent of all full
professors, 15.4 percent of associate pro-
inside
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Journalist Cooke returns Pulitzer Prize
By JAY PERKINS
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) The Washington Post
announced yesterday that reporter Janet Cooke had
surrendered the Pulitzer Prize and resigned from
the newspaper because the feature story that won
her journalism's highest honor was a fabrication.
The $l,OOO prize for feature writing then was
awarded to Teresa Carpenter of The Village Voice.
Richard T. Baker, secretary to the Pulitzer Prize
board, said the award was made after a telephone
poll of board members.
Donald E. Graham, publisher of the Post, said
Cooke acknowledged early yesterday "that major
parts of the story were fabricated and that she did
not interview an 8-year-old heroin addict.
"In the morning, all of us collectively will
apologize in the paper to readers of the Post,"
Graham said.
Executive Editor Benjamin Bradlee advised the
Pulitzer Prize board that Cooke would not accept
the award bestowed Monday. "She told Post editors
early this morning that her story about an 8-year
old heroin addict was in fact, a composite, that
the quotes attributed to the child were, in fact,
fabricated, and that certain events described as
eyewitnesses did not, in fact, happen," Bradlee told
the board.
He said he made the statement "with great
sadness and regret."
In the Post story, Cooke told of watching' the
lover of the child's mother inject heroin into the
the
daily
fessors and 30.4 percent of assistant
professors. The highest number of wom
en faculty Members are clustered into
the lowest faculty rank instructor.
Moore said women account for more
than 55 percent of the nation's college
level instructors.
At Penn State, women made up 6.1
percent of the full professors in 1979, an
increase over the 5.1 percent level in
1967, Moore said.
'The change of one professor one way or another
would change the percentage. The percentage
could change either plus or minus.'
—Kathryn M. Moore, research associate at the
Center for the Study of Higher Education
But the current 6.1 percent is still
below the national average for public
universities, said Moore, who compiled
her statistics from sources including The
Chronicle of Higher Education, the
American Council on Education, The
American Association of University Pro
fessors and the National Center for Edu
cational Statistics.
"The change of one professor one way
or another would change the percentage
a lot," Moore said. "The percentage
could change either plus or minus."
The University also trails the national
average with only 11.1 percent of asso
ciate professorships held by women. In
addition, women account for only 20.3
percent of assistant professors and 36.5
percent of instructors at the University.
The percentage of women employed as
faculty members across the country has
increased from 19.1 percent in 1960 to 21.3
percent in 1975 to the current 24.3 per-
4 COP'
one • ian
While these increases do not reflect a
tremendous gain, the increase of women
on some university faculties is almost
non-existent
Alarmed by the lack of women teach
ers at their school, women at Cornell
University in Ithaca, N.Y., have banded
together to fight what they see as sexual
bias in that university's hiring practices.
. According to the group, which calls
itself Cornell 11, women represent a
paltry 8.3 percent of Cornell's faculty,
well beloW the national average. In a
report filed'in the Association of Ameri
can Colleges, Cornell II said only one of
the university's 76 academic depart
ments is chaired by a woman and only
one of Cornell's 14 deans is a woman.
Offices representing the federal gov
ernment's Affirmative Action program
have been at Cornell since 1972. Howev
er, in eight years they have increased the
number of female faculty members by
less than 1 percent, according to the
Association of American Colleges.
Cornell is also the only university in the
Northeast undergoing a review by the
federal Department of Labor on charges
of sexual discrimination. Other organiza
tions examining Cornell's hiring prac
tices toward women include the
Department of Education, the Equal
Employment Opportunity Commission,
boy's arm. The story was published at a time when
an influx of cheap, high quality heroin on the streets
of Washington had led to a surge in use of the drug.
The story also described the course of the boy's
addiction to drugs.
At a staff meeting around the city desk, Bradlee
told his Post colleagues: "It breaks my heart to tell
you what you already know." He told The Assd
ciated Press that Cooke conceded to him at 1:45
a.m. yesterday after a lengthy conversation, that
portions of the story were fabricated. "Previous to
that, she had denied it," he said. Asked if she
offered to resign, Bradley said "I remember telling
her she wasn't going to get fired, that she was going
to resign. If that's a suggestion . . ."
Bradlee also told District of Columbia Mayor
Marion Barry what had happened, and apologized.
City officials had challenged the story after it was
published on Sept. 28, and had tried unsuccessfully
to identify the child of whom Miss Cooke had
written.
"Janet Cooke was a particularly promising and
talented young reporter," Bradlee's statement said.
"She regrets these events as much as the Washing
ton Post regrets them. She has offered her resigna
tion and it has been accepted."
Cooke, 26, joined the Post in December 1979 after
working for the Toledo (Ohio) Blade. She could not
be reached for comment.
"We must accept The Washington Post's wishes
in this matter," said a statement issued at Colum
bia University in New. York, which awards the
the American Association of University
Professors and the New York State Divi
sion of Human Rights.
The Project on Equal Education
Rights targeted Cornell in 1979 for its
annual Silver Snail Award for the
school's sub-par performance in practic
ing affirmative action. According to
PEER, Cornell will reach a faculty corn
posed of 50 percent females by the year
2395.
However, faculty equality is not likely
because women tend to earn degrees in
only a few areas such as education,
health services and the social sciences,
Moore said.
For collegiate faculty, holders of de
grees in areas such as education and
social sciences are paid considerably
less than degree holders in fields such as
engineering and agriculture, she said.
Engineering and agriculture tend to be
dominated by males, she said.
Engineering professors this year earn
an average of $26,601, according to the
Chronicle. The average salaries for pro
fessors in English ($22,847) and nursing
($20,596) are noticeably lower.
Women received 42.1 percent of the
doctorates awarded in 1978-79 in educa
tion, but composed only 25.7 percent of
the 1979 doctorates in professional fields,
which also includes health services like
nursing, the Chronicle reported.
.But Moore said the figures could be
misleading.
"It's hard to know what they mean,"
she said. "They (the doctorates) could be
for denistry or law . . . education could
be considered a social science. It's hard
to tell what they. mean."
Women also trail men 67 percent to 33
percent in doctorates awarded in social
sciences, the Chronicle said.
In engineering, the Chronicle said, 97.5
percent of all doctoral degrees awarded
in engineering in 1979 went to men.
Continued on Page 18
He said the jury had recommended the award go
to Carpenter of The Village Voice for a story about
a man who killed his wife while on leave from a
mental institution. ryi aynard said that recommenda
tion was overruled by the board, which has final
authority in awarding the prizes.
The Cooke story originally was entered in the
local reporting category, but was shifted to the
feature competition.
"As a juror, I find it frustrating and dismaying
that five very busy editors spent three days careful
ly reviewing 164 submissions only to have the
feature writing prize given to a submission the jury
never reviewed," Maynard said.
He said the episode was a tragedy for the Post
and should be a lesson for the Pulitzer board.
Edward K. Shanahan, editor of the Daily Hamp
shire Gazette in Northampton, Mass., said he never
saw the Cooke story, either. "When I read that the
board had overruled the, jury and awarded this to
Janet Cooke, I was flabbergasted, because I don't
have any personal knowledge that it was considered
by the jury," Shanahan said. ". .It makes us, the
jury, look like jerks when we never even considered
that story."
Pulitzer prizes. "The Post states it cannot accept
the prize and it is therefore withdrawn."
Robert C. Maynard, editor of the Oakland, Calif.,
Tribune, said the Cooke story was not among the 164
entries he read as a member of the jury that made
award recommendations in the feature writing
category.
TMI re-enacted at
Idaho test reactor
IDAHO FALLS, Idaho (AP) Nu
clear energy officials said yesterday
they hope to learn more about acci
dents like the one at Three Mile
Island by deliberately uncovering the
core of a test reactor.
Charles Solbrig, manager of the
Loss of Fluid Test Facility's program
division, termed the experiment,
scheduled for last night, "the most
complex test we've performed to
date" at the Idaho National Engi
neering Laboratory west of here.
It is the sixth in a series that began
after the Three Mile Island accident
in 1979 to see what happens when
there is a small breakdown in the
cooling system of a pressurized, wa
ter-cooled power reactor.
In last night's experiment, the core
of the 55-megawatt test reactor was
uncovered on purpose to test safety
systems that are supposed to retool a
reactor after an accident.
Though the test reactor is only
about one-sixtieth the size of the TMI
power plant, the test has been adjust
ed to reflect conditions in a commer
cial reactor, Solbrig said.
He said the test posed no danger to
the reactor, whose core has been
uncovered briefly in previous experi
ments.
Hundreds of visitors came to watch
the test, including representatives
from companies that make commer
cial, water-cooled reactors and utili
ties that use them. Solbrig noted the
experiment was designed to test the
safety procedures now used by the
nuclear power industry.
Terry Smith, a spokesman for
EG&G Idaho Inc., which is conduct
15°
Thursday April 16, 1981
Vol. 81, No. 152 20 pages University Park, Pa. 16802
Published by Students of The Pennsylvania State University
ing the test, said it was the first
procedure "running through the
whole sequence" of the TMI accident.
He described the test as follows:
A pump in the secondary cooling
system is turned off, preventing heat
from the main cooling system from
being drawn off as it normally would.
Unable to dissipate the heat, the
reactor's main cooling system heats
up and the pressure increases.
An automatic safety system takes
over, dropping control rods into the
reactor in a "scram" to halt the
nuclear reaction.
A relief valve is opened, as at TMI,
to relieve the pressure and it stays
open, causing steam and some water,
to escape. The main coolant pumps
are left off during this phase of the
test, just as at TMI.
As the pressure in the main cooling
system drops, the core is gradually
uncovered. Soon the primary pumps
are reactivated to see how well they
return the reactor to normal temper
atures.
A few minutes later the emergency
core cooling systems are triggered.
They are kept off during the early
stages, even though they should be
activated automatically in a real-life
crisis.
Solbrig said one of the things engi
neers want to know is how long a
reactor operator can wait after the
main cooling system's water and
pressure begin to drop before more
water must be put into the reactor
core. "It's a matter of hours, not
minutes," he said.
Fred Knubel, a spokesman for the Pulitzer
board, said the Cooke story originally was entered
in the local reporting competition. "It was nomi
nated by that jury," he said.
"It was moved by the board to the feature
category at the board's April 3 meeting," Knubel
said.
Janet Cooke
UPI Wlnphoto