Robin L. Bartlett and Andrea L. Ziegert
Department of Economics, Denison University

In 1972 the American Economic Association (AEA) created the Committee on the Status of Women in the Economics Profession (CSWEP) to increase the number of women in the economics profession. The earliest available data on the number of women at the top 40 Ph.D.-granting departments in the US showed, that in 1978, there were only 38 female assistant professors (13.1%), 9 female associate professors (4.2%), and 9 female full professors (1.8%) (AEA CSWEP Newsletter Winter 1983).

Despite CSWEP's continuous efforts to promote women as presenters and discussants on the AEA's program at its annual meetings, to suggest women for vacancies on editorial boards of major journals, to broaden the applicant pool by keeping a roster of female economists and their specialties, and to educate female economists through its newsletter with a series of "how to" articles, the gains have been small.

Last year CSWEP sent a questionnaire to its representatives at 120 Ph.D.-granting universities in the US. Data obtained from 98 reporting departments suggest that there are now 122.75 female assistant professors (23.8%), 75 female associate professors (15.3%), and 116 female full professors (8.4%). The percentage of all economics professors who are female is now 14.7 percent. At the top 20 schools (19 of 20 schools reporting), there are 29 assistant professors (18.2%), 9 associate professors (16.0%), and 20 full professors (5.4%) who are female. The percentage of all economics professors who are female at the top 20 schools is 11.1 percent.

While these numbers compare favorably with those of 1978, they still show a disproportionate decrease in the percentage of economics professors who are female as they move up in rank. These numbers are also disappointing when compared to those for all fields. According to the 1995 Digest of Educational Studies, 39.7 percent of assistant professors, 27.7 percent of associate professors, and 14.7 percent of full professors were women -- or 31.8 percent of all professors are female. Progress has been made, but not to the extent hoped for when CSWEP was founded 25 years ago.

While the efforts of CSWEP and the profession itself are commendable, they are not enough. A new concerted effort needs to be made by CSWEP and other concerned parties. Past, present, and future board members of CSWEP need to more effectively share their knowledge about how to succeed in the profession with up-and-coming female economists. While female economists currently make up 14.7 percent of academic economists, they are only 10 percent of the scholars on the latest list of NSF awards (NSF Awards List -- http://www.fastlane.nsg.gov). In recent issues of the American Economic Review, [(September, December, March, June 1995-1996)] 10.3 percent of the major articles were authored by women. In terms of being an integral part of the profession, women are rare contributors to special area handbooks, are absent from many editorial boards, and have yet to receive a Nobel prize.

A traditional way to help both men and women advance in their careers, both in business and in the academy, has been the mentoring or sponsorship of young professionals by more mature members of their profession.

Though definitions of mentoring vary from study to study, a common definition is that of a person who takes a personal interest in a protege's career, who acts as a guide or sponsor (Roche, 1979). In the business world, a mentor may serve any number of career and psychosocial functions. Career functions are primarily directed toward career advancement and can include providing sponsorship, exposure, visibility, coaching, protection, and challenging assignments. Psychosocial functions are primarily directed toward developing a sense of competence, identity and effectiveness in a professional role, and include serving as role models, providing friendship, counseling, acceptance and affirmation (Fagenson, 1989).

A mentor in the academy serves these functions, and in addition, helps mentees gain specific knowledge of both formal and informal organizational structures and decision making processes which are unique to economics. S/he can also provide access to both formal and informal networks within the profession.

As Hall and Sandler note (1983, p.2), "Academics, like other professionals, operate primarily through 'colleague systems.' Standards for professional behavior and criteria for evaluating teaching, research, and publications are largely determined by 'unwritten rules' handed down from one generation of scholars to the next, and communicated informally from one colleague to another." Mentors in the academy act as gatekeepers and teachers for younger scholars. Its is not enough to be bright and talented; junior faculty need to be socialized into these informal networks by senior colleagues.

While empirical evidence of the impact of such mentoring is scarce, most researchers have found mentoring to be an important factor in an individual's professional development and career advancement. Mentored individuals in business were found to receive higher salaries, bonuses, and total compensation and report having more job satisfaction, career mobility/opportunity, recognition and a higher promotion rate than non-mentored individuals (Burke, 1984; Fagenson, 1989; Kram 1983; and Roche, 1979). Mentorship is the most important contribution to the psychosocial development of young adult men (Levinson et. al., 1978) and is an important device for influencing male commitment and self image (White, 1970). Mentorship is particularly important for women who may face gender-related obstacles to advancement. Mentors can play an important role in protecting women from discrimination and ensure they move forward in their careers (Collins, 1983; George and Kummerow, 1981; Halcomb, 1980; Vertz, 1985). Indeed, research suggests that mentorship was a critical factor to the success of top level female managers (Henning and Jardim, 1977; and Roche, 1979).

While mentoring is considered as important for success in the academic world as it is in the business world, less empirical research has been done on the impact of faculty-faculty mentoring in the academy. A study of 430 faculty members found a higher level of career development and satisfaction for faculty with mentors than those without. With mentors they published more, received a larger number of competitive grants, and served as leaders of state, national and international organizations more often than did those without mentors (Queralt, 1982). In a study of 64 female and 69 male mentored faculty, women published less than men and were not included in networks that led to publications as frequently as were men. However, women who collaborated with others were as successful as men as measured by number of publications and number of grants received (Cameron, 1979).

All this suggests that mentoring is very important. Finding a mentor, however, is more difficult for female economists than it is for male economists for a variety of complex and related reasons. Junior male economists have more senior male colleagues to choose from a whole array of fields as potential mentors. At major research-oriented institutions there are few women in senior positions, and none in most fields to serve as role models or as dissertation advisers. As more university and national committees seek female representation, the pool of senior women available for mentoring is further limited because of these other demands. At times, successful senior women are lured away by higher paying positions in administration, business, or government.

While men can and do serve as excellent mentors to women, relatively few of them do. Developing a male/female mentoring relationship can be problematic. A female mentee may hesitate to approach a potential male mentor on gender-related concerns. Requests by a female mentee may be misconstrued, not only by others, but also by the potential mentor. Even if a working mentor/mentee relationship is established, language differences may result in less than effective communication (Tannen, 1991).

Given the scarcity of appropriate potential mentors at research-oriented universities, particularly at the top economics departments, and the complex dynamics of one-on-one mentoring relationship, senior male and female economists must find new more effective ways to provide career information and guidance to junior female economists. There is, however, a promising alternative approach. Educational institutions and corporations successfully employ teams to improve classroom performance and productivity, respectively. Teams are a form of cooperative learning where each member of the team is equally responsible for the team's success and each member of the team shares equally in the rewards. In higher education, cooperative learning groups have been shown to be successful in a variety of ways (Bartlett 1995, 1996a, b and c; Belenky et.al. 1986; Johnson, Johnson, and Smith 1991). Such groups have a common goal and share their resources and expertise to achieve that goal. The performance of individual group members is affected by the performance of the group as a whole. There is a growing literature on the effectiveness of high performance teams in academia, business and government (Senge, 1994).

The concept of cooperative mentoring is straightforward. Ideally, a small group of women faculty, say economists, with common research and teaching interests would be brought together under the guidance of a senior economist in their field. Each member of the team is responsible for the mutual support and advancement of all its members. The senior economist brings her expertise and acts as a resource for the team. Each team member brings her expertise and willingness to work on everyone's projects, thus providing support for other members of the team. This commitment to shared goals provides junior female economists with the additional guidance, support, and confidence they need to be successful. In effect, the team serves all the career and psychosocial functions provided by a traditional mentor except those that can only be served by someone in a position of power. The role of the senior economist in a team differs from that of a traditional mentor, a "sage on the stage," who is primarily responsible for passing on the collective wisdom and know-how of the profession to the mentee by molding, protecting and promoting the protege. By way of contrast, the team leader is a "guide on the side," who facilitates and directs team members' discovery of the secrets of professional success.

Developing teams, as distinct from relying solely on one-on-one mentoring relationships between junior and senior female economists, to improve the chances of junior female economists writing fundable grant proposals to NSF and publishing articles in major journals is attractive for several reasons. First, the education literature suggests that students at all levels of learning, learn best from their peers. The literature on how female students and people of color best learn confirms this observation (American Association of University Women, 1991; Arnold, 1992; Belenky et.al., 1986; Cohen, 1994; Cooper et.al,, 1994; Davis, 1993; Light, 1990; Magolda, 1992; Maher and Tetreault, 1994; Tobias, 1990; Triesman, 1992). Second, teams share the responsibility of mentoring, and members have the opportunity to get to know each other. One of the reasons previous attempts by CSWEP to engage senior women in mentoring relationships were not more successful was that being responsible for a number of young scholars and really getting to know them consumes a great deal of time and energy. The commitment was too open-ended. Teams, on the other hand, allow for mutual responsibility and facilitate the development of friendships, thus minimizing the problems caused by the dearth of female mentors, and alleviation the sense of isolation many junior faculty members feel.

The data suggests that there is one, maybe two women, in each of the Ph.D. granting institutions. Team mentoring is an efficient way to use the knowledge and resources of the relatively few senior members of the profession to promote the careers of their young colleagues. The team provides feedback and support and the mentor provides guidance and wisdom. The mentees take on more responsibility for peers and the mentor devotes less time to any one mentor. Once teams have met as a group, they can stay connected electronically.

While there is no evidence that team mentoring will be superior to traditional mentoring, it can only help. Given the plaucity of women economists and their isolation, any mentoring they receive from different sources can only add to their human and social capital. Team mentoring will not displace traditional mentoring, but it can certainly complement it and boost the probability that junior female economists will write successful grant proposals, publish significant research, and earn tenure.

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