The pregnancy drop: How teaching evaluations penalize pregnant faculty

The “leaky pipeline” and the “maternal wall” have for decades described the loss of women in STEM and the barriers faced by working mothers. Of the studies examining the impact of motherhood or pregnancy on faculty in higher education, most focus on colleagues’ attitudes towards mothers; few studies explore pregnancy specifically, only a handful examine student evaluations in particular, and none include female faculty in engineering. This study is the first to compare student evaluations across fields from female faculty when they were pregnant against when they were not. Two scenarios were considered: (1) the lived experiences of faculty who taught classes while pregnant and while not pregnant and (2) an experiment in which students submitted teaching evaluations for an actress whom half the students believed was pregnant while the other half did not. Among faculty respondents, women of colour received lower scores while pregnant and these scores lowered further when women were in engineering and/or had severe symptoms. Depending on their demographics, students who participated in the experiment were awarded teaching evaluation scores that differed when they believed the instructor was pregnant. Findings suggest that in fields with fewer women, the maternal wall is amplified and there is a unique intersectional experience of it during pregnancy. These findings may be useful for Tenure and Promotion committees to understand and therefore account for pregnancy bias in teaching evaluations.

Perceived Stress Among Faculty and First Year Students at a College of Pharmacy

Purpose: Female faculty and students could be affected by stressors disproportionately compared to male counterparts, especially those with children or family obligations. A study was undertaken to determine: 1) stress levels of pharmacy faculty and first-year pharmacy students; 2) whether gender affected faculty and/or student stress levels disproportionally; and 3) how child and family care responsibilities influenced stress levels. Methods: All first-year (P1) students enrolled in a College of Pharmacy were surveyed along with faculty. Stress levels were assessed using the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS10). Additional demographic information, including items related to children and family obligations, was collected. Results: Faculty reported average perceived stress levels (M=15.50) while first-year students reported high perceived stress levels (M=21.14). Perceived stress levels of female faculty (M=16.43) were higher than those of male faculty (M=12.00). Perceived stress levels of female students (M=22.60) were higher than those of male students (M=16.78). Perceived stress levels of female faculty with younger children (M=18.85) were higher than those of male faculty with younger children (M=9.67). Perceived stress levels of female students with ≥10 hours of family obligations per week (M=22.71) were higher than male pharmacy students with ≥10 hours (M=12.80). Conclusion: Lower levels of perceived stress for faculty compared to students may be due to the development of coping strategies coinciding with maturity. Results suggest more time spent on family obligations is negatively associated with stress levels for females, but not males. Colleges of pharmacy should invest resources to help reduce stress levels in faculty and student populations, particularly for the female gender.

Assessment of Knowledge of Breast Cancer Risk Factors and Practice of Breast Self Examination among Paramedical Females

Objectives: The aim of the this research was therefore to explore the scale of mammary gland malignancy knowledge among students in paramedical college, looking on awareness of mammary gland malignancy warning symptoms, risk factors, detection strategy and breast self-assessment. Methods: A questionnaire based Cross sectional study was carried out in college of paramedical sciences. This study was questionnaire based on Assessment of knowledge of breast cancer risk factors and practice of BSE among paramedical females Result: Out of 250 female, 207 were available for final analysis. In this study assess the knowledge of female faculty and students about Breast cancer, risk factors and practice of Breast Self Examination and calculated the mean value of respondents who give the correct answer and concluded that the knowledge of female faculty have average 63.08%, Radiology and Imaging Techniques students had good knowledge 63.6%, Optometry students had average knowledge 61.88%,Bachelor of Medical Laboratory Techniques had insufficient knowledge 49.63% and Bachelor of Forensic Sciences were average knowledge 65.8%.The result of this study was not satisfied, knowledge of respondents were not enough for this serious and most common cancer of women Conclusion: Study concluded that there should be proper lectures and theory classes for the conduction of knowledge about Breast cancer, risk factors and BSE in paramedical college, This questionnaire based survey demonstrate that up-to-date practice of breast self examination among paramedical females were not sufficient, this should be improved by the well designed training and theoretical sessions. From this study, we suggest that all members of the health care community should attend the webinars, guest lectures and training sessions about knowledge of breast cancer, risk factor and practice of breast self-examination. Keywords: Breast cancer, BSE, Risk factors.