Oceanography The Official Magazine of
The Oceanography Society
Volume 27 Issue 04 Supplement

View Issue TOC
Volume 27, No. 4
Pages 15 - 22

OpenAccess

Women of the Academy and the Sea: 2000–2014

By Suzanne O’Connell  and Mary Anne Holmes 
Jump to
Citation References Copyright & Usage
First Paragraph

There is good news and bad news for twenty-first century women oceanographers. Tremendous progress has been made in breaking the glass ceiling, both in positions and in prestigious awards and medals (Table 1). There were many firsts, including the first woman to head the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA; Jane Lubchenco) and the first woman to head the United States Geological Survey (USGS; Marcia McNutt). Commendably, other women are succeeding the first women in these very high level positions. Kathy Sullivan, the first woman to walk in space, succeeds Lubchenco. McNutt's successor at the USGS not been confirmed; however, Suzette Kimball, has been nominated to succeed her and is serving as Acting Director.

Citation

O'Connell, S. 2014. Women of the academy and the sea: 2000–2014. Oceanography 27(4) supplement:15–22, https://doi.org/10.5670/oceanog.2014.108.

References

AFT (American Federation of Teachers). 2009. The State of the Higher Education Workforce 1997–2007. American Federation of Teachers, 28 pp., http://www.aft.org/sites/default/files/aa_highedworkforce0209.pdf.

Banaji, M., and A. Greenwald. 2013. Blindspot: Hidden Biases of Good People. Delacorte Press, NY, NY, 272 pp.

Clem, S., S. Legg, S. Lozier, and C. Mouw. 2014. The impact of MPOWIR: A decade of investing in mentoring women in physical oceanography. Oceanography 27(4) supplement:39–48, https://doi.org/10.5670/oceanog.2014.113.

Glass, J. 2015 (May). We are the 20%: Updated statistics on female faculty in Earth sciences in the US. In Women in the Geosciences. M.A. Holmes, S. O’Connell, and K. Dutt, eds, American Geophysical Union and Wiley.

Holmes, M.A. 2014. Advancing women in oceanography: How NSF’s ADVANCE program promotes gender equity in academia. Oceanography 27(4) supplement:30–38, https://doi.org/10.5670/oceanog.2014.112.

Holmes, M.A., P. Asher, J. Farrington, R. Fine, M.S. Leinen, and P. LeBoy. 2012. Does gender bias influence awards given by societies? Eos, Transactions American Geophysical Union 92:421–422, https://doi.org/10.1029/2011EO470002.

Holmes, M.A., S. O’Connell, and K. Dutt, eds. 2015 (May). Women in the Geosciences: Practical, Positive Practices Toward Parity. American Geophysical Union, Wiley, 135 pp.

Huntoon, J.E., and M. Lane. 2007. Diversity in the geosciences and successful strategies for increasing diversity. Journal of Geoscience Education 55:447–457.

Kappel, E.S., and L. Thompson. 2014. Invited scientific papers and speakers and fellow awardees: Little progress for women oceanographers in the last decade. Oceanography 27(4) supplement:24–28, https://doi.org/10.5670/oceanog.2014.110.

Lozier, M.S. 2006. MPOWIR: Mentoring Physical Oceanography Women to Increase Retention. Eos, Transactions American Geophysical Union 87:123–126.

Moss-Racusin, C.A., J.F. Dovidio, V.L. Brescoll, M.J. Graham, and J. Handelsman. 2012. Science faculty’s subtle gender biases favor male students. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 109:16,474–16,479, https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1211286109.

NSF (National Science Foundation). 2004. Division of Science Resources Statistics, Science and Engineering Degrees: 1966–2001. NSF 04-311, Project Officers, Susan T. Hill and Jean M. Johnson, Arlington, VA, USA, http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/nsf04311/sectb.htm.

NSF. 2013. Women, Minorities, and Persons with Disabilities in Science and Engineering. National Science Foundation, National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics, Special Report NSF 13-304, Arlington, VA, http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/wmpd/2013/start.cfm.

O’Connell, S. 2013. Consider nominating a woman for an AGU award. Eos, Transactions American Geophysical Union 94(10):99, https://doi.org/10.1002/2013EO100003.

O’Connell, S., and M.A. Holmes. 2005. Women of the academy and the sea. Oceanography 18(1):12–24, http://dx.doi.org/10.5670/oceanog.2005.66. Orcutt, B.N., and I. Cetinić. 2014. Women in oceanography: Continuing challenges. Oceanography 27(4) supplement:5–13, https://doi.org/10.5670/oceanog.2014.106.

Prendeville, J., and D. Elthon. 2001. Report of the Geosciences Diversity Workshop, August 2000, Appendix to NSF 01-53 (Strategy for Developing a Program for Opportunities for Enhancing Diversity in the Geosciences). Arlington, VA, http://www.nsf.gov/geo/diversity/geo_diversity_workshop_ final_report_august_00.jsp.

Steele, C.M. 1997. A threat in the air: How stereotypes shape intellectual identity and performance. American Psychologist 52:613–629.

Thompson, L., R. C. Perez, and A. E. Shevenell. 2011. Closed ranks in oceanography. Nature Geoscience 4:211–212, https://doi.org/10.1038/ngeo1113.

Copyright & Usage

This is an open access article made available under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution, and reproduction in any medium or format as long as users cite the materials appropriately, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate the changes that were made to the original content. Images, animations, videos, or other third-party material used in articles are included in the Creative Commons license unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If the material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license, users will need to obtain permission directly from the license holder to reproduce the material.