Over the years, I've told colleagues and friends about things I have seen or experienced. Many times, people have said that I should write them down so that they won't be lost and forgotten, since some of them might be useful parts of our history. I've been writing them down, without being sure what I would do with them. I decided to gradually post them on this website, and see what reactions I get. I suggest reading from the bottom up (starting with the August 2017 post "The Meritocracy"). Thoughtful and kind feedback would be useful for me, and would help me to revise the exposition to make it as useful as possible. I hope that while you read my stories you will ask yourself "What can I learn from this?" I'm particularly interested in knowing what you see as the point of the story, or what you take away from it. Please send feedback to asilverb@gmail.com. Thanks for taking the time to read and hopefully reflect on them!

I often run the stories past the people I mention, even when they are anonymized, to get their feedback and give them a chance to correct the record or ask for changes. When they tell me they're happy to be named, I sometimes do so. When I give letters as pseudonyms, there is no correlation between those letters and the names of the real people.

Thursday, July 3, 2025

Listen to Women

This post is the sixth post in a series of stories that, taken together, might help explain why I decided to take early retirement from UCI. My point in posting these stories is to say "This happened. It shouldn't have. Can you learn something from it, so you can prevent such things from happening where you are (or at least not be complicit)?"

Listen to Women

The Executive Vice Chancellor/Provost and the Vice Provost for Academic Personnel took a committee I served on out to lunch. As we milled around before the meal, I overheard wisps of conversation from a group of male committee members gathered round the Provost.

I drew closer. The Provost was complaining about how difficult it is to increase the number of female faculty in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) fields. He asked my male colleagues for advice. They weren't prepared for this, and didn't seem very knowledgable about the subject.

I leaned in and said "I have expertise on this that I would be happy to share with you." The Provost did not seem particularly interested, but said that I could meet with him to talk. I was surprised that he didn't ask me for advice right then and there, and I wondered whether he was just blowing me off.

A few days later I emailed a reminder to the Provost, and he got his assistant to arrange a meeting.

The Provost brought the Vice Provost along to the meeting, and the two of them sat across from me.

I had written down a short list of suggestions, and started to present them. At various points the Provost and Vice Provost spoke up, sometimes to complain about my department, and also to tell me I clearly wasn't aware of all the great things they're doing. They elaborated on what those things were, and seemed to want praise for all they had done.

I tried to pull the conversation back to my suggestions.

After a half hour the Provost's assistant came in to remind the Provost about his next appointment, and he told her he would be right there. This looked like a signal for me to leave. I came prepared with ten minutes of advice, but I only had time to present half of it due to their lengthy digressions.

As we wound down the meeting, the Provost asked me a question that I no longer recall. I asked, "I believe you need to get going?" and he agreed. Channeling Scheherazade, I suggested we meet again so I could answer his question; he said his assistant would arrange it.

A week later, having heard nothing, I emailed the assistant to see if the Provost was interested in continuing where we left off. She set up an appointment for over a month later.

To make it feel less adversarial than the first meeting, I asked if I could sit at the end of the long table, rather than across from the two of them. The Provost said yes, and joked that it meant I have to pay the bill. I suggested they sit on either side of me so I could show them the documentation I brought.

I pointed out that what improves things for everyone, improves things for women in STEM. To make sure to get my points across this time, I handed each of them this list of suggestions:

  • Train the chairs, hiring committees, and departments on “best practices” for hiring, and hold them accountable for following them.
  • Involve women in STEM in all steps of the process.
  • Treat fairly the women who are here. (Women in STEM talk to other women in STEM. If the women in STEM who are already here feel that they're not treated fairly, it will be hard to recruit women in STEM.)
  • When things go wrong, people need to know how to get them fixed. We need to know that if we report problems, things will get better instead of worse. Suggestion: Pay attention to feedback, and do something constructive about it.
  • Facilitate the choosing of good department chairs, deans, chairs of hiring committees, and Directors of Graduate Studies. Train them to act professionally and do the right thing.

I tried to stay laser-focused on presenting and explaining these five points. That was hard, since they once again spent much of the time talking. They had decided how to do things, and didn't seem to want to make changes based on my feedback. So much for my suggestion to pay attention to feedback and do something constructive about it. The assistant's knock at the door and my dismissal came sooner this time.

While they were eager to listen to themselves, they didn't seem interested in listening to me. I wish I had put "Involve women in STEM in all steps of the process" at the top of my list, rather than in second place.

A few weeks later I sent them the email reproduced here, which gives a more direct and brutal version of some of what I didn't have time to convey at our meetings.