How will the process work?
This service is no longer available. The information on this page has been archived for reading purposes only.
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On receiving your email inquiry, we’ll arrange a meeting (in person or screen) for an initial chat about your hopes from the service and any clarification questions you may have. If the service fits your needs and you would like to proceed, you will be asked to hold off specific queries about specific applicants to ensure the assessment is unbiased. The in-depth assessment tool will also be shared with you at this time so you know precisely what information is being sought from applicants and being taken into account. The tool delves into uncomfortable questions, but gives applicants the chance to speak freely and safely should they want to. Just knowing their university is providing them this opportunity and confidential outlet can have profound positive effects.
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I will review all applications for promotion (draft and final) that you would like independently assessed. There is no quota, but will appreciate early contact so there is sufficient time before you need to make your final decision. The in-depth review will involve contacting each applicant via email, inviting them to complete the (non-mandatory) assessment tool, exploring barriers to career progression they have experienced. The final report will include a recommendation about whether the applicant be promoted in this round, with just enough non-verbatim information to contextualise it to protect their privacy. The report will not be shared with the applicant as final decision-making responsibility belongs with you, and the details of their experiences stay safe with me.
3
You are not obliged to heed the recommendation; it is simply hoped it is taken seriously. If you would like to talk through specific queries about specific applicants, now would be the time. Perhaps your initial impressions have changed having read the report, and you would like the chance to debrief why. Perhaps they haven’t - we can still talk. I will thank you for the opportunity to have worked with you and have safe, honest, robust, and respectful conversations about how to tackle gender inequity in academia, one woman at a time. If you are happy, we’ll do it all again next year!
If you are overwhelmed by the complexity of how to truly adjust for unequal access to opportunity, you can simply call on someone you trust to do that thinking for you first and then double check back. It’s better than falling back on assumptions of universality - that’s how we got into this mess.
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Yes, you can use this service for promotion to any academic level. International universities will have slightly different tiers, and we will work with the criteria for promotion at each level within your country. In Australia, there are five levels:
Level A: Associate Lecturer/Research Fellow
Level B: Lecturer/Research Fellow
Level C: Senior Lecturer/Research Fellow
Level D: Associate Professor
Level E: Professor
While you may be seeking services for applicants at any level, the greatest barrier for women is moving from Level C to D. These are women who have passed status of ‘mid-career’, struggling to receive recognition as ‘established’ leaders in their field because of how leadership is currently metricised and gauged. As such, most applications are likely to fall in this bucket.
It would be advised to seek this service for all women applying for Level B, C, D, and E, where there is not already clear unanimous support for the application. You may also recognise that positive stereotypes of men may be unfairly advantaging some applicants, or that ‘outlier’ men with significant caring responsibilities or other intersecting barriers not related to gender, are affecting your ability to confidently gauge the timeliness of their promotion. These are also welcome for review.
Please feel free to use the information on this website as prompts for consideration internally before reaching out. The hard-hitting truth that is being spoken here is driven by a desire to stimulate more honest and deep conversations within universities. I’m here to continue with you what you already start.
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As the purpose of this service is to help reach gender equity quickly, leanings will be toward a ‘yes’ - that the applicant for whom there is currently questionable support will be recommended for promotion. However, this benefit of the doubt will not be given for the sole reason the applicant is a woman; responses to the in-depth assessment tool outlining barriers to career progression she has faced will be central to the recommendation made.
Regardless of whether she chooses to complete the tool (which is not mandatory but in her best interest to gain a fuller picture), I will conduct an independent assessment of her application, scoping for the quality of her work rather than simply adjusting expectations for the quantity of her output. Her quality will not be gauged by where she publishes (as this just falls for the same traps), but by what she has to say (‘can she rightfully profess in her field?’). Sometimes applicants - women and men - may not quite understand what their commensurate title should be relative to their current achievements. In such instances, the recommendation would be that they be promoted in a future round.
Knowing their university is utilising this service will ideally increase the number of women applicants, maybe even slow down the number of men applicants, so that each key junction in the whole process of academic progression can become fairer. Don’t be fooled - this is not about lowering standards; its about acknowledging and correcting current unfairnesses that snake around all aspects of neoliberal academic life. The process applied here is ‘old school’, focusing on the unmetricised merit and worth of the work.
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It is up to you about whether you would like to use this service for draft or final applications. You may end up using a combination of both. A woman may submit her application against advice from seniors who do not believe she is ready yet, and her gumption needs to be taken seriously and respectfully. My fresh eyes offer her that. You may have read a draft application that is underwhelming to you but by their standards solidly prepared, and recognise that a bigger unseen story may be living inside the gap. Reaching out early gives her a chance to receive the support she needs to proceed in the current round. This is all a necessarily flexible process, to best help serve your needs.
A preemptive word to women
If you receive contact from me, please do not feel disheartened that your university does not already clearly and unanimously support your application. In fact, most applications that come across their desk fall in this camp. They have lots to discuss about everyone, and do not skip or rush it. But industries create norms, and norms can fall into ruts, and it takes a great amount of work to challenge the decision points that have come to have greatest weighting and look at different ones. If you hear from me, it’s not because your university thinks you are under par, it’s because they are trying to do the best they can by you.