Data Brief 2021-019 | July 2, 2021 | Written and compiled by Leila Gonzales and Christopher Keane, AGI
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In April 2021, we asked academic faculty to estimate the amount of time they spent doing committee work, writing, research, and teaching during this past academic year.

Committees

The percentage of female tenured and tenure-track faculty spending more than 10% of their time on committee work was higher than maleB_2021-018_ faculty members, however, there were distinct differences between gender and faculty cohorts. Only 5% of male tenured faculty and 4% of female tenured and female tenure-track faculty spent more than half of their time on committee work.

The percentage of female tenured faculty spending between one-quarter and one-half of their time on committee work was nearly double that of male tenured faculty (30% vs. 17%), while the percentage of female tenured faculty spending 10% to 25% of their time was only slightly higher than for male tenured faculty (48% vs. 45%).

The percentage of female tenure-track faculty that spent between one-quarter and one-half of their time on committee work was slightly higher than male tenure-track faculty (20% vs. 17%). However, the percentage of female tenure-track faculty spending between 10% and 25% of their time on com­mittee work was more than double that of male tenure-track faculty (44% vs. 17%).

Writing

Although similar percentages of female and male tenured faculty spent more than half of their time on writing (4% and 5% respectively), more male tenured faculty reported spend­ing between one-quarter and one-half of their time writing than female tenured faculty (20% vs. 13%). For tenure-track faculty, more female tenure-track faculty spent more than 25% of their time writing than male tenure-track faculty (16% vs. 0%). However, for non-tenure-track faculty, more male non-tenure-track faculty spent more than 25% of their time writing than female non-tenure-track faculty (40% vs. 0%).

Research

Research activities followed similar trends to time spent on writing activities, yet with some notable differences. More male tenured faculty spent over 10% of their time on research activities than female tenured faculty, with the largest differ­ences occurring in the 25% to 50% of time spent (35% vs. 13%), followed by the 10% to 25% of time spent (35% vs. 22%), and then more than 50% of time spent (10% vs. 4%).

More female tenure-track faculty spent more than 25% of their time on research activities than male tenure-track fac­ulty (16% vs. 0%), while more male tenure-track faculty spent between 10% and 25% of their time on research activities than female tenure-track faculty (67% vs. 36%). For non-ten­ure-track faculty, more male non-tenure-track faculty spent more than 25% of their time on research activities than female non-tenure-track faculty (60% vs. 20%).

Teaching

Female faculty across all cohorts spent more time on teaching activities than male faculty, with the difference between female and male faculty similar between tenured and tenure-track faculty. Just over half of female tenured faculty spent more than half their time on teaching activities compared to 40% of male tenured faculty. Furthermore, just over two-thirds of female tenure-track faculty spent more than half of their time on teaching compared to one-half of male tenure-track faculty.

We will continue to provide current snapshots on the impacts of COVID-19 on the geoscience enterprise throughout the year. For more information, and to participate in the study, please visit: www.americangeosciences.org/workforce/covid19

Funding for this project is provided by the National Science Foundation (Award #2029570). The results and interpretation of the survey are the views of the American Geosciences Institute and not those of the National Science Foundation.