The activities of the Status of Women committee were suspended following a Motion at the FNBFA Plenary Session on April 20, 2007.  This decision is reflected in article 14.5 of the Minutes of this meeting. 
As such, the Status of Women Committee's Essay Contest is also suspended.

In l991 the FNBFA Status of Women Committee published an article on employment equity on New Brunswick campuses. The article concluded that increased availability of qualified female candidates for academic positions would be reflected in future hirings. At the end of the decade some progress is indeed evident, even though the goal of creating a representative work force which would reflect the pool of available candidates has not been achieved.

Percentage of female faculty and librarians in New Brunswick universities

Availability is measured in terms of Ph.D. degrees earned in a given field. According to Statistics Canada data 55% of the PhDs in Education are obtained by women in l993 comparison to 46 % in the Humanities (where significant variations exist among disciplines), 43% in the Social Sciences, 41 % in the Health Sciences, 16 % in Mathematics and the Sciences, 8 % in Engineering. Most departments and faculties in New Brunswick universities do not yet come close to the ideal of equitable representation.

Universities can of course not be expected to change the gendered composition of their academic staff within a few years since only new positions or positions that become available through retirement can be filled with candidates from underrepresented groups. During the last few years several universities have suffered from depressed hirings, and many vacancies were not filled at all. The percentage of women may thus increase in various departments without a single new female academic being hired. University communities and their academic programs would be well served if vacant positions were filled expeditiously and gender equity within the parameters of the available pool of candidates was achieved.

All New Brunswick universities now have employment equity policies, or equity clauses embedded in their collective agreements, even though some universities and their faculty associations were reluctant for some time to endorse such policies. Important variations exist, nevertheless, among our universities. At one university (St. Thomas) a member of the Employment Equity Committee has an advisory function within departmental hiring committees. Another university (UNB) has been particularly proactive in establishing departmental hiring goals in spite of the fact that hiring goals have traditionally met with resistance and apprehension based on the assumption that goals are inflexible quotas that may be impossible to achieve without the erosion of the merit principle. Such fears are unfounded. Hiring goals at UNB reflect the putative availability of positions and of candidates by the target year, not gender balance or ideal representation. Goals were established in consultation with departments to avoid the acrimony that has so often accompanied efforts towards equity in the past.

Hiring goals or targets can, however, best be met when hiring committees are flexible and willing to give consideration to divergent career paths rather than taking the bean counter approach which presumes that a candidate who has taken less time to finish the PhD. degree or who has a slightly better track record in terms of publications is necessarily more competent. Equity efforts aim at leveling the playing field, at eliminating systemic barriers without precluding the hiring of patently superior candidates. Inclusionary practices enable disadvantaged groups to partake in academe and contribute to the vibrancy of our universities through their expertise and their divergent experiences.