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Tuesday, May 05, 2015

University of Waterloo joins UN program promoting women in STEM fields

"The University of Waterloo has signed on to the United Nations HeForShe campaign, the only Canadian university to do so, with a promise to boost the participation of female students in science, math and engineering fields and to increase the share of female faculty and administrators." continues The Globe and Mail.

The Institute of Quantum Computing at the University of Waterloo. Waterloo is the only Canadian university to sign on to the United Nations HeForShe campaign, with a promise to boost participation of female students in STEM fields. 
Photo:The Globe and Mail 

Announced Tuesday morning, the commitment to increasing the representation of women at one of Canada’s most innovative universities comes as renewed attention is focusing on gaps in gender and pay equity in Canadian academia. Last week, McMaster University announced that it would raise the salary of all female faculty after it found that female professors earned $3,515 less on average than their male colleagues. To redress such inequities over the long term, universities are now making far-reaching changes to their hiring, promotion and family-support policies.

“We were committed to doing things without the HeForShe initiative, but this accelerates our progress,” said Feridun Hamdullahpur, the university’s president and vice-chancellor. “Our broader objective is to create an environment where equity is absolutely important, not just for universities. As a university we cannot sit back and say this is how it is; we have a critical role to play.”

As part of its UN commitment, Waterloo aims to raise female enrolment in science, technology, engineering and math programs to 33 per cent by 2020 – its first-year engineering class was 27-per-female last year – and increase the proportion of female faculty by a half percentage point in each of the next five years, to 30 per cent.

“It’s about sustainable equity and building the pipeline of talent,” said Diana Parry, the special adviser on women’s and gender issues to Waterloo’s president.

The university is also conducting an inquiry into gender pay gaps at the school, the second such probe in several years, after an earlier pay adjustment.
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Related links
HeForShe (From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia) 
HeForShe: Home