Why Did HSS Conduct A Climate Survey?

Vol. 42, No. 2, April 2013
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by Georgina Montgomery, Constance Clark and Jay Malone

If you looked around the hotel lobby or meeting rooms at the 2012 annual meeting, or any other recent HSS conference, white males appeared to far outnumber women and minorities. Because appearances can be deceptive, the Women's Caucus and the HSS Council wanted to determine in a more precise manner who was attending the annual meeting and why, and who was not attending the conference and why. Was the conference attracting a more diverse group of scholars than suggested by simply looking around the rooms? Did people feel welcome at the conference? How could we attract more people to the annual meeting and what could we do to be more inclusive?

These questions reflect the primary motivation behind the climate survey—we want to ensure that people feel welcome at the annual meeting regardless of race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, disability, disciplinary affiliation, or type of scholarly position. And we believe that a climate in which more people feel welcome will improve the meetings for everyone, bringing in new perspectives and experiences.

The questions also reflect the practical motivation behind the survey—we lacked basic demographic information on who was and who was not attending the conference, and we wanted to explore ways to get more people to attend. Currently about 23% of the Society's membership regularly attends the annual meeting, with members comprising about 70% of meeting attendees (HSS is unusual, if not unique, in that participants are not required to be members of the Society).

Erika Milam and Georgina Montgomery co-chaired the Women's Caucus in 2012 and worked with Jay Malone to find someone qualified to conduct the climate survey. After months of searching, Georgina found someone who just happened to be on her campus: Isis Settles, a psychologist at Michigan State University, who has extensive experience conducting and analyzing climate surveys. In consultation with Erika, Georgina, Jay, officers of the HSS and various committees, Isis composed the survey questions, administered the survey, and provided preliminary results for discussion at the November 2012 annual meeting, and then final results shortly thereafter.

Isis provided all of this work pro bono, asking only that we pay the costs of her research assistant and that she be able to use the results in her research. Because climate survey research remains specialized (and rare) for academic societies, some of the questions reflect U.S. categories, which are based on reliable measures used in prior research. Even though the HSS is an international society, we hoped that these data would still provide us an accurate assessment of our conferences.

Summary of the Survey Results: Quantitative Data

We sent the survey to current and lapsed members of the HSS, using membership rolls dating back to 1995. Approximately 821 people took the climate survey. This response rate is very high and reflects our members' commitment to exploring and improving inclusion at the meeting and to generating a more robust understanding of who is and is not attending the meeting and why. Below are two tables showing basic demographic data for those who completed the climate survey, which includes whether or not they regularly attend the annual conference.

Demographics Survey 1

Demographics Survey 2

Although overall the level of meeting satisfaction was good, the following relationships were found to be statistically significant: White males who responded feel more comfortable at the conference than other groups. Those who had never attended the conference expected it to be more positive and diverse than those whose attendance had lapsed (had not attended in the past five years) or those who had attended recently (within the past five years). Recent attendees expressed more satisfaction with the conference than lapsed attendees. Compared with men, women reported finding the conference more sexist, and less diverse; and they reported more incidents of incivility and/or harassment. Women also identified many more obstacles to attending the meeting, including money, caregiving responsibilities, health and disability concerns, and lactation.

Preliminary results suggested that racial/ethnic minorities felt that the conference was more exclusionary than did white individuals, but this was no longer statistically significant when all the data had been collected. This may have been a function of sample size. Preliminary data suggested there was a significant difference in perceptions of incivility at the annual meeting by LGBTQ status but this relationship was also no longer statistically significant when all the data had been collected. Interestingly, there were no differences by disability status in perceptions of the annual meeting.

Considering most of the attendees are from the United States, it is perhaps surprising that non-U.S. citizens viewed the conference more positively than U.S. citizens and foreign nationals.

Summary of the Survey Results: Qualitative Data

The survey collected 128 comments from recent attendees, 38 comments from lapsed attendees, and 25 from people who had never attended. There were no patterns in the comments provided by lapsed or never attendees. Some themes did emerge, however, in the comments from recent attendees. By far the most common comment concerned the need for better childcare options. Several commented on the need for a more welcoming atmosphere for independent scholars. Others suggested more diverse speaker formats to increase "scholarly engagement" and decrease a "show and tell" feel to the sessions.

Next Steps

HSS and the Women's Caucus have already taken steps in response to the climate survey. The 2012 annual meeting was the first to have a lactation room. Although this space had to serve as both a lactation room and family room in 2012, we hope to have a room dedicated to lactation at future annual meetings. The Women's Caucus and HSS Council also continue to explore the issue of childcare. This is not a concern restricted to women, but the climate survey did demonstrate that childcare significantly impacts women's attendance at the annual meeting.

Currently, we are exploring childcare grants, a strategy used by the American Historical Association, in which small grants are provided to caretakers to offset childcare costs. Other ideas include developing some field trips that could be attended by children and parents, and continuing to develop means of communication so scholars travelling with children can connect with one another for play dates, meals and so forth during the meeting. Suggestions that came up in the discussion of the climate survey's preliminary results at the women's caucus breakfast in November included the idea that if we are able to provide grants, those grants could be used by people for care of children left at home as well as for children brought to the meetings; and one person pointed out that we might want to think in terms of family care, since there are probably people who care for family members who are not children.

A number of survey respondents also suggested that adding more diverse formats for panels and sessions might allow for a greater diversity of dialogue. Some ideas might include: panels for which the papers have been circulated online prior to the meeting, so that the panels at the meeting could include more time for discussion, and more detailed discussion; more roundtable discussions relative to paper presentations; or more poster sessions. We could also consider highlighting intersections between the history of science and LGBTQ studies, gender studies, and issues of race by selecting a scholar working in one or more of these areas as a keynote speaker. And, as Lynn Nyhart suggested in her recent Newsletter article, we might sponsor more talks and programs, such as the successful "Blue Marble" event last November at Scripps, intended to reach a wider audience, including members of the general public.

Lynn's Newsletter article also mentioned the "HSS Outside the Academy" initiative, being developed by Tania Munz and Carin Berkowitz. This is another way to bring in new voices and experiences, including those of independent scholars and people working outside of academia and thus, as Lynn so nicely put it, "broadening who 'we' are." The Women's Caucus is also contributing to this effort by developing a section on the Women's Caucus website that highlights the biographies of women with History of Science degrees who have pursued careers beyond tenure-track academic positions. These biographies will be uploaded to the website by early summer.

The survey was intended to provoke discussion by helping us focus on things that we could improve on in order to make our Society and our meetings more inclusive. We hope that this will be the beginning of a conversation—or many conversations. The HSS website, currently being revamped, and the new Women's Caucus website would be good places for conversations to start. It seems worthwhile to reiterate the recent Newsletter invitations from Lynn and Jay for suggestions concerning inclusion and ideas for future meetings.

Future HSS Meetings

One strategy for inclusiveness, nationally and internationally, is for HSS to meet in cities that are easily reached. Such meetings have been difficult to arrange because such places are usually exorbitantly expensive. Although New York remains out of our price range, we have been able to secure good hotel rates in some major hubs. For example, the Society will convene in Boston in 2013, in Chicago (2014), in San Francisco (2015) (we have secured a block of grad student rooms for $99/night!), in Atlanta (2016), in Toronto (2017), and in Seattle (2018), all in downtown properties. Each of these cities possesses diverse populations that can enhance the quality of our meetings. Atlanta, for example, is not only home to several Historically Black Colleges and Universities, it also boasts the third largest GLBT population (by percentage) in the U.S.

Each of these meeting sites can serve as benchmarks for us, as we try to increase diversity in the HSS. And because we meet in even-numbered years with the Philosophy of Science Association, we should note that PSA's Women's Caucus and leadership also endorsed the climate survey and encouraged their members to fill out a survey specifically for PSA. We therefore have the opportunity to collaborate with PSA as both societies strive to broaden our engagement. And we will need help as we reach for diversity. If you are interested in serving on our newly forming diversity committee, please contact Jay at jay@hssonline.org.

History of Science Society