CASE STUDY Purdue is a Big Ten university that emphasizes engineering, scientific, and technical fields. In the 2013–2014 academic year, Purdue had 1670 professors of all ranks (assistant, associate, and full), of whom 483 were women. That’s just under 29%, or slightly less than three out of every 10 professors. These numbers don’t tell us much about the fields of expertise of women on the faculty. As usual, we must look at relationships among several variables, not just at sex alone. For example, female faculty members are more common in the humanities than in engineering.

Let’s look at the relationship between sex and a variable particularly important to faculty members, academic rank. Professors typically start as assistant professors, are promoted to associate professor (and gain tenure then), and finally reach the rank of full professor. Universities tend to be run by full professors. Here is a two-way table that categorizes Purdue’s 1670 faculty members by both sex and academic rank:

What does this table tell us about the rank of women on the faculty? In this chapter, we will learn how to interpret such tables. By the end of the chapter, you will be able to interpret this table.