TCD: WiSER Facts & Figures

The State of Things: Women in Trinity College today

• Women account for 39% of all academic staff in College, but only 22% of academics in the Faculty of Engineering, Maths & Science (Annual Equality Monitoring Report 2011-12)
• At present, 8 out of the 25 Heads of School in College are women
• What discipline has the most equal balance of men and women academic staff?
  It’s a tie between the School of Linguistic, Speech & Communication Sciences, which has 52% women to 48% men, and the School of Medicine, which has 48% women to 52% men (AEM Report 2008)
• Does this balance continue into senior positions?
  Sadly not. At Professor and Associate Professor level, the School of Linguistic, Speech & Communication Sciences has 25% women, while the School of Medicine fares slightly better at 37%.
  However, 4 Schools achieve a 50/50 balance among these senior positions. They are the School of Education, School of Law, School of Pharmacy & Pharmaceutical Sciences, and the School of Social Work and Social Policy.

What’s changed? - Then vs. Now

Here are some quick numbers on the situation for women academics in Trinity College today, and throughout the history of the College:

6%      - the overall increase in the proportion of women academics between 2000 and 2007

27%    - the percentage of women lecturers in 1985. Today it is 43%

61       - the number of women Fellows of the College currently, compared with 215 male Fellows (Annual Equality Monitoring Report 2011-12)

1904   - the year women were first admitted as students to Trinity College

0%      - the number of women Heads of School in the Faculty of Engineering, Maths & Sciences

1925   - the year the first woman professor was appointed (Dr. Frances E Moran, Law, who was also the first woman in England and Ireland to 'take silk' and become a senior counsel in 1941)

2          - the number of women professors appointed since 2006, compared with 33 men

9%      - the percentage of women professors in the Faculty of Engineering, Maths & Sciences (Annual Equality Monitoring Report 2011-12)

42%    - the percentage of women undergraduate students in TCD today (Annual Equality Monitoring Report 2011-12)

1    - the number of lecture theatres in Trinity College named after a woman (Professor Constantia Maxwell, who became a profesor of Economic History in 1939)

1972     - the year the first woman graduated from engineering in Trinity College

Trailblazers

In the 105 years since women were first admitted as students, women graduates of Trinity College have gone on to create some important firsts:

• First woman President of Ireland – Mary Robinson in 1990. The second woman president, current President Mary McAleese, is also a Trinity graduate.
• First Irish woman Olympian in 1956
• Two TCD graduates became the first women barristers in Ireland in 1921
• First woman to be appointed a Supreme Court Judge was TCD graduate Susan Denham in 1993
• First woman leader of a political party and first woman Tánaiste: both Minister Mary Harney, a former TCD economics student
• Woman Vice-Provost of the College: Prof. Jane Grimson became the first woman to occupy this role in 2001

But still…

… within College we have never had a woman as Provost, Faculty Dean, or even currently as a Head of School within the Faculty of Engineering, Maths & Science. At WiSER, look forward to seeing some of our outstanding women reach these levels.

* Historical data taken from “A Danger to the Men: A History of Women in Trinity College Dublin 1904 – 2004”, edited by Susan M. Parkes.