Faculty Hiring: Not Looking for Support

Inside Higher Ed carries a story today that letters of support for female faculty job candidates use words that make hiring less likely. Excerpt below:

You are reading a letter of recommendation that praises a candidate for a faculty job as being "caring," "sensitive," "compassionate," or a "supportive colleague." Whom do you picture?

New research suggests that to faculty search committees, such words probably conjure up a woman -- and probably a candidate who doesn't get the job. The scholars who conducted the research believe they may have pinpointed one reason for the "leaky pipeline" that frustrates so many academics, who see that the percentage of women in senior faculty jobs continues to lag the percentage of those in junior positions and that the share in junior positions continues to lag those earning doctorates...

Full story at http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2010/11/10/letters