Reaching for Low Hanging Fruit

Abstract

Using the conceptual tools from Dorothy Smith's institutional ethnography, the focus of this article is on the challenges faculty face in their efforts to improve the gender climate at a Midwestern university. Using interviews with faculty, policy texts, and participant observation, I assert that disjunctures and text-reader conversations are valuable tools for researchers who want to examine the process of institutional change. Through this research I establish how the core tension between policy and practice shapes the way faculty negotiate their agency within the university. Specifically, the interviews reveal how faculty navigate the strategic ambiguity they felt plagued the way policy was developed and enforced on campus, creating the need for more dialogue and transparency in their efforts to improve the gender climate.