Mary Barkley isn’t afraid of change. In fact, she’s often the one inciting it—especially when it comes to advancing the status of women in academia, and in the sciences in particular. Barkley’s achievements in the area of inclusion—both for women and minorities—earned her the American Chemical Society Stanley C. Israel Regional Award for Advancing Diversity in the Chemical Sciences.
When she first joined the Case Western Reserve University faculty in 1996, Barkley was the first woman tenure-track faculty member in the chemistry department. Though it was fewer than 20 years ago, academia was still a challenging environment for women, especially in typically male-dominated fields.
Barkley, now chair of the chemistry department and the M. Roger Clapp University Professor of Arts and Sciences, realized the extent of the challenges female faculty faced.
After a female colleague in another department was denied tenure twice, Barkley became involved in the grievance process, which led to the creation of the President’s Advisory Council on Women. Barkley would later head up that council. During that time, a new sexual harassment policy was introduced, and she spearheaded proposals for the women’s center and the National Science Foundation ADVANCE Institutional Transformation Award, which provides funding to universities to create better environments for women faculty.
“I knew it had to change when I started, so I [spent] time helping it change,” she said. “That was just part of the deal.”
The university won the ADVANCE award and received $3.5 million from 2003 to 2008 to create better programs for women through the Case Western Reserve University ADVANCE program, Academic Careers in Engineering and Science (ACES). It was during that five-year stretch that Barkley believes the biggest improvements came, such as better leadership training on how to include women in the workplace for senior faculty and staff and the addition of more organizations for women in science to grow professionally—such as Women in Science and Engineering Roundtable and ACES.
“It’s had a huge effect,” she said, noting, as she often does, the critical role many others played in such advances.
While many of Barkley’s contributions toward diversity are aimed at including more women in the sciences, she also works to bring more minority students and faculty to the chemistry department. During Barkley’s tenure as department chair, the faculty has become significantly more ethnically and racially diverse, she said. In addition, she consistently seeks to increase the diversity of graduate students; for example, she recently took a trip to Puerto Rico to recruit students.
All of those contributions led to Barkley’s recent diversity award, for which she will receive $1,000—an amount that she plans to put toward recruiting a more diverse graduate student population.
Through mentorship of countless students—many not even her own—over the years, recruitment of a diverse team of faculty and graduate students, and developing programs throughout the university, Barkley was instrumental in making the changes that make the university a place where women and minorities can thrive.
Learn more about Barkley in this week’s five questions.
1. What is your favorite city? Why?
New Orleans. Louisiana is the only place I’ve ever lived—and I’ve lived a lot of places in the United States—that I’d rather eat out than cook, and I’m a good cook. Louisiana has good food and fabulous music—any kind.
2. Who of all of your teachers has had the greatest impact on you?
I was a junior in college at the University of Arizona. I was in a physical chemistry class and, after the final, a young assistant professor named Rodney Harrington offered me [an opportunity] to work in his lab doing research. I was so flattered. I decided I wasn’t going to stay at Arizona another year, so I went back to Stanford [where she’d started before transferring to Arizona] and he told me, “When you go back, be sure you go to Paul Flory’s lab.” Paul Flory later got a Nobel Prize in polymers. I was in his lab doing undergraduate research as a senior.
3. When it comes to music, what artist is one of your “guilty pleasures?” Why?
The Cleveland Orchestra. It’s been an incredible luxury. My son and his family live in Italy, and when I go there, everybody’s heard of the Cleveland Orchestra.
4. What one word would you use to describe yourself, and what one word would your friends use to describe you?
I’d describe myself as candid and fair. People may not like what I do, but it’s always fair. Maybe that’s how my friends would describe me. And, only because people have commented on it, I think people would say I’m generous.
5. What’s your favorite thing about Case Western Reserve?
I’m glad we have a woman president. I also think the changes on campus make it pretty—new things have been built.