President John Hennessy and leaders of eight other top research universities issued a joint statement last week agreeing to work toward gender equity for women faculty in science and engineering. The statement followed a meeting of the university leaders and 25 women professors at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

"Institutions of higher education have an obligation, both for themselves and for the nation, to fully develop and utilize all the creative talent available," the leaders said in a statement. "We recognize that barriers still exist" for women faculty.

The statement was approved by Hennessy as well as by leaders of MIT; the California Institute of Technology; the University of Michigan; Princeton; Yale; the University of California-Berkeley; Harvard; and the University of Pennsylvania.

At the eight-hour meeting Jan. 30, they considered questions such as, "What are the successful or unsuccessful strategies you have pursued?" "What are the systemic causes of the problems we face?" "What new actions could each institution take?" and "What might we do collectively?"

Hennessy welcomed the statement. "I think that the statement is a positive development for higher education in general and will move all of us in the right direction. It's worth noting that much of what is proposed are things that Stanford has already begun doing in response to earlier studies regarding the status of women at the university. We are very eager to continue our progress in this area."

Pat Jones, Stanford's vice provost for faculty development, also attended the meeting. She termed it symbolic, and praised the statement issued as "very powerful."

She added, "I don't think anybody would quarrel with the goals in general. I think there's no doubt that any institution would like to have a university which reflects the diversity of the students we educate. . . . The question we have to evaluate is where we are as an institution, what we are doing, and see what we could do in addition in order to meet these goals."

Jones is scheduled to go before the Faculty Senate this spring -- as she did last year -- to present a report on the status of women faculty. "We've already been doing a lot of data gathering, and may have a head start in this compared to other institutions," she said. "There are probably more data we should collect based on the issues discussed" during the meeting, she added.

• A collective voice: University leaders make the case for renewing their commitment to gender equity in academic science, engineering