Despite the growing number of female faculty and support for their work at Covenant College, by 2017, the gender gap still posed a problem. That same year, Covenant College ran The Chronicle of Higher Education’s “Great Colleges to Work For” survey to mark employee satisfaction. However, when Dr. Karen Nelson, vice president of Institutional Effectiveness and member of the president’s cabinet, analyzed the data, there was a marked disparity between the satisfaction of male and female faculty and staff. The results of the survey were shared with the administration, including President J. Derek Halvorson and the Board of Trustees.
“It was clear that women were not as happy working at Covenant as men were working at Covenant,” Halvorson said. It was this disparity which prompted the president’s cabinet to start working on a new strategic plan in 2018: make Covenant a better place for women, both students and employees, to work and study.
“We knew we wanted to improve the culture on campus and the work experience women were having on campus and study experiences students were having on campus,” Halvorson said. To work towards this end, Halvorson’s cabinet hired the organization G.R.A.C.E (Godly Response to Abuse in the Christian Environment) in 2019.
In 2020, G.R.A.C.E. came and assessed the environment at Covenant, looking at the experiences of women compared to their male counterparts and offering training to better equip the college towards institutional gender equality. This assessment included a survey with 444 respondents, of which 273 were students and 171 were employees. G.R.A.C.E. also conducted 23 in-depth conversations with current and former administration, faculty, staff and students.
During this process, staff and faculty were briefed on the college’s decision to hire G.R.A.C.E. “We had a faculty meeting about the study being undertaken, and of course, we all got the surveys and participated in those,” said Dr. Herb Ward. Overall, staff and faculty were happy about the assessment and pleased that the administration was pursuing solutions on gender and the college’s culture.
After the assessment, Nelson wrote a summary of G.R.A.C.E.’s findings which was given to the college’s employees in February 2022. In the summary, Nelson wrote that “the purpose of the assessment was to identify, describe, and understand organizational gaps, weaknesses, and strengths pertaining to the valuing and treatment of female students, staff, and faculty.”
Stephanie Formenti, who has served as the chapel associate for discipleship since 2018 and is the first theologically trained woman to work in the chapel department, remembers that she was comforted by the fact that Covenant was “willing to ask these hard questions.” For Formenti and her female colleagues, the G.R.A.C.E. Report was encouraging to see. “I think all the women on campus were like, ‘Thank you. You want to hear us. We will tell you,’” she said.
The G.R.A.C.E. assessment offered many people an opportunity to honestly tell their stories of working and studying at Covenant. These stories provided the administration with a more informed perspective, particularly concerning the experiences of women on campus. Dr. Daphne Haddad said, “I was honest. And it seems like other women were, too, because overall satisfaction expressed was significantly lower than that expressed by men.”
Lower satisfaction among women at Covenant was disappointing but not unexpected. In fact, Halvorson said that G.R.A.C.E. confirmed everything the administration already suspected. “It did confirm that men and women experience Covenant differently and that we need to make some improvements in terms of culture, and culture is one of the hardest things to shape or change. So that’s tough,” he said.
According to G.R.A.C.E., one major problem in Covenant culture that has led to dissatisfaction is the lack of female leadership on campus. In the summary of the assessment, Nelson wrote that some survey respondents and interviewees “described the [Covenant] culture as paternalistic, even patriarchal, one where females are perceived by male colleagues as inferior, where men make all the decisions, and where there is a distinct lack of female leadership.”
Nelson went on to write that “one dominant theme that emerged throughout G.R.A.C.E.’s assessment is the prevalence among Covenant constituents of the theological belief that females should not serve in roles where they might be expected to exercise authority over males.” G.R.A.C.E. found that this has often been discouraging for female students. One student, who participated in the study, said, “When you don’t see women in any of the highest leadership roles, it’s hard to imagine ever holding them yourself.”
When staff and faculty received a summary of G.R.A.C.E.’s assessment, none found themselves entirely surprised by the findings. “I think it actually highlighted specific areas in which there is probably a bigger gap, and I think that was good and a little disheartening and a little like, ‘Are we okay? Women, are we okay?’” Formenti said.
While the G.R.A.C.E. Report brought confirmation, it also brought many questions about the future of women’s roles at the college and a desire for further conversation on the report’s findings. Dr. Elissa Yukiko Weichbrodt said, “There wasn’t immediately an opportunity to process, and I think, I know for myself and some of my female colleagues, there was a sense of—Does anybody care? Is anything going to change?”
The first step taken by the administration was a workshop that G.R.A.C.E. conducted with senior leadership on campus to begin training, identify blind spots, and brainstorm ways to improve Covenant’s environment for women. Administration then turned its attention to providing spaces for faculty and staff members to process the report and consider solutions via focus groups, which were recommended by G.R.A.C.E.
In Fall 2022, Dr. Anna Rannou, who previously worked in the economics and community development departments at Covenant, organized eight focus groups. Focus groups were divided by sex and by role at the college, with groups hosted for faculty men and faculty women, and staff men and staff women. Ward said the groups were held as a means of “processing the report that came back from the data … and reflecting on how we can make Covenant a better place for women to serve and work … .”
Dr. Gwen Macallister appreciated her time with her focus group: “It was an opportunity to have open discussion regarding individuals’ experiences, concerns and ideas for change … I got emotional. It was very moving to have these[discussion groups] happening, to be in a room surrounded by fellow female faculty members.” Likewise, Weichbrodt spoke of how “lovely” it was to be with her colleagues in a space where they could honestly process their experiences.
Results from these focus groups were given to Halvorson’s cabinet and have since been shared with faculty. “We actually reviewed those [results] in the cabinet meeting today [January 23, 2023]. Our next step is to meet with the people who ran the focus groups to get more help from them in identifying actionable items,” Halvorson said.
Now that results from G.R.A.C.E. and the focus groups are available, the administration is weighing the various opportunities for impact. “It’s a slow process, and I think we have to be patient for that. There’s that tension. We’re waiting, we’re patient, but the administration is responsible to take action and to come up with actual plans to make an impact that is felt … the bigger the impact in this situation, I feel, the better,” Formenti said.
Still, many are confident that the future of women at Covenant is changing. “I think women’s changing roles are just going to happen. They already are,” said Haddad.
Halvorson hopes that the environment for women at Covenant will only continue to improve and the college will more fully be a place where “women and men both are treated with dignity as image bearers and be recognized for their gifts and talents and not excluded from opportunities, but given all the same sorts of opportunities to learn to develop professionally, etc.”
While many questions lie ahead, everyone involved in the G.R.A.C.E. assessment has a deep abiding love for Covenant College and a desire for its growth and success. Above all, there is great hope for the future. “We’re here, we love the college, we love what we get to do … but I also know it could be better. Because I want it to be better. Because I love the institution,” Weichbrodt said.
Formenti hopes that through all these questions and decisions the Covenant community will continue to keep its eyes fixed on the heart of Jesus: “No church is perfect, no institution is perfect, no denomination is perfect … but I think when you start looking for the heart of Jesus, you will find that He loves and values and uplifts and seeks out and equips and sends women.”
While the details are still being worked out, Covenant is committed to shifting its cultural biases on gender, the workplace and education with the recognition that the college is not the church. Many students and faculty are hoping to have women teaching as full-time faculty in the biblical and theological studies department in the future. Halvorson also said that he wants to see more women in senior leadership, including someday hiring the college’s first female vice president.
The history of sexism at Covenant, however, has been further complicated by the college’s denominational ties to the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) and its General Assembly. One area that has become a main focus for change is getting approval for women to serve on the college’s Board of Trustees, an approval that has been voted down twice by the General Assembly.