Goals

Since Barbara is the head of the sociology department at the University of Illinois at Chicago http://http:/www.uicsociology.org/content/view/49/65/ she would like to see the department grow and to be nationally ranked in sociology. Back in August of 2004, she helped write a "Report Card on Gender- and Women-Friendly Sociology Departments" http://www.socwomen.org/Haysrismanreport.pdf In this report, the University of Illinois at Chicago was not recognized along with University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign or Southern Illinois State University for having their "seal of approval for gender equity" when 40% or more of the faculty are women. Today if you look at the department's faculty where she works http://www.uicsociology.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=blogcategory&id=26&Itemid=42 it is interesting to note that there are exactly as many (12) men as women in the department.
The "seal of approval for gender scholarship" in the report is given when "over 25 percent of the faculty name gender or inequality among their specialties." When listing their research interests at the University of Illinois at Chicago, the Sociology department listed "gender" 5 times, and "inequality" 6 times.

When asked about personal goals, Barbara said that she would like to produce another book, this time on gender theory. She has already written three books- Gender Vertigo (1998), Feminist Foundations: Toward Transforming Sociology (1998), and Gender in Intimate Relations: A Misconstructural Approach (1989).

She is a co-chair of the Council on Contemporary Families. Their mission is to "bring research and clinical expertise about families and relationships to the public conversation." She understands how our social system can be recreated by us, and I think this is a good example of how she wants to educate and bring ideas to the public for change. She hopes to see this Council continue to expand and continue have a big impact on the ideas of American Families.