DWC Member Becomes Youngest Full Professor at the University of Oklahoma

DWC Executive Board member Meredith Worthen has become the youngest faculty member at the University of Oklahoma to achieve the title of full professor after the board of regents approved her promotion in May. It’s also entirely possible she is the youngest woman to reach full professor in OU history, though digital records only go back to 1983.

Worthen’s research focus covers deviance, feminist criminology, sexualities, LGBTQ identities in adolescents and LGBTQ stigma.

The transition from associate professor to full professor takes, on average, nine years. Worthen did it in five.

What makes this an even bigger deal is that, statistically, becoming a full professor is even more difficult for women than it is for men in academia. Unlike the path to tenure that is, for the most part, established at six or seven years, the process to become a full professor is much more vague and has no time limit.

“We just seem to hang out in associate for a long time,” Worthen said. “Sometimes for our entire career.”

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