The minoritization of women among the ranks of faculty is well-documented in STEM fields. Prompted by the underrepresentation of women in the ranks of the University of Wisconsin-Madison's Chemistry faculty and postdoctoral researchers, faculty and graduate student leadership wished to explore the factors that influence the career choices of women in the department, especially regarding faculty positions with research expectations. A survey based on Social Cognitive Career Theory was developed and administered to current graduate students in the department. Responses indicated that women in the department were interested in research positions and identified as researchers but expected faculty positions to be more difficult to balance with a personal life than other careers in chemistry. There was also a perception that positions at primarily undergraduate institutions would be more desirable, less challenging, and more able to accommodate a balance with personal life. Lastly, when comparing women who hold a low interest in faculty positions with women who hold a high interest in faculty positions, most of the significant differences between the two groups fell under two categories. First, the high-interest group held stronger identities as researchers, teachers, and academics. Second, the high-interest group was more confident and expected to feel more positively about five central aspects of faculty positions: research, teaching, mentoring, writing grants, and navigating the tenure process. In contrast to prior work that indicated women's hesitance to enter faculty positions was partly due to childcare and family responsibilities, no meaningful differences were found between the expected difficulty or personal value placed on those responsibilities for the high-and lowinterest groups. While further work is necessary to develop an instrument that can support more specific comparisons between groups, this work provides a valuable description of the department in question and several areas that may be of interest in future work.

While the number of women in undergraduate and graduate chemistry programs has increased in recent years, women remain under-represented and excluded in the ranks of faculty in chemistry higher education. This marginalization results from not only fewer women being offered faculty positions but also fewer women applying for these positions. To investigate the reasons why faculty positions are causing so many women to turn elsewhere for employment, a survey was designed based on the literature themes surrounding women’s career choices, interviews with the current graduate student women in chemistry programs, and our previous work. The survey was grounded in social cognitive career theory (SCCT), and data were analyzed through a QuantCrit lens. Despite the existing literature focusing on the impact of having children on women’s career decisions, the desire to have children did not appear among either the top priorities or the most important factors in predicting whether any of the 130 survey respondents were interested in a faculty career. Instead, faculty career interest was related to themes of overwork, high expectations from departments, and expected department emphasis on research despite an individual’s interest in teaching and mentoring. Furthermore, women expressed a strong interest in maintaining work–life balance but low expectations for their ability to obtain a position that would allow it. They also reported a desire to work for a department that values mental health and diversity and supports its community members but similarly low expectations for their ability to find a department that shares these values. These themes suggest that chemistry departments must make fundamental changes regarding what is tangibly valued and rewarded within their systems if they wish to reduce the exclusion of women in faculty positions.