Administrative Aspirations:
Gender and Higher Education Leadership

Photo by Jim Ezell.

One imagines that few children, and few girls in particular, dream of growing up to be college presidents. According to a survey conducted by the Girl Scout Research Institute, only 15 percent of girls have considered the possibility of becoming president of the United States, much less president of their local college or university (2008b). And what about chief academic officer, dean, or provost? Do these goals appear on the career maps drawn by the next generation of women leaders? It’s unlikely—not only because most girls have little experience with higher education and its administrative structures, but also because a cursory examination yields so few role models that even those seem like exceptions. Indeed, the most recent data from the American Council on Education indicates that only 23 percent of college presidencies are held by women, and only 4 percent by women of color (2007).

During a recent panel of women presidents held at the National Archives, H. Kim Bottomly, president of Wellesley College, alluded to these disparities when she suggested that faculty, staff, and administration should more closely mirror the demographics of higher education’s student bodies (Moltz 2011). Achieving such balance would certainly help a more diverse group of today’s students envision themselves as tomorrow’s leaders. And yet a large number of women in upper administration (47 percent of chief academic officers, to be precise) are not planning to vie for higher education’s top post (Eckel, Cook, and King 2009). Change at the top is likely to be slow as a result. And even among chief academic officers, where women hold 40 percent of all positions, gendered expectations continue to affect how women enact their leadership roles.

Because of these disparities, AAC&U’s Program on the Status and Education of Women, in celebrating its fortieth anniversary in 2011, has identified administrative leadership as one key area where change must occur if higher education is to achieve gender equity within the next forty years. This issue of On Campus with Women examines what the challenges are to opening doors for women in academic administration. Contributing authors Heather Knight and Mary Churchill share their experiences, both positive and negative, in the leadership pipeline. Diana Córdova examines where women are actually located within the administrative ranks, while Estela López explores a model of leadership that will help women draw maps to new destinations and aspirations. Sharon Washington shares a vision of inclusive leadership that will make colleges and universities more welcoming places for everyone. And Gertrude Fraser and Donna Maeda discuss collaborations across administrative–faculty divides that are necessary to achieve full inclusion.

If more girls can and should envision themselves as leaders in American higher education, more colleges and universities should also imagine what higher education would look like under their leadership. Returning to Girl Scouts research, we see that 68 percent of girls (compared with 59 percent of boys) want to be the kind of leaders who “stand[] up for their beliefs and values,” and 59 percent of girls (compared with 49 percent of boys) want their leadership to “change the world for the better” (Girl Scout Research Institute 2008a, 8). Research on leadership describes these differences in terms of transformational vs. transactional leadership styles, with women more often associated with the former (Antonaros 2010). Imagine what higher education’s institutions would look like under their guidance.

—Kathryn Peltier Campbell, editor

References

American Council on Education. 2007. The American College President: 2007 Edition. Washington, DC: American Council on Education.

Antonaros, Mary. 2010. “Gendered Leadership Styles and the Climate for Women Leaders in Higher Education.” On Campus with Women 39 (2). http://www.aacu.org/ocww/volume39_2/data.cfm.

Eckel, Peter D., Bryan J. Cook, and Jacqueline E. King. 2009. The CAO Census: A National Profile of Chief Academic Officers. Washington, DC: American Council on Education.

Girl Scout Research Institute. 2008a. Change It Up! What Girls Say About Redefining Leadership. New York: Girl Scouts of the USA.
http://www.girlscouts.org/research/pdf/
change_it_up_executive_summary_english.pdf

­­­———. 2008b. “What Girls Say: Politics and the Election.” http://www.girlscouts.org/research/what_girls_say/politics_election.asp.

Moltz, David. 2011. “What Women (Presidents) Want.” Inside Higher Ed, March 25. http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2011/03/25/
presidents_discuss_changing_roles_of_women_in_academic_leadership