Over a span of two hours, these grand dames of the academy discussed many structural and cultural barriers facing women in higher education today, including the pitfalls of the tenure system, the narrow range of personality types accepted in female leaders, the importance of mentoring and the burden of balancing work and family.
Excerpts from the discussion follow.
KEEPING UP THE MOMENTUM
Judith Rodin: When increasing diversity] is self-conscious, a lot of very interesting things happen. I don’t mean that in a negative way. It’s just that it was very much on everyone’s mind. I think now the challenge is—and Shirley’s done something marvelous in appointing so many women deans and a woman provost—because I have seen, as we have achieved more success for women, people paying less attention to. It is more accepted and more obvious. But as I look at the numbers, the numbers are slipping again, particularly on the faculty.
A DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVE
Mary Patterson McPherson: What the woman can do that may be somewhat different is she can ask perhaps a set of questions or raise a set of issues that had not necessarily been asked before or raised before at an institution that hasn’t had that history. But I don’t always think that it’s necessarily the fact that a woman is there that women are going to be better treated. There are men presidents who have brought women along in fantastic ways and have really changed the culture of institutions. And that’s been extremely important.
Emily C. Lloyd: But I do think having a woman president opens things up because, all of a sudden, every other job becomes thinkable as a job for a woman.
BREAKING BARRIERS:
Judith Rodin: I love being a woman at the top. I think it’s pretty terrific and long overdue for my institution. So the first year I was always referred to as the “New Woman President.” The second year, I was the “Woman President.” And by the third year, all of the descriptors were gone...and I was that person who was knocking the most recent goal of the faculty.
Hanna H. Gray: One of the disadvantages is you don’t have a wife and that, therefore, there are a number of things that you have to do yourself...In the old days, it used to be that presidents’ wives had teas. They had teas for new members of the faculty, the new wives. Everybody wore gloves...And they took tours of presidents’ houses and all that kind of thing...And you do get the evil eye from some people for not doing these things, or for not opening your house for these tours. You know, you’re expected to be both yourself and your wife in a certain way. Now, the whole world is moving away from the quiet little teas and all the rest of it, so these things matter less and less. But there was a time when it mattered.
THE ODD WOMAN OUT
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