Women and Leadership in Higher Education

Citation

Khalid Arar (2016), "Women and Leadership in Higher Education", Journal of Workplace Learning, Vol. 28 No. 1, pp. 49-50. https://doi.org/10.1108/JWL-09-2015-0071

Although much has been written about women in higher education (Mari, 2008; Sandberg, 2013), very little of the literature concerns the challenges facing women who aspire to reach the summit of the academic world.

Academic institutions enable individuals to attain personal and/or cultural–political–economic resources. On academic campuses, students acquire leadership skills and participate in social and political movements. Meanwhile, these spheres have become over masculinized and overloaded with obstacles women confront in their way to higher education towers.

Women and Leadership in Higher Education focuses on the status of women in college and university leadership in the USA. It describes the experiences and contributions of women in those leadership roles, and offers strategies and best practices for opening more doors for women to serve in positions of influence across all sectors of higher education. The editors of this book present evidence as follows:

[W]ithin the USA, women now comprise the majority of students at all levels, yet only 26 per cent of university presidents, 10 per cent of full professors, and less than 30 per cent of the college and university board members are women (p. 9).

Reasons for the significant underrepresentation of women in senior-level leadership roles across all sectors are multifaceted as presented in the book. Also, many of the chapters in this volume articulate various ways that higher education “loses” as a result of the lack of women’s voices at the highest levels of leadership – administrative, faculty and board leadership. The book presents both hard facts regarding the current demographic realities within higher education and strategic advice regarding how progress can and must be made for colleges and universities to benefit from the perspectives of women at senior leadership levels.

Divided into four parts, the opening section consists of three provocative chapters providing data and analysis that address the state of women and leadership in higher education. The second part presents the problematic state of the underrepresentation of women in higher education. This part provides description of three prominent women’s leadership development programs and initiatives that offer new strategies of women’s leadership development. I found the fourth chapter very important, as its co-authors argue that the leading higher educational institutions are critically important in shaping society’s future, and that diversity improves innovation and performance. This chapter presents the 40-year commitment of the American Council on Education to advancing women into leadership through an extensive system of state, regional and national leadership development programs.

The third part focuses on women’s experiences in higher educational leadership and the contributions of women who hold positional leadership roles. Chapter 7 presents women’s contribution to leadership both in changing leadership styles and influence processes, attention to relationships and participatory and team-decision and working. The final section of the book, titled “Lessons from the Trenches”, offers essays from five former or current college and university presidents. All in all, the book’s 15 chapters present both hard facts regarding the current realities of women in higher education and strategic advice regarding progress to be made in order that higher educational institutions benefit from the perspective of women at senior leadership positions.

The book presents ideas that are important to a variety of audiences, including leaders and those involved in leadership development, administrators and campus leaders who are concerned with issues of multiculturalism and social justice. It provides rich knowledge to assist the development of educational leaders who can manage and facilitate the growth of their staff, indicating how they can deal optimally with issues of equity and social justice, sharpening intuitional intensions and praxis.

This book links theory, research and practice related to women leadership in various higher educational contexts and describes effective strategies for developing future generation of leaders. As a scholar studying access, equity and diversity in leadership and higher education, I found this book very interesting, as it provides essential information for education policy makers and women in leadership positions both in school and in higher educational institutions. There is much knowledge here that can be used to improve sensitivity concerning the challenges that women leaders face in a multicultural international reality. Additionally, the specific knowledge provided in this book can be exploited to produce new guidelines and criteria for those involved in leadership recruitment in different social institutions and may also be used to advance women leaders and professional guidance and advancement. Finally, those working in the field as educational leaders (both novices and experienced leaders) may find the book instructive, as it clearly indicates the power of individual personal qualities and offers a wide range of strategies that have been found to be effective in developing successful higher educational institutions sensitive to colleagues and students diversity in the academy.