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Summer 2009: Table of Contents

|||Digital Age||Fighting Terrorism||Issues in Education||Literature||Science and Religion||Social Justice||Three Cultures||Women and Leadership||

Women and Leadership

• The Glass Ceiling is Made of Concrete: The Barriers to Promotion and Tenure of Women in American Academia
  Mary Bonawitz and Nicole Andel
• Career Attainment among Healthcare Executives: Is the Gender Gap Narrowing?
  Joan Julia Branin, Director, Center for Health & Aging, Chair, Masters in Health Administration, University of La Verne
• Midwifery in American Institutes of Higher Education: Women’s Work, Vocations and the 21st Century
  Mary C. Brucker, Professor and Associate Dean, Louise Herrington School of Nursing, Baylor University
• Motivation and (Un)Ethical Behavior: Are There Gender Differences?
  Jeanette A. Davy, Kenneth J. Smith and Donald L. Rosenberg
• Women, Leadership, and Equality in Academe: Moving Beyond Double Binds
  Julie Frechette, Professor of Communication and Women’s Studies, Director of the Center for Community Media, Worcester State University
• Leadership For The New Millennium: More Mama Than Papa
  Gloria J. Galanes, Professor, Department of Communication, Missouri State University
• New Wine in Old Bottles:  Cutting a New Path in the Academy
  Mary H. Gresham, Dean, Graduate School of Education, State University of New York at Buffalo
• Women in Educational Leadership in the U.S.: Reflections of a 50 Year Veteran
  Sandra Lee Gupton, Professor of Educational Leadership, University of North Florida
• Circumcision of the Female Intellect:19th Century Women Who Opposed Scholarly Education
  Marbeth Holmes,  Nash Community College
• Educate the Women and You Change the World: Investing in the Education of Women is the Best Investment in a Country’s Growth and Development
  Leah Witcher Jackson, Associate Dean and Professor of Law, Baylor University School of Law
• “Moral Philosophy and Curricular Reform”:Catharine Beecher and Nineteenth-Century Educational Leadership for Women
  Gladys S. Lewis, Professor, Department of English, University of Central Oklahoma
• Stopping the “flow of co-eds and other female species”: A Historical Perspective on Gender Discrimination at Southern (U.S.) Colleges and Universities
  Amy Thompson McCandless, Dean of The Graduate School, Professor of History, College of Charleston
• Gender Equity and the Dialogical Ethos of the University: Socrates, Schleiermacher and the Transversal Claim of the Conversatorium
  John G. Moore, Associate Professor of Philosophy, Director, Honors International Program,
  Lander University
• The Blue Blazer Club: Masculine Hegemony in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math Fields
  Melanie C. Page, Lucy E. Bailey and Jean Van Delinder
• The “Education” of the Indian Woman against the Backdrop of the Education of the European Woman in the Nineteenth-Century
  Sunita Peacock, Associate Professor of English, Slippery Rock University
• Who Does She Think She Is? A Group-Level Theoretical Consideration of Women and Authority in Organizations
  Karen L. Proudford, Associate Professor of Management, Morgan State University
• Learning through the Ages: An Epistemological Journey
  J. Courtney Reid, Associate Professor of English, Adirondack Community College
• Systems of Work-Life Balance: Private And Public Investments
  Faye L. Smith and Judi McLean Parks
• Tenured Faculty at Colleges and Universities in the United States: A De Facto Private Membership Club
  Julie M. Spanbauer, Professor, The John Marshall Law School, Chicago
• The Stories We Hear, The Stories We Tell What Can the Life of Jane Barker (1652-1732) Tell us about Women’s Leadership in Higher Education in the Twenty-first Century?
  Carol Shiner Wilson, Dean of the College for Academic Life, Muhlenberg College

The Glass Ceiling is Made of Concrete: The Barriers to Promotion and Tenure of Women in American Academia
Mary Bonawitz and Nicole Andel

Abstract
The focus of this research is to survey the literature in American higher education on the tenure and promotion of women and to suggest future problems that women may encounter as the American population grays. Anecdotally, women are not tenured and promoted in the same percentages of men in similar fields. In the social and natural sciences, women face greater obstacles than in some other fields.  In the Humanities, recent research suggests that while women can become tenured they are less likely to be promoted to full professor than their male colleagues are. Are the differences due to lack of qualifications, financial constraints of the departments/universities, or, of greater concern, long held cultural biases of academia?  No one yet has sufficient answers to these questions.
As the average age of American college professors is 59 years old and their gender male, it is important to note that a significant portion of this population should be retiring by the time they are 70. A gap between the numbers of professors who have “ownership” in their institution and those who remain disenfranchised may emerge.  The time is right to make those changes in academia that will ensure that capable professional women are tenured and promoted in fair numbers to fill any gaps that result from the retirements.

Career Attainment among Healthcare Executives: Is the Gender Gap Narrowing?
Joan Julia Branin, Director, Center for Health & Aging, Chair, Masters in Health Administration, University of La Verne

Abstract
Health care occupations are expected to be among the fastest growing professions in the next ten years. With such incredible growth expected in employment and wages, and with women’s participation in the industry remaining strong, are women in the health care industry, particularly those in health care administration, experiencing a narrowing of the gender gap?  This paper briefly reviews various theories of career success as they relate to the gender gap in executive level positions in healthcare administration and synthesizes the findings of a longitudinal study of the career attainment and attitudes of male and female healthcare executives.  For the first time in almost two decades, a positive trend has been seen in the career attainment of women in health care administration.  A 2006 ACHE study found an increase in the proportion of women relative to men who achieve CEO status. Women and men have similar levels of experience and education and experience similar levels of satisfaction with their positions.  These findings suggest an increased commitment by healthcare organizations to integrate more women into leadership positions and to make the organizational culture more family friendly. However despite having attained equal levels of education and experience, a gender gap in salary levels still exists.  Although women have made progress in attaining executive level positions, organizational structural factors rather than human capital factors contribute to the gender gap within healthcare executive management. 

Midwifery in American Institutes of Higher Education: Women’s Work, Vocations and the 21st Century
Mary C. Brucker, Professor and Associate Dean, Louise Herrington School of Nursing, Baylor University

Abstract
Midwifery is one of the universal professions. At the end of the nineteenth century, midwives in the United States were disenfranchised from the mainstream. A concerted effort was waged by male physicians to characterize midwifery practices as unscientific while simultaneously preventing midwives from obtaining formal education. Although midwifery in the United States continued, it was limited to an apprentice model, and viewed as a vocation exclusively for women and without the need for education, especially at the college or university level.
In the 1920’s a model of nurse-midwifery, based on the British system, emerged and was taught in independent schools. It was not until mid-century that programs were subsumed into schools of nursing within colleges and universities. By the turn of the twenty-first century, programs are taught on the graduate level. Although this has enabled mainstreaming of education, this movement has meant midwifery faculty is increasingly challenged to possess excellent skills in practice, education and research, to be productive scholars within the institution, and to educate millennial students who seek financial security instead of a calling. In addition, the position of midwifery within nursing often obscures its unique role and diminishes both the power of the profession and its faculty. Among the new issues for midwifery academicians are increased technology, increased curricular content and an increasing number of male candidates for this traditional woman’s work.

Motivation and (Un)Ethical Behavior: Are There Gender Differences?
Jeanette A. Davy, Kenneth J. Smith and Donald L. Rosenberg

Abstract
A common belief is that women and men differ in their willingness to behave in unethical or immoral ways, with women being more ethical and less likely to be political.  Recent research provides some support for this assumption.  The current study further investigates potential gender differences in ethical behaviors
            The model of cheating behavior recently developed by Smith, Davy and Rosenberg (2009) was employed. The influence of motivation on academic performance, self-reported cheating behavior, neutralization/justification tendencies and self-reported likelihood of future cheating are examined.  Four types of motivation are included: Intrinsic; External Identified Regulation; Introjected Regulation; and Amotivation.  Multi-sample, latent variable structural equation modeling is used to test for gender differences among the hypothesized relations using 2088 business students from three AACSB accredited business schools.
            There were no differences with regard to Intrinsic Motivation and the posited relations.  Differences were found with respect to External Identified Regulation, Introjected Regulation and Amotivation.  A key result is the extent to which women use Neutralization when extrinsically motivated.  The paths to Neutralization from extrinsic motivation constructs are significant for women, but not for men.  Men use Neutralization only to justify Prior Cheating.  Women justify both Prior and Likelihood of Cheating.  While direct effects show gender differences, total effects (direct plus indirect) decrease two gender differences considerably and two additional differences appear that are missed when focusing on direct effects alone.  These results are discussed in detail.

Women, Leadership, and Equality in Academe: Moving Beyond Double Binds
Julie Frechette, Professor of Communication and Women’s Studies, Director of the Center for Community Media, Worcester State University

Introduction
Although gender discrimination in all of its manifestations is often thought to be absent from higher education, academic institutions are hierarchical organizations that offer rewards, status and privilege, thereby rendering the status of women within these institutions politically and economically vulnerable.  With each generation of female academics, the organizational structures that both free and bind women are altered through agency and progress. Invariably, the advancement of women disrupts and alters normative power structures and offers hope and promise for the next generation of women in academe.
Using a personal narrative framework from which to analyze the Catch-22s that often impede women from advancing and succeeding within academe, this paper will provide a feminist analysis of the role of women in academic organizations by focusing on the double binds that have been offered to women as dichotomous choices.  Using theories of communication and feminism alongside personal experience within a teaching university, the study will explore the dichotomies between the following areas:

• Motherhood vs. academe (womb or brain);
• University teaching vs. research (emotion or mind);
• Community and university service vs. leadership and professional advancement (femininity or competence);
• Discrimination and pay equity (equality or difference);

Through personal reflections on struggle and achievement, my goal is to offer strategies for maneuvering past sexist barricades as a means toward success and equality in academe.

Leadership For The New Millennium: More Mama Than Papa
Gloria J. Galanes, Professor, Department of Communication, Missouri State University

Abstract
This paper synthesizes the findings of two research projects whose goals were similar: to understand from the perspective of excellent group and community leaders what behaviors and characteristics are important to successful leadership. Forty-three participants (20 men, 23 women) recognized as effective leaders in group and collaborative contexts were interviewed. The leaders demonstrated a commitment to collaboration, perceived leadership as primarily a relational activity, were willing to spend considerable time searching for common ground, acknowledged the importance of listening, and demonstrated the personal characteristics of optimism and humility. The participants balanced a focus on task, traditionally associated with male leaders, with a focus on relationships, traditionally associated with female leaders. They emphasized inclusion, listening, relationships, patience with the process, and mutual respect. Four conclusions are drawn: the predominant leadership behaviors exhibited by these leaders reflect values and behaviors that have traditionally been labeled feminine; stereotypically feminine behaviors are balanced with stereotypically masculine ones, such as a bias toward action; both women and men successfully perform the requisite leadership behaviors; and the leadership skills needed in the new millennium require flexibility and nuance on the part of leaders.

Gordon goes here

New Wine in Old Bottles:  Cutting a New Path in the Academy
Mary H. Gresham, Dean, Graduate School of Education, State University of New York at Buffalo

Abstract
Despite the almost equal proportion of females to males who receive doctoral degrees in the U.S., women remain underrepresented in senior positions—faculty and administrative—in institutions of higher education.  Unlike the more blatant discrimination extant before the era of civil rights legislation, barriers today are less obvious to the untutored observer.  This paper will explore the gendered schemas that impede the equitable representation of women in senior administrative roles in higher education.  Current formulations suggest a variety of rationales for this underrepresentation, including:  traditional devaluation of women’s abilities; beliefs about the appropriateness of roles and behaviors for women; unconscious biases which disadvantage women in multiple settings despite evidence of success; failure to appreciate the precedents provided by women administrators who created pathways for contemporary women in administration; as well as the reluctance to reconsider the requisite skill sets for a successful institutional leader in the 21st century.  A consideration of leadership theory and research on the impact of stereotypes suggests ways in which women can develop the resilience necessary to challenge the traditions of the academy, traditions which remain heavily reliant on dated beliefs of male superiority and the rightness of the majority culture.

Abstract
Little did I know when I first stepped into that ninth grade classroom as a very young, timid, first year teacher at Brooks County High School in Quitman, Georgia, that I’d still be plugging away in this profession almost 50 years later! The purpose of this paper is to provide a reflective perspective on the status of women in educational leadership in the United States and the progress they have made moving into and succeeding in the ranks of administrators and leaders since the mid 1900’s. More specifically, the author will reflect on and review her own experiences and those of 150 female leaders in education in the 1990’s who participated in a study at that time (1993) to discover the best advice and recommendations for prospective women leaders in the profession. The book, Highly Successful Women Administrators: The Inside Stories of How They Got There published in 1996, will be the primary source for the author’s review and reflection.

Circumcision of the Female Intellect:19th Century Women Who Opposed Scholarly Education
Marbeth Holmes,  Nash Community College

In 19th century America, some women decry the opportunity for scholarly education as rebellion against religion and predict a grim decline in the quality of life, home, and hearth for American families and for American culture and politics. In particular, women who opposed scholarly education argued that God had not created men and women equally; therefore, women should not desire nor be granted equality in social expectations or roles but remain in the sphere of gender difference. These women preferred the Biblical submission to male-dominant authority, the domestic tranquility of doilies and embroidery, the notion of the morality of motherhood, and the absence of intellectual stimulation and development -objecting to academic education and its consequential outgrowths of political participation, gainful employment, matrimonial choice, and independent living. It is here among these women we find the desire for womanly piety, purity, social graces, and the necessity of the development of Christian character. The intellectual circumcision was deeply rooted in the Protestant faith and was fostered through all branches of religious service. The idea that harmonious development of Christian character was more rewarding and stimulating than scholarly education pulverized the intellectual growth of women. The examination of the pursuit of perfected womanhood and the damning predictions regarding the quality of life for those women who stray from their true purpose is a fascinating reflection of a truly circumcised female intellect and a thoroughly mutilated spirit. Or is it?

Educate the Women and You Change the World: Investing in the Education of Women is the Best Investment in a Country’s Growth and Development
Leah Witcher Jackson, Associate Dean and Professor of Law, Baylor University School of Law

ABSTRACT
An extensive body of research indicates a significant correlation between gender equality and the level of economic and social development of a country. Gender inequities have been found to influence the way members of the family spend their time and resources. Evidence suggests that women with more control over resources will spend more money on basic living needs (e.g., food and health) and education. Research demonstrates that investment in women, and more specifically women’s education, has numerous positive effects on not only the women but also her children and family. These outcomes not only improve the quality of life of women and families but also combat poverty and foster economic growth. 
At the heart of achieving gender equality is the education of girls and women and the removal of barriers to education and opportunities for their advancement. The economic benefits of addressing and reducing barriers to women’s education and engagement in the workforce can be substantial. A growing number of organizations and governments recognize that focusing on women and girls is the most effective way to fight global poverty and extremism. 
This article begins with a discussion of why it is beneficial to focus on women as a way to combat poverty and to accomplish economic and social development and growth.  A look at the history of international treaties and organizations over the last six decades shows significant improvement and yet the current status of women indicates that a significant gender gap still exists even in developed countries.  The article concludes with suggestions and strategies for governments, businesses, organizations and individuals to assist with the promotion and protection of women’s rights, resources and voice to effectuate full participation in all aspects of society.

“Moral Philosophy and Curricular Reform”:Catharine Beecher and Nineteenth-Century Educational Leadership for Women
Gladys S. Lewis, Professor, Department of English, University of Central Oklahoma

Catharine Beecher, daughter to Lyman Beecher and reared in New England Calvinism, struggled against it as a means of acquiring life orientation. Convinced of the mind’s superiority in resolving moral and ethical matters, she developed pioneering views on women’s education with its three linchpins which became known as moral philosophy: transference of soul salvation from theological to social grounds; creation of a moral code to regulate behavior without the presence of an angry God; and assumption of a new class of moral guardians to promote this code. In 1823, she opened The Hartford Female Seminary, in Hartford, Connecticut, and went on to establish the Western Female Institute in Cincinnati, Ohio. She helped in the formation of women’s colleges in Burlington, Iowa, Quincy, Illinois, and Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Although Beecher later incorporated support for childhood education, her priority was to women’s education as teachers and writers in her curricular advances. A review of her educational program, its curriculum, her emphasis on physical health for women, the way she changed the role of teaching as a career for women, and her extensive writings shows the far-reaching influence of Catharine Beecher in nineteenth-century education in opening educational and writing careers to women.

Stopping the “flow of co-eds and other female species”: A Historical Perspective on Gender Discrimination at Southern (U.S.) Colleges and Universities
Amy Thompson McCandless, Dean of The Graduate School, Professor of History, College of Charleston

Abstract
The interrelated nature of gender and racial constructs in the culture of the southern United States accounts for much of the historical prejudice against coeducation in the region’s institutions of higher education. This essay offers a historical perspective on gender discrimination on the campuses of Southern universities from the attempts to bar women from the state flagship institutions in the 1890s to the efforts to exclude them from the public military colleges in Virginia and South Carolina in the 1990s. It notes the similarity of the arguments employed for and against gender integration and racial desegregation. In both cases, access was only the first battle in the war against unequal treatment. Coeducation did not bring an end to gender discrimination anymore than racial integration ended racial discrimination. Men students often banned women from clubs, activities, and buildings. Faculty ignored their presence in the classroom and/or graded them more harshly. Administrators put quotas on their admissions and imposed restrictions on their mobility. This was not unlike the discrimination experienced by the first black students in integrated classrooms. Although the campus climate in the 21st century is less chilly for both women and African Americans, traditional prejudices seem to justify the continued existence of separate women’s and historically black colleges and universities. Opposition to coeducation on today’s college campuses is more likely to come from women who argue that historic patterns of discrimination remain alive and well.

Gender Equity and the Dialogical Ethos of the University: Socrates, Schleiermacher and the Transversal Claim of the Conversatorium
John G. Moore, Associate Professor of Philosophy, Director, Honors International Program,
Lander University

Abstract
Open and unencumbered dialogue is the original position of the modern university-ideal, encompassing both its administrative and educational functions, outstripping even its important reliance upon research in laboratories or solitary writing and contemplative inquiry.  This is an idea first intimated in Plato’s Symposium and later made central to Schleiermacher’s draft of a plan for the University of Berlin.  Recent inquiries into the many myths of the modern university have lessened the claims on behalf of illustrious figures, such as Wilhelm von Humboldt, for having founded the modern university—a superhuman feat he would himself have disavowed; but the autonomous ideal of Humboldt’s colleague, Friedrich Schleiermacher, in which special emphasis is given to “authentic dialogue,” “seminars” and “conversatoria” and which he modeled after the unofficial, salon-culture of Berlin, where colloquial spaces were hosted at regular intervals in the houses of leading Jewish women for the sole purpose of sustaining cross-cultural dialogue, appears to have been an underappreciated influence.  The paper argues that the notion of the university as a free space of open discussion, devoted to testing truth-claims and hazarding new ideas, is perennially relevant, and potentially transversal for knowledge, inquiry, and reigning systems of social arrangement.  It remains the soul of the university, much in the way salon-culture remains the soul of the coffee-house.

The Blue Blazer Club: Masculine Hegemony in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math Fields
Melanie C. Page, Lucy E. Bailey and Jean Van Delinder

Abstract
The under-representation of women in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) fields is of continuing concern, as is the lack of women in senior positions and leadership roles. During a time of increasing demand for science and engineering enterprise, the lack of women and minorities in these academic disciplines needs to be addressed by concentrated institutional attention and resources. Although the overall historical gender inequity in earned doctorates is decreasing, women remain underrepresented in scientific and engineering disciplines in the workforce and in faculty positions. Given the gendered patterns evident in engineering and STEM academic disciplines, it is important to consider the factors contributing to these phenomena, including the interplay between work and family constraints in academic careers. Rather than simply male dominance or individual preferences or capacities, this under-representation in STEM is also due to “deep seated” gender barriers, such as the persistent belief in gender differences in abilities which maintains the status quo and affirms current inequalities as “natural.” Our paper focuses on hegemonic masculinities in organizations to better understand the institutionalization of gender inequalities.

The “Education” of the Indian Woman against the Backdrop of the Education of the European Woman in the Nineteenth-Century
Sunita Peacock, Associate Professor of English, Slippery Rock University

Abstract

Who Does She Think She Is? A Group-Level Theoretical Consideration of Women and Authority in Organizations
Karen L. Proudford, Associate Professor of Management, Morgan State University

Abstract
The presence of women in top management provides an opportunity to give theoretical consideration to the notions of authority, gender and hierarchy.  Though women have now reached the highest echelons of power in organizations, the lived experience of executive women suggests an uneasy and precarious journey to, and existence at, the top of organizations.  This article draws on the sociological literature on status and status hierarchies in order to posit certain consequences associated with having women in positions of power.

A distinction is made between status (individual level) and status hierarchies (group level), followed by a discussion of the processes through which status hierarchies are formed and sustained.  Status hierarchies are viewed as functional for the group - both from an efficiency standpoint and in terms of meeting the group’s socio-emotional needs.  It is asserted that the intersection of gender and hierarchy serve to maintain existing societal gender relations, whereby men occupy positions of authority with women largely in subordinate roles.  An important consequence of this positioning is that women who occupy positions high in the status hierarchy may be perceived as a threat, eliciting powerful responses, akin to backlash, from members of the group.  Such responses have implications for how women negotiate their careers.

Learning through the Ages: An Epistemological Journey
J. Courtney Reid, Associate Professor of English, Adirondack Community College

Abstract
This paper explores how three nineteenth-century women writers guided my thinking about education, oppression and spirituality during different decades of my twentieth-century life. In order to re-collect my epistemological journey, a process that requires analysis and reflection, the paper combines the critical lens of feminist theory with the genre of the exploratory personal narrative.
  Charlotte Brontë (Jane Eyre) wrote about finding a voice of resistance in order to find independence, an essential thing to learn when one is 20 years old. Sarah Orne Jewett (The Country of the Pointed Firs) looked outward, an essential thing to realize when learning how to write and love at 30 years old. Harriet Jacobs (Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl) knew of the complexity of life and truth, the greatest thing of all to learn as a parent and teacher. These women, through their writing and ideas, guided how I came to know and understand the world.
 

Systems of Work-Life Balance: Private And Public Investments
Faye L. Smith and Judi McLean Parks

ABSTRACT
We provide a retrospective of how the degree of values congruence between life domains affects women’s career advancement.  Values issues include the intensity with which the values are held relative to other values, how crystallized those values are across life domains, and the depth and breadth of the pivotal space created by values components.  The broader the pivotal space (many values are shared) and the depth of pivotal space (number of domains in which values are jointly affirmed) are expected to improve career advancement and lead to a tidier lifestyle.  Using the context of organizational contracts, and framing careers as a multiplicity of personal energy investments, allows career advancement to be broadly defined.  The metric that measures the return on career investments can be expanded, leading to explicit public socio-emotional currencies in addition to the traditional economic monetized currencies. 
                We develop a theoretical model in which values serve as antecedents and context for the characteristics of organizational contracts through which careers are manifested.  Work-life balance requires investments of personal energy, time, and money from which women expect a positive rate of return, both economically (ROI - Return on Investment) and on their personal values (ROV – Return on Values).  The system of values, social norms, organizational contracts, and work-life balance investments also includes embedded barriers and burdens of proof that stymie career advancement and success. From this systems perspective, the role of public and organizational policies becomes clearer.

Tenured Faculty at Colleges and Universities in the United States: A De Facto Private Membership Club
Julie M. Spanbauer, Professor, The John Marshall Law School, Chicago

Abstract
There has been a gradual increase at U.S. universities and colleges in the appointment of women to full time faculty positions with women currently comprising approximately 40% of full time faculty. When status, job security, and institutional affiliation are taken into account, the percentage drops significantly: Women occupy only 24% of tenured positions at doctoral-granting institutions, the institutions that employ 47 % of full time faculty nationwide, and a mere 19% of tenured full professor positions at these institutions. Although the reasons for this underrepresentation are numerous and complex, several reasons dominate the issues of continuing gender disparity: (1) The historical and legal culture of the university as an educational institution and as a workplace was akin to a private membership club for men complete with rituals and exclusionary practices; (2) The historical and legal culture of employment generally in the U.S., as reflected in the employment at will doctrine, is that of private club, with anti-discrimination laws and tenure operating as exceptions to this strong presumption; and (3) The application of gender discrimination laws in the university setting are too deferential and are at odds with common cultural assumptions about discrimination.

The Stories We Hear, The Stories We Tell What Can the Life of Jane Barker (1652-1732) Tell us about Women’s Leadership in Higher Education in the Twenty-first Century?
Carol Shiner Wilson, Dean of the College for Academic Life, Muhlenberg College

Abstract
Jane Barker—poet, novelist, farm manager, student and practitioner of medical arts—was not allowed to attend university because she was a woman. Yet she was Oxford-educated in the most modern of medical theories of her time. By the end of her life, unmarried by choice, Barker was writing for pay under her own name in an emerging genre—the novel—and publicly challenging the dominance of male authors. Aspects of her life prompt reflection upon women in higher education leadership today: assumptions about women’s competence in a male-dominated domain, personal decisions about marriage and childbearing, and the consequences and rewards of choosing the difficult career path.
            This essay is based on printed sources such as American Council of Education data (2009) and recent interviews with seventeen women leaders in private colleges and universities in the United States. The stories of these provosts and presidents illuminate challenges faced by women seeking and living in positions of authority and influence. These leaders negotiated suspicions that women could be decisive or have expertise in finance, and they were faced with difficult decisions as institutions responded to the late-2008 economic downturn. Women in this pool made a wide range of decisions about marriage,  childbearing, and gender roles in a marriage. Generational and racial differences influenced their approaches to their work. Administrators, especially presidents, negotiated the isolation inherent in their positions. Concerns have arisen, in fact, that the constant scrutiny or “fishbowl” life of a president has decreased the traditional applicant pipeline of provosts.  The essay concludes with an overview of women’s choices about leadership in higher education today.

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