Feminism and the A-word: Power and Community in the University

Feminism and the A-word:

Power and Community in the University

Joan Tronto came to our campus last winter to discuss how her work on the politics and ethics of care might contribute to a richer understanding of professional life and its ethical contours in various settings, including that of academic professionals in universities.¹ During her visit, Tronto facilitated a roundtable discussion among some twenty faculty members and university administrators about how the organization of university communities might be changed, and their cultures transformed, in order to recognize, respect, and support appropriately the giving, receiving, and sustaining of care amid academic work in the university. The discussion was thought provoking and jarred imaginations in fruitful ways; indeed, even to initiate the discussion among a heterogeneous group of colleagues was, as Tronto observed, rather unusual on the American university scene. However, in the end, the conversation ran up against the deep and familiar concern that explains why such discussions are so rarely pursued: the asymmetrical distributions of authority, power, and vulnerability in contemporary universities, particularly as instantiated in the distinct institutional roles of administrators and faculty members, seem to preclude prospects for a prevailing culture of caring and community in the university.

After nearly four years as chair of a relatively large philosophy department, I took an associate dean's position in our College of Arts and Sciences in January 2005. I am new enough in the position that I maintain hope about continuing to increase faculty members' and students' collaborative ownership in the academic programs that I coordinate. I have been "in administration" just long enough, however, to experience the gulf in decision-making power and institutional perspectives that divides most faculty members from many university administrators.² I have also felt the sting of having the "A-word" pinned on me when faculty friends and even former students remind me that I am now an administrator. My interest in this Musings concerns, in the first instance, the institutional division signaled by the stigma of the A-word, rather than the stigma itself. In particular, my Musings considers a mundane, practical question: should more feminists seek administrative positions in the academy?

I am drawn to this question partly because of its concrete practicality. (Aren't administrators supposed to be attracted to such matters?) Its apparently wrong-headed character also perversely attracts me.

There are so many urgent, ineluctable, life-and-death matters that feminists (together with the rest of humanity) need to address at this moment that to take up the representation of feminist academics among the ranks of university administrators would seem, at best, to be small minded and unproductive—and boring, to boot; almost tawdry. Yet the prospects for feminist movement and development within academic communities depend significantly upon our responses to the question and our appraisal of the role of administrative work for the prospects of feminist transformation of universities.³

One reason that the question of feminism and the A-word properly stirs up suspicion, if not offense, is that most of the people who work in administrative positions in universities are women, some number of whom are undoubtedly committed feminists. These women hold the typically underpaid and under-recognized staff positions that permit any work to be done at all in universities. These women, along with untenured women members of the faculty (and especially non–tenure-line faculty), in most cases do not have any prospect whatsoever of pursuing mid- or senior-level positions of administrative responsibility in universities. The question I have posed is inherently exclusive and seems to evidence the very conundrum of patriarchal elitism and asymmetrical power that prompted me to raise it. Because I am musing, however, I hope that readers will forgive me if I pursue the question awhile before returning to its elitist character at the essay's end.

As the perils for feminists of holding or seeking mid- or senior-level administrative positions may seem so clear, let us begin...