Breaking into the Lab: Engineering Progress for Women in Science

5. Advancing Women Scientists to Senior Leadership Positions

  126 5 Advancing Women Scientists to Senior Leadership Positions This year, for the first time in Harvey Mudd College’s 55-year history, our first-year class is comprised of more women than men: 52 percent women in the first-year class at a college of engineering, science and math. . . . A strategic planning process in 2006 with the arrival of our new and dynamic president, Maria Klawe, confirmed our commitment to “excellence and diversity at all levels” but also challenged the College to enhance its commitment to “educating the whole person”. . . So after years of hovering around 25–30 percent women at the College how did we enroll a first-year class that is 52 percent women? By lowering our standards? Not at all. With large increases in our applicant pool over the past several years, we had more talented women from which to choose . . . Thirty-five percent of our faculty is women, a sizeable percentage of a technical school. Our president is a woman, as is our student body president. Each of these women is in her position not because she is a woman but because she is talented and inspiring. Our retention and graduation rates have also improved since more women have enrolled. —Briggs 2010 Let me add that policies and practices are good—but there is no substitute for commitment from the top. —AWIS Fellow 2006 As long as Larry Summers and his ilk are top brass, women have it tough. —AWIS Fellow describing the negative impact on senior women of male leaders such as former Harvard President Larry Summers Advancing Women Scientists to Senior Leadership Positions  127 Having women in leadership positions in academic administration may constitute one of the most effective ways to remove institutional barriers and change the environment for senior women in general at the university and for senior women scientists in particular. One senior woman scientist voiced the explicit response to the question of how to obtain the required changes in leadership: “A few years ago, I asked this question of Dr. Shirley Tilghman, President of Princeton University, at a meeting on women in science at Yale. She replied, ‘First you change the president, then you change the deans, and then you change the department chairs” (Rosser 2006, 285). ADVANCE, the NSF-funded program for institutional transformation to attract and retain more women scientists and engineers, also underlines the importance of commitment from the top and leadership: “Since 2001, ADVANCE Institutional Transformation awardees have developed an understanding of the steps needed to create a more equitable environment for women faculty . . . In order to be successful and sustainable, these activities should involve the institutional leadership, mid-level administrators, and faculty” (NSF 2011, 8). A major theme of ADVANCE focuses on advancing women to senior leadership positions such as professor , chair, dean, and beyond: “For many decades, an increasing number of women have obtained STEM doctoral degrees, yet women continue to be significantly underrepresented in almost all STEM academic positions . The degree of underrepresentation varies among STEM disciplines, although women’s advancement to senior ranks and leadership is an issue in all fields” (NSF 2011, 2). Although ADVANCE emphasizes moving up the ranks, in contrast to President Tilghman’s approach of starting with the top, both recognize the importance of having women in top leadership positions. Women Presidents and Chancellors of Elite Research Institutions In 2009, the American Council of Education reported from its most recent statistics (2007) that women constitute 23 percent of college and university presidents. That represents a marked increase over 20 years from the 9.5 percent of women presidents in 1986 (ACE 2009). Very signi ficantly, over half of the elite private institutions in the Ivy League are headed by a woman: Brown—Ruth Simmons; Harvard—Drew Gilpin Faust; University of Pennsylvania—Amy Gutmann; and Princeton—Shir- 128  Advancing Women Scientists to Senior Leadership Positions ley Tilghman. In keeping with the Ivy League tradition where most of the male presidents, with the exception of the two physicians that head Cornell and Dartmouth, have disciplinary backgrounds other than science and engineering, only Shirley Tilghman of the Ivy League presidents is a scientist. Susan Hockfield serves as President of Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), the most prestigious technological institution. African American engineer Shirley Jackson serves as head of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI). In 2010–2011, women also led many of the most prestigious public institutions...