Women Presidents of Ivy League Universities
Dear friends of women in science,
When I was at Yale back in the 1960s, there were no women presidents of Ivy League schools, and I think no one would have predicted that any might ever be chosen. Thus, I was pleased and surprised to encounter an article by Jesse Harlan Alderman on a get together of Ivy League women presidents. You can read it here.
But before you read it, try to think of as many women presidents of Ivy League schools as you can. Okay, now here is the list, showing women are in charge at half of the eight institutions. Ruth Simmons (Brown), Judith Rodin (former President of Penn, the first female Ivy League President, and current President of the Rockefeller Foundation), Drew Gilpin Faust (Harvard), Amy Gutmann (Penn), and Shirley Tilghman (Princeton). If you must recall the name to have it count, which seems fair to me, I got only one, Tilghman. I knew Harvard had a woman as president but could not recall her name. But I didn't know about Simmons and Guttman.
The group got together to discuss the changing role of gender in higher education. Simmons suggested that more may hire their first female president soon. She said, "When it starts to become the issue of being the last Ivy League school to have a woman president -- who wants to do that?" The League is inherently competitive, she says, and that will drive the move to more women on top.
Of course, the panel noted that the situation has improved but still has a ways to go. According to the article, 'Reforms in parental leave and merit-based hiring are needed for women professors to catch up, Tilghman said." These are issues we have highlighted several times, but I believe that ongoing support is still in need of improvement as well. Women still leave tenure track jobs for reasons other than child care.
It's great to see this milestone, half the Ivy League Presidents being women. I only wish more people were aware of it
cheers,
Laura
Correction>> Dr. Claire M. Fagin was named President (Interim) from July 1, 1993 to June 30, 1994 Nearly a full year, was actually THE 1st Woman President of an Ivy League University, UPenn.
I think Tilghman is into delegating. Sometimes she delegates to people who have passion to help women in science, but not always. I don't know about Harvard, but my friend Myra is a postdoc there and she finds it an uphill slog as a woman. Change needs to get here faster I'm afraid.
I know that Tilghman has worked hard on child care issues at Princeton. I suspect that they are collaborating to help with issues for women in science because they first got together as a group in the wake of Larry Summers' disastrous remarks about why he had so few women professors of physical science or math at Harvard.
cheers,
Laura
I disagree postdoc cat, because these women won't just sit and take for granted that women can't make it in certain fields like Comp Sci or physics. The surprise, after the discussion of the pseudomale behavior of FF people on this site earlier, is that they are getting together and working together to address the gender bias at their schools. Time for female presidents at Yale, Cornell, etc!
I like to celebrate women's success, Laura, but this one seems a little out of our territory since they aren't (most of them) scientists. Are they opening up the full prof ranks to women in chem, physics, math, comp sci? That's what I want to know, not just do they have XX chromosomes.
Hi Susan,
Well, sorry, I definitely should have said something about that. Shirley Tilghman, the one I knew, is a molecular biologist of considerable note. Simmons is a specialist in Africana Studies, Faust specializes in American Civilization. Amy Gutmann is in political science. And Judith Rodin is a psychogist. So only one of those I mentioned is a scientist.
cheers,
Laura
Maybe it's that I stopped getting the newspapers, but I really didn't know the names of any of these women. Are any of them scientists, Laura?
SKR
