Women's Challenge to Higher Education

Abstract

changes and challenges in American education today is the increased significance of women at all levels. While studies bemoan the predominance of female teachers in elementary classrooms and the resulting lack of male role models for young students, in higher education, traditionally, it is women who have been missing from the ranks of faculty and administration. Today, increasingly, that situation is changing, and with important implications. Gradually, often subtly, women have been mounting a tripartite attack on the traditions of higher education in this country. As students, administrators, and faculty members, women are challenging fundamental assumptions about teaching and learning. Women's enrollment in higher education has increased steadily in the past twenty years, and today, they make up more than half some 54 percent of undergraduate students in American colleges and universities. Similarly, women have in recent years gradually increased their numbers among administrators in American universities. With more women in decision-making positions and with budgetary authority to implement programs and policies that address the inequities in women's lives on campus, substantial improvements have been and will continue to be achieved. A more dramatic increase in the number of female faculty members, many of whom engage in scholarly work on the contributions and concerns of women in their disci-