Dean Of Women Research Articles

Relationships between women in leadership at predoctoral and senior administration levels in United States dental schools.

To determine the relationship between woman leadership at senior administrative and predoctoral levels in United States (US) dental schools and assess if this relationship is affected by school characteristics. A 23-question survey was created and distributed to each US accredited dental school (2023). Data regarding the gender of the school's dean, senior administrators, and student leaders, as well as school characteristics were gathered. Data were organized in Excel. Descriptive statistics were performed using mean and standard deviation for continuous measures and using count and percent for categorial measures. Statistical comparisons were performed using analysis of variance (ANOVA), Fisher's Exact, or Chi-squared tests for comparison of proportions. 32 dental schools provided analyzable data for this project (44.4% response rate). The most common senior administrative position held by a woman was the dean of student affairs (71.9%). For every surveyed school with a woman dean (n=11, 34.4%), at least one other senior administrative position was held by a woman. There was no statistical significance between the year of school establishment, geographic region, gender of the dean, or prevalence of women administrators and students in leadership roles. The number of women students in leadership roles was close to the national enrollment trends for gender. Included US dental school data showed no relationship between women in leadership at the senior administrative and predoctoral levels. To keep leadership-minded students interested in dental academics throughout their careers, further studies are needed to identify the most important factors influencing careers in academic dentistry.

Gender Differences in the Path to Medical School Deanship

Women account for only 28% of current US medical school deans. Studying the differences between women and men in their preparation to becoming deans might help to explain this discrepancy. To identify differences in the leadership development experiences between women and men in their ascent to the medical school deanship. In this qualitative study, volunteers from the roster of the Association of American Medical Colleges Council of Deans were solicited and interviewed from June 15 to November 9, 2023. Women deans were recruited first, then men who had been appointed to their deanships at a similar time to their women counterparts were recruited. Deans were interviewed on topics related to number of applications for deanships, prior leadership roles, leadership development, personal factors, and career trajectories. Interviews were coded, and themes were extracted through conventional content analysis. Career and leadership development experiences were elicited using a semistructured interview guide. We interviewed 17 women and 17 men deans, representing 25.8% (34 of 132) of the total population of US medical school deans. Most deans (23 [67.6%]) practiced a medicine-based specialty or subspecialty. No statistically significant differences were found between women and men with regard to years to attain deanship (mean [SD], 2.7 [3.4] vs 3.7 [3.7] years), years as a dean (mean [SD], 5.7 [5.2] vs 6.0 [5.0] years), highest salary during career (mean [SD], $525 769 [$199 936] vs $416 923 [$195 848]), or medical school rankings (mean [SD], 315.5 [394.5] vs 480.5 [448.9]). Their reports indicated substantive gender differences in their paths to becoming a dean. Compared with men, women deans reported having to work harder to advance, while receiving less support and opportunities for leadership positions by their own institutions. Subsequently, women sought leadership development from external programs. Women deans also experienced gender bias when working with search firms. This qualitative study of US medical school deans found that compared with men, women needed to be more proactive, had to participate in external leadership development programs, and had to confront biases during the search process. For rising women leaders, this lack of support had consequences, such as burnout and attrition, potentially affecting the makeup of future generations of medical school deans. Institutional initiatives centering on leadership development of women is needed to mitigate the gender biases and barriers faced by aspiring women leaders.

Leadership Styles, Emotional Intelligence and Personality Traits of Muslim Women Academic Heads of the Mindanao State University and their Correlation with Organizational Performance

The study identified the leadership style, emotional intelligence and personality traits of the Muslim women deans of the Mindanao State University, the biggest state University in Southern Mindanao, and their correlation with organizational performance. The respondents of the study were the faculty members of the four colleges of the University under the leadership of a Muslim woman dean. The study disclosed that the women deans practiced more of transformational than the transactional leadership style. Transformational leadership was the preferred and widely practiced style among these deans, according to nearly all the faculty respondents. In terms of organizational performance, the faculty respondents rated their Muslim women deans as highly effective. Using McKinsey's 7S model, the deans were rated highest in skills, followed by shared values, style, strategy, system, and staff, in descending order. This indicates that the deans excel in various aspects of organizational management. The study also established correlations between these elements based on the data obtained through the use of four standardized questionnaires such as the Bass multi-factor leadership instrument and Mckinsey’s 7S model. Moreover, the study revealed that there is a moderate positive correlation between leadership style and organizational performance, another moderate positive correlation between personality traits and organizational performance, but a low positive correlation between emotional intelligence and organizational performance. This suggests that leadership style and personality traits play a more significant role in influencing organizational performance than emotional intelligence. In conclusion, it can be hypothetically argued that the Muslim women deans under study were more inclined to embrace transformational leadership, emphasizing emotional intelligence and displaying favourable personality traits.

Preparing Deans of Women: The Origins and Evolution of the Earliest Student Affairs Graduate Program

Abstract: Higher education historians agree that the earliest direct antecedents to today’s student affairs professionals were deans of women (DOWs) and deans of men (DOMs), administrative positions that first arose in the 19th century. While DOWs were expected to supervise women students within newly coeducational environments, they professionalized the role—and the field of student affairs—by building professional networks, conducting scholarship, and pursuing graduate education. This historical study used archival records to explore the earliest student affairs graduate program, a professional diploma for DOWs at Teachers College, Columbia University, started in 1914. Findings explore the development of the diploma program throughout its lifespan, including its origins and the Teachers College context, diploma name changes, the first program-specific courses, and curricular changes. The Teachers College DOW professional diploma program ran for 30 years, ending after the 1944–45 academic year. This research provides insight into the history of student affairs as a field of study and illustrates the field’s long-standing values and philosophy, particularly the importance of supporting and advocating for minoritized students (ACPA, n.d.). Student affairs scholars and practitioners can use this history to better understand and articulate the context and purpose of their work today.

Why Are There So Few Women Medical School Deans? Debunking the Myth That Shorter Tenures Drive Disparities.

Gender disparities among the senior echelons of academic medicine are striking and persistent. The role of medical school dean has been particularly immune to gender diversity, and limited prior research identified women's shorter decanal tenures as a potential driver. The authors assessed gender differences in tenure length of deanships in the current era to elucidate this finding. From October 2020 to June 2021, the authors collected information about medical school deanships that were held from January 1, 2006, to June 30, 2020. All schools were members of the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC). The authors collected data from online public records and augmented their findings via direct outreach to medical schools. They used time-to-event analyses before and after adjustment for interim vs permanent status of the initial appointment, school ownership (public/private), and school size to assess for gender differences in length of deanship tenure during the study period. The unit of analysis was deanships, and the primary outcome was length of deanships measured in years. Authors included data on 528 deanships. Women held 91 (17%) of these terms. Men held the majority of permanent deanships (n = 352 [85%]). A greater percentage of the deanships held by women were interim only (n = 27 [30%]) compared with men (n = 85 [20%]). In unadjusted and adjusted analyses, there were no significant gender differences in length of deanship tenures. Analysis of appointments of AAMC-member medical school deans from 2006 to 2020 revealed that women have remained in their deanships as long as their male counterparts. The myth about women deans' shorter longevity should no longer be promulgated. Academic medicine should consider novel solutions to addressing women's persistent underrepresentation in the dean role, including employing the gender proportionality principle used in the business and legal communities.

Remembering Forgotten Stories in the Archives

Out of approximately 10 km of research material in the Queen’s Archives, how do you remember just one person, especially when the archival records are often fragmented? As HIST 502 Interns for the 2022 Fall Semester, we dived into this idea, aiming to rediscover (and, through digitisation, publicly promote) the life and works of Dr. Allie Vibert Douglas, a Canadian astronomer, physics professor and former Dean of Women at Queen’s University. 
 In our 4-month research period, we made a number of fascinating discoveries in her fonds that we would like to bring to this conference. First, we learned how easily misinformation can pervade archival research with incomplete or biased documentation, in addition to the personal bias brought by the researchers themselves. As the first female astrophysicist in Canada, her archival material gave us insight into how embedded gender bias was in the academic world. After receiving an email from her living relatives, we were able to learn firsthand the impact archival research can have in the contemporary world. As well, we found a surprisingly high emotional impact from our readings in the archives, as we began to feel that a relationship had developed between us despite all the time that has passed between our lifetimes. 
 Our research brought us to the conclusion that while the archives can promote misinformation, it is also an essential tool to combat it. Archives provide a snapshot of someone’s life on paper, allowing the opportunity to rediscover history through the words of who lived it.

Dr. Ani John (1950-2007): An exemplary dental educator and administrator and the first female President of the Indian Academy of Oral Medicine and Radiology.

Dr. Ani John (1950-2007): An exemplary dental educator and administrator and the first female President of the Indian Academy of Oral Medicine and Radiology.

Most, but Not All: Characteristics of Early Deans of Women and Learning from the Exceptions

Twenty years ago, I began a project to learn about the professional and personal lives of 130 deans of women who were practicing in their careers between 1903 and 1922, and who laid the foundations of what is now called student affairs. The collective group shows both trends and diversity in the identities, professional lives, and personal choices among these women, many of whom have been considered by previous scholars who have studied the dean of women role. Yet, by looking at a wider number of early deans, the exceptions to these presumed trends challenge and complicate our understanding of how these women experienced, practiced, and built the profession over a century ago.

“Sure a Strong Devil”: Mabel Frazer, A. B. Wright, and the University of Utah Art Department's 1937 Sexual Misconduct Case

“Sure a Strong Devil”: Mabel Frazer, A. B. Wright, and the University of Utah Art Department's 1937 Sexual Misconduct Case

Women CEO Deans of US Schools and Colleges of Pharmacy

Objective. Seventy-four women served as chief executive officer (CEO) deans of US schools and colleges of pharmacy from January 1988-December 2020. This study examined the characteristics of those women with the objective of providing information useful for preparing future women deans.Methods. Public domain resources were accessed to obtain information about women pharmacy CEO deans, including names of institution(s) where individuals had served or were serving, dates of service, academic background, whether they were a founding dean, and whether they had served or were serving in other academic higher education positions. Descriptive statistics (means, medians, standard deviations, and percentages) were used for data comparisons (quantitative research). Finally, three early women CEO deans provided perspectives about their deanships (qualitative research).Results. The median length of service was six years for women in office as of December 31, 2020, and eight years for women who had completed deanships. The percentage of deans holding a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) declined to 32.4%, while there was a concurrent rise in deans having a Doctor of Pharmacy (PharmD) degree (58.8%); 79.4% of deans in office and 77% of all women deans had a professional pharmacy degree (BSPharm, PharmD, or both). Women had served or were currently serving as CEO deans at a wide variety of pharmacy schools. The percentage of schools with women deans has declined in recent years to 24%.Conclusion. Recommendations are put forward to prepare future women deans including increased mentoring and creation of an advanced leadership program aimed at potential deans.

Counseling US women for economic citizenship: Deans of women and the beginnings of vocational guidance

ABSTRACT Historians of education have argued that the field of vocational guidance was founded by men in Boston in 1909, and that these guidance practices were not used in a college setting until the mid-1940s after the close of World War II. This article illustrates the history of early female student affairs practitioners developing and implementing vocational career guidance with women college students by the very early 1900s. A coalition of highly educated women created a national network to place female graduates into employment outside of teaching as a part of an effort to provide college-educated women with a living wage, and economic citizenship that allowed their autonomy as individuals in US society. This network extended into Canada, England, and the International Federation of University Women.

On Holding Various Truths to (Not) Be Self-Evident: Leading During the Dual Pandemics of 2020 as a Racialized Body

In this critical autoethnography, the author counter/narrates how she has navigated the dual pandemics of COVID-19 and structural racism predicated on over four centuries of racial oppression that reached a zenith on May 25, 2020, when George Floyd was murdered by a White police officer. As an Asian American woman dean of education at a White-dominated regional university, she weaves in between the past and present to discuss the multilayered intersections between the lives and livelihoods of Asian Americans and Black Americans by theorizing contemporary meanings of the historic slogan from the 1960s: “Yellow Peril Supports Black Power.” She reflects on a few critical moments during the dual pandemics where she has navigated predominantly White spaces that have attempted to center tired-old platitudes around justice for George Floyd despite the daily persistence of blatantly and subtly racist practices against individuals who are Black, Indigenous, and People of Color.

Representation of Women Physician Deans in U.S. Medical Schools.

Background: Among U.S. medical school deans, there is a wide gender gap, most prominent at the highest levels. We aimed to discover how well women physicians were represented within the pool of women deans compared with the pool of men deans. Materials and Methods: A cross-sectional study was performed on 149 allopathic medical schools in the United States. For each school, information was collected on deans' names, titles, genders, and degree(s). Chi-square analyses were performed to determine association between gender and dean ranks. Results: Of the 2559 deans included from 149 medical schools, 1649 (64.4%) were physicians, and of these, women physicians accounted for 634 (38.4%), a significant under-representation (p < 0.00001). In comparison, the 626 nonphysician doctorate-holders of which women accounted for 291 (46.5%, p = 0.061) were equally represented. Of the 284 deans with bachelor's or master's degrees, women accounted for 180 (63.4%), a significant over-representation (p < 0.00001). This difference was most profound at the lower tier (assistant) dean level. A lower tier physician dean was 1.25 times more likely to be a man than a woman, and a higher tier (dean of medical school, senior associate, vice, or associate) physician dean was 1.16 times more likely to be a man. Conclusions: Women physicians were under-represented among medical school deans compared with men. This disparity held among lower tier and higher tier deans.

The New Howard Woman

AbstractIn the opening decades of the twentieth century, Lucy Diggs Slowe charted new territory as the first African American dean of women. Serving in this administrative role for fifteen years at her alma mater, Howard University, Slowe introduced and shaped an extracurriculum to realize her unique ideal of educated Black womanhood, “the New Howard Woman.” In a departure from the hyperscrutiny of nineteenth-century codes of respectability, the New Howard Woman drew from the self-defining qualities of the New Negro and the New Woman, while correcting for their exclusive focus on Black masculinity and white femininity, respectively. This paper examines how Slowe’s advocacy of Black women operated on two intertwined principles: the universal right to grow into one’s potential and the obligation of each person to contribute her talent to social amelioration. Given her unwavering conviction that Black women were as much members of modern society as other race-gender groups, Slowe’s tenure provides a unique and needed window into an underexplored history of interventions to render college campuses inclusive and responsive environments for democratic learning and living.

Colored No More: Reinventing Black Womanhood in Washington, D.C by Treva B. Lindsey

Reviewed by: Colored No More: Reinventing Black Womanhood in Washington, D.C by Treva B. Lindsey Alison M. Parker Colored No More: Reinventing Black Womanhood in Washington, D.C. By Treva B. Lindsey. Women, Gender, and Sexuality in American History. ( Urbana and other cities: University of Illinois Press, 2017. Pp. xvi, 182. Paper, $26.00, ISBN 978–0-252–08251-1; cloth, $95.00, ISBN 978–0-252–04102-0.) In Colored No More: Reinventing Black Womanhood in Washington, D.C., Treva B. Lindsey rethinks our periodization of the New Negro movement, which usually focuses on World War I and the Great Migration. This periodization, she argues, masculinizes the New Negro movement and centers on New York City. By focusing on the Jim Crow era of the 1890s through the 1920s and border cities like Washington, D.C., Lindsey identifies as New Negro women the members of the National Association of Colored Women and other groups who aimed "to transform themselves and their communities through demanding autonomy and equality for African American women" (p. 9). A chapter on education points to the aspirational nature of "New Negro womanhood" as symbolized by the presence in the nation's capital of premier educational institutions like M Street High School and Howard University (p. 143). Howard promised equal education but was mired in sexist ideas that privileged leadership training for black men. Lucy Diggs Slowe became the university's first dean of women in 1922. She fought for black women's equality and access to leadership positions at Howard and created a women's campus with housing for female students by 1931. Slowe lived off-campus and was in a loving relationship with another black woman, the writer Mary Burrill. The New Negro women who knew them privately, Lindsey suggests, accepted a broader range of behaviors than current narrow understandings of respectability politics allow. As a key element of New Negro womanhood, black beauty culture allowed black women, as entrepreneurs and consumers, to promote themselves as modern, urban, and beautiful in the face of a hostile, dominant white culture, Lindsey argues. Black women emulated the looks of famous race women they admired, such as the political celebrity Mary Church Terrell. Lindsey incorrectly cites Terrell's autobiography as proof that black women participated in a "modern black beauty culture" in the early 1870s by adding hair pieces to achieve the popular looks of the day (p. 73). In fact, Terrell was describing the self-adornment of elite white women who patronized her mother's hair store in Memphis. Even so, Lindsey's overall point is well taken: "Bodily adornment for New Negro women of Washington … signaled the importance of self-care within a society that repeatedly denied the humanity of black women" (p. 85). A chapter on the politics of New Negro women focuses on "the Women's Suffrage March in Washington of 1913 as a specific site of inquiry" (p. 89). Black suffragists were determined to make themselves seen, in spite of white suffragist Alice Paul's racist reluctance to let them join the march. After identifying Terrell as "the face of the African American women's suffrage activism," Lindsey concludes that Terrell, twenty-two women of Howard University's Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, and other black suffragists agreed to march at the end of the parade (p. 95). Lindsey's evidence is thin, as it consists [End Page 198] of Paul's "personal recollections" and the seeming absence of black women in photographs of the march (p. 103). Paul's memories are unreliable since she repeatedly made racist statements and then evaded questions regarding her comments. W. E. B. Du Bois concluded, "an order went out to segregate them [black suffragists] in the parade, but telegrams and protests poured in and eventually the colored women marched according to their State and occupation without let or hindrance" ("Along the Color Line," The Crisis, 5 [April 1913], 267). Overall, Lindsey rightly identifies these black suffragists as courageous New Negro women who took a strong public stand for full equality and citizenship. Lindsey's final chapter evocatively captures the dynamic intellectual and cultural life of the black women playwrights who gathered at writer Georgia Douglass...

Women deans' perceptions of the gender gap in American medical deanships.

: Women account for 16% of deans of American medical schools. To investigate this gender gap, female deans were interviewed about the barriers facing women advancing toward deanships. The author conducted semi-structured interviews with eight women deans. Interviews were analyzed using provisional coding and sub coding techniques. Four main themes emerged during the interviews: (1) the role of relationships in personal and career development, (2) leadership challenges, (3) barriers between women and leadership advancement, and (4) recommendations for improvement. Recommendations included allocating resources, mentorship, career flexibility, faculty development, updating the criteria for deanships, and restructuring search committees. The barriers identified by the deans are similar to those found in previous studies on female faculty and department chairs, suggesting limited improvement in gender equity progress.

Women in Academic Medicine.

More than a decade ago, women achieved parity with men in the number of matriculants to medical school, nearly one-third of the faculty of medical schools were women, and there were some women deans and department chairs. These trends were promising, but today there are still significant differences in pay, academic rank, and leadership positions for women compared with men in academic medicine. Though there has been progress in many areas, the progress is too slow to achieve previously recommended goals, such as 50% women department chairs by 2025 and 50% women deans by 2030.The author points to the findings presented in the articles from the Research Partnership on Women in Biomedical Careers in this issue, as well as research being published elsewhere, as an evidence base for the ongoing discussion of gender equity in academic medicine. More attention to culture and the working environment will be needed to achieve true parity for women in academic medical careers.

Deans of Women and the Feminist Movement by Kelly C. Sartorius (review)

Deans of Women and the Feminist Movement by Kelly C. Sartorius (review)

Business Lawyer, Woman Warrior: An Allegory of Feminine and Masculine Theories

The first part of this essay is a discourse on how two of the last half century’s most influential contributions to legal thinking: Law and Economics Jurisprudence and Feminist Legal Theory, whose adherents are normally adversaries, can function synergistically to create a greater analytic power. Using business law issues as an example - historically law and economics’ terrain but recently explored by feminism - I comment on how each can unravel different knots but each standing alone leave other conundrums unresolved.Expanding on the feminist concept of “masculine thinking,” I discuss how, just as law and economics’ analytic style (i.e., “masculine thinking”) by itself with regard to business law concerns is both enlightening but also limiting, so is feminism (i.e., “feminine thinking.”) A collaboration of the two would create a greater whole then either of the individual parts.This essay is a contribution to an international anthology in honor of Yvette Merchiers, who in addition to being the first woman law professor and first woman dean of the Law Faculty at Ghent University, Belgium, was also one of the leading business law scholars in Europe in her time. As Professor Merchiers entered the all-male world of law academia in a heretofore all male field of business law to great success, it seems appropriate to examine the development of her career and her scholarly contributions with the conjoined lens of “masculine” and “feminine” thinking. Not surprisingly, though Professor Merchiers’ career began well before the prominence of the 2nd wave of feminism, we find that she intuitively adopted both “masculine” and “feminine” thinking in her writings, her professional development and her personal style.

The peaceful atom comes to campus

Youthful idealism, institutional ambition, and Cold War sensibilities all helped shape the Michigan Memorial–Phoenix Project, the University of Michigan’s tribute to fallen World War II soldiers.