Women Presidents Research Articles

A milestone in the pursuit of gender equality: Predicting first women presidents in U.S. higher education institutions, 1980–2018

AbstractWhile women’s higher education enrollments and graduation rates have outpaced those of men in the United States and most countries around the world, women are less frequently included in academic leadership roles, including the higher education presidency. This paper asks what predicts whether and when a higher education institution has its first woman president, conceptualizing this event as a milestone of gender equality. We use a national probability sample of 234 four‐year U.S. universities and colleges, constructing a novel longitudinal dataset from 1980 to 2018. Employing event history analysis, we examine the potential mechanisms associated with when an institution has its first woman president over time. Our findings suggest that the demographic diversity of faculty and students, gender‐ and diversity‐supportive structures, and the broader environment in which institutions are embedded predict the likelihood that a woman will advance to the level of the presidency. In particular, the presence of gender studies programs and a higher proportion of women in state legislatures increase the likelihood that an institution will have its first woman president. At a time of growing challenges facing U.S. higher education, coupled with greater opportunities from having more diverse students and faculty, universities and colleges increasingly recognize the benefit of women leaders.

Empowering the Next Generation: Unveiling Leadership Motivators for Millennial Women in Christian Higher Education

Over the past decade, the rate of presidential turnover in higher education has accelerated, prompting research on what motivates the next generation of leaders. This article focuses on millennial women in Christian higher education, a sector where White male leaders have historically dominated: Women have remained underrepresented in college presidencies despite earning the majority of degrees at all levels. Although leadership literature has addressed that women have broken beyond the glass ceiling toward improved gender equity, both gender and generational barriers continue to impede a woman’s ambition to pursue a presidency. The research herein was conducted using the theoretical framework by Dahlvig and Longman, a women’s leadership development model, to investigate further millennial women’s intrinsic and extrinsic motivators to aspire and pursue a presidency in Christian higher education. This article explores the relevant literature and examines the findings from interviews of 12 millennial women participants who work at Christian colleges and universities within the Council for Christian Colleges & Universities. Seven major themes emerged from the data: (a) patient preparation for the presidency; (b) the value of relationships, recognition, and representation; (c) how the experiences of current leaders differ; (d) what it means to be intrinsically wired as a leader; (e) care for the well-being of the institution; (f) exercising faith over fear; and (g) transformation through developmental relationships with mentors, coaches, and sponsors. These findings contribute to an understanding of the motivators of millennial women as they contrast with previous generations. Findings also support the adapted model proposed here, the millennial women’s leadership development model, as well as offering practical implications for campus leaders and aspiring women presidents.

Men as Advocates for Women in Leadership

Despite improvements in gender equity within higher education nationally, underrepresentation in women’s leadership persists in Christian higher education. As women in leadership navigate the context of member institutions of the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities (CCCU), characteristics of evangelical culture (e.g., theological views of gender, traditional gender role expectations) may at times impede these relationships across gender; however, some evidence has suggested that women who attained a presidency within a CCCU institution have identified male advocates to be influential in their leadership journeys. The purpose of this study was to examine the experiences of men who had been identified by women presidents of CCCU institutions as having been advocates in their leadership identity development and journeys. This article explored the findings of a hermeneutic phenomenological analysis of data from interviews with 14 male participants nominated by women presidents of CCCU institutions across North America. The findings of this study centered on three themes: (a) the pursuit of theological congruence, (b) gender blind, the double bind, and being first, and (c) pragmatism and persuasion. Based on these findings, the interdependence of organizational culture, self-awareness, and the social construction of a leadership identity through reciprocal relationships was discussed. Implications for practice include recommendations for evaluating institutional contexts and personal biases, as well as cultivating reciprocal relationships between women and men.

Women’s Movements Under Women Presidents: Bringing a Gender Perspective to the Legal System

Women’s Movements Under Women Presidents: Bringing a Gender Perspective to the Legal System

‘Being an Alevi Woman Means Enlightenment and Freedom’: Insights into Gender Equality through Cemevi and Dergah Case Studies in Istanbul

Abstract The main aim of this study is to demonstrate the principle of gender equality in relation to its spatial and practical implementation in Alevi places of worship (cemevi and dergah) and in participatory roles within Alevi institutions from two perspectives. Firstly, in terms of women’s empowerment and participation at the administrative level through case studies of Hazreti Ali Cemevi in Sultangazi and Karaağaç Bektaşi Dergah in Sütlüce, both of which are presided over by women presidents. Secondly, in relation to spatial access and participation in rituals and religious festivities at the small Adalar Cemevi located on the multi-faith Burgaz Island analysed in comparative perspective with the extensive Kartal Cemevi situated in the Muslim majority district of Kartal. This study also briefly addresses the erosion of Alevi gender principles within the urban setting and its attributing factors.

Student affairs career path leads to college presidency

Berenecea Johnson Eanes, Ph.D., President of York College (City University of New York), embraces creating and sustaining supportive networks, noting that succeeding in academic leadership requires like‐ minded people who share your goals. There's a distinct support system among the presidents of CUNY institutions, said Eanes, who's also a member of the Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority. She attended a summit with a group of AKA college presidents. Eanes keeps the flyer with everyone's email addresses and phone numbers close at hand. “As women presidents, we tend to check on and look out for each other,” Eanes says.

Women Representation in Anesthesiology Society Leadership Positions.

Although the number of women in medicine has increased, women remain underrepresented in leadership positions, specifically in medical societies. Specialty societies in medicine are influential in networking, career advancement, research and education opportunities, and providing awards and recognition. The goals of this study are to examine the representation of women in leadership positions in anesthesiology societies compared to women society members and women anesthesiologists and to analyze the trend in women society presidents over time. A list of anesthesiology societies was obtained from the American Society of Anesthesiology (ASA) website. Society leadership positions were obtained via the societies' websites. Gender was determined by images on the society website and images or pronouns on hospital websites and research databases. The percentage of women presidents, vice presidents/presidents-elect, secretaries/treasurers, board of directors/council members, and committee chairs was calculated. The percentage of women in society leadership positions was compared to the percentage of women society members when available, and the percentage of women anesthesiologists in the workforce (26%) using binomial difference of unpaired proportions tests. The trend of women presidents from 1980 to 2020 was analyzed using a Cochran-Armitage trend test. A total of 13 societies were included in this study. Overall, women held 32.6% (189/580) of leadership positions. 38.5% (5/13) of presidents, 17.6% (3/17) of presidents-elect/vice presidents, and 45% (9/20) of secretaries/treasurers were women. In addition, 30.0% (91/303) of board of directors/council members and 34.2% (90/263) of committee chairs were women. The percentage of women holding society leadership positions was significantly greater than the percentage of women anesthesiologists in the workforce ( P < .001), as was the percentage of women as committee chairs ( P = .003). The percentage of women society members was available for 9 of 13 societies (69%), and the percentage of women leaders was similar to the percentage of women society members ( P = .10). There was a significant difference in the percentage of women leaders between society size categories. Small societies had 32.9% (49/149) women leaders, medium had 39.4% (74/188) women leaders, and the single large society had 27.2% (66/243) ( P = .03). There were also significantly more women leaders in the Society of Cardiovascular Anesthesiologists (SCA) than there are women members ( P = .02). This study suggests that anesthesia societies may be more inclusive of women in leadership positions compared to other specialty societies. Although in anesthesiology, women remain underrepresented in academic leadership roles, there is a higher proportion of women in leadership roles in anesthesiology societies than proportion of women in the anesthesia workforce.

Institutional predictors of campus sexual misconduct reporting: the role of gender in leadership

ABSTRACT Sexual misconduct remains at crisis levels on American college campuses and is vastly underreported. Most research focuses on individual level risks of assault and perpetration, yet campuses vary significantly in sexual offenses and reporting rates. The current study responds to calls to consider institutional factors that shape campus climates for sexual misconduct and reporting. We consider the role of gender in leadership, analyzing the impact of women's appointment as college president on reporting rates over time. We consider individual and organizational mechanisms that may shape the impact of women's appointment on reporting rates. Our analyses rely on data from U.S. colleges and universities between 2005-2020. We find that the appointment of women presidents is associated with a significant increase in reporting of sexual misconduct. We observe a significant increase in reporting during the first year following the appointment and a continued increase in reporting rates over time.

Crisis, Gender Role Congruency, and Perceptions of Executive Leadership

At a time of pandemics, international economic downturns, and increasing environmental threats due to climate change, countries around the world are facing numerous crises. What impact might we expect these crises to have on the already common perception that executive leadership is a masculine domain? For years, women executives’ ability to lead has been questioned (Jalalzai 2013). However, the outbreak of COVID-19 brought headlines like CNN’s “Women Leaders Are Doing a Disproportionately Great Job at Handling the Pandemic” (Fincher 2020). Do crises offer women presidents and prime ministers opportunities to be perceived as competent leaders? Or do they prime masculinized leadership expectations and reinforce common conceptions that women are unfit to lead? We maintain that people’s perceptions of crisis leadership will depend on whether the crisis creates role (in)congruity between traditional gender norms and the leadership expectations generated by the particular crisis.

Geoffrey Kaye Oration 2021: Challenges and cherished moments in Australian anaesthesia, as seen by the women Presidents of the Australian Society of Anaesthetists

Geoffrey Kaye Oration 2021: Challenges and cherished moments in Australian anaesthesia, as seen by the women Presidents of the Australian Society of Anaesthetists

Celebrating the women Presidents of the Australian Society of Anaesthetists

Celebrating the women Presidents of the Australian Society of Anaesthetists

So much more than research: Learning from women leaders in philosophy of education

This special issue includes a series of interviews with the past women presidents of the Philosophy of Education Society of Australasia (PESA), including Felicity Haynes, Nesta Devine, Tina Besley, and Liz Jackson. This article sets the stage for reading the interviews, though an extended dialogue between the two authors of this project. In what follows, the authors reflect on insights gleaned from the interviews, and the past and future of women leadership in philosophy of education. Using a dialogical format, it highlights different experiences and similar challenges across generations, questions what has changed versus what has stayed the same over decades, and elaborates on the value of the interviews for readers coming from different academic generations and subject positions. It reflects on the state of the field and its future directions from the perspectives of two women philosophers working and thinking across generations.

Women in Nephrology: The Journey, Barriers, Challenges and the Future

Women in Nephrology: The Journey, Barriers, Challenges and the Future

Women’s movements under women presidents: bringing a gender perspective to the legal system

ABSTRACT Few women have risen to the ranks of heads of state or government worldwide. The low numbers of female presidents and prime ministers in world history have left many untested assumptions about the impact of female leadership on the lives of fellow women. This article builds upon two bodies of work – studies of female presidencies, on the one hand, and on women’s movement-building, particularly in South and South-East Asia, on the other – to focus on the relationship between women leaders and women’s movements. Utilising case studies of national law reform during the presidencies of Corazon Aquino (1986–1992) and Gloria Macapagal Arroyo (2001–2010) in the Philippines and Megawati Sukarnoputri (2001–2004) in Indonesia, and drawing from key informant interviews in both countries, I argue that when women lead, women’s movements employ particular strategies to catalyse the passage of ‘women-friendly’ legislation. Examples of law reform illustrate the power of the female vote to sway presidential decision-making and the flow-on effect of a president who values the participation of fellow women in the government bureaucracy. Yet the relationship between female presidents and the success of movements is neither clear-cut nor linear. Women’s movements face opportunities and limitations under the leadership of women presidents, often having to compromise their agendas to achieve a united front.

The Under-representation of Canadian Women in Gastroenterology from Residency to Leadership.

BackgroundTo determine representation of women in gastroenterology (GI) at residency and leadership levels in Canada.MethodsThe Canadian Resident Matching Service provided data for internal medicine (IM), general surgery (GS), GI and cardiology applicant cycles 2014 to 2018. Z-tests were used to compare proportion of women entering each residency program. An internet search was conducted to calculate percentages of women as GI association presidents, residency program directors, division heads and oral speakers at conferences.ResultsIM residency had on average of 1789 applicants with 487 matched (49.4% versus 49.5% women). GS residency had on average 357 applicants with 90 matched (41% versus 54.4% women). GI residency had on average 46 applicants with 34 matched (37% versus 35.3% women). Cardiology residency had on average 76 applicants with 54 matched (29% versus 27.8% women).The Canadian Association of Gastroenterology (CAG) has had two out of 47 (4.2%) women presidents. The Ontario Association of Gastroenterology (OAG) has had no women presidents (0/9). The Association des gastro-entérologues du Québec (AGEQ) has had two out of 15 (13%) women presidents. The Alberta Society of Gastroenterology (ASG) has had one out of five (20%) women presidents. From 2018 to 2020, university division heads ranged from 0% to 13.3% women (0 to 2/15). University GI training program directors ranged from 28.6% to 35.7% (4 to 5/14). Women speakers at CAG’s annual conference varied 27% to 42% from 2016 to 2020, averaging 32.7%. Women speakers at OAG’s, AGEQ’s and ASG’s annual conferences averaged 23.3%, 24.1% and 35%, respectively.ConclusionWomen gastroenterologists display low representation at multiple levels along the GI career pathway.

El Liderazgo de mujeres en organizaciones sociales. Análisis en las Juntas de Acción Comunal de Tunja- Colombia

This article presents the results of a qualitative investigation carried out on ten women presidents of the Community Action Boards (JAC) of Tunja, Colombia, in order to understand the leadership exercised in their administration. For this, were used a documentary analysis and a semi-structured interview, in which were studied three dimensions: leadership, family and government. It found the existence of obstacles from society and the communities they serve, as well as pressure from the family, which makes it difficult for them to carry out this work and pushes them not to be reelected in these positions.

Madame President, Madame Ambassador? Women Presidents and Gender Parity in Latin America’s Diplomatic Services

This study focuses on the gendered nature of ambassadorial appointments. Analyzing the diplomatic services of ten Latin American countries between 2000 and 2018, we examine the factors that explain the designation of women to ambassadorships. More especially, we are interested in whether the election of women to the presidency in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and Costa Rica had an impact on the gender gap at the top of those countries’ foreign services. Drawing on an original dataset on diplomatic appointments, we show that the presence of women ambassadors has increased only marginally over the past two decades. Furthermore, multivariate regression analysis demonstrates that women presidents on the left have (partially and temporarily) corrected the gender gap in their foreign services through political appointments, provided they had the discretionary powers to do so. Our findings suggest that the impact of women-led presidencies is conditional on the chief executive’s vested interest in gender parity and the scope of presidents’ prerogatives to appoint ambassadors. In so doing, the study contributes to debates on the descriptive underrepresentation of women in executive positions and the gender gap in diplomacy.

Luminaries: The Women Presidents of HRS

Luminaries: The Women Presidents of HRS

Representation of women among leadership and honorees within the Society of Abdominal Radiology, past and present.

To evaluate gender diversity over time within the leadership and honorees of the Society of Abdominal Radiology with comparison to other radiologic societies. This was a retrospective, observational study of the gender distribution of presidents and gold meal awardees within the Society of Abdominal Radiology (SAR) compared to three national radiology organizations: the American College of Radiology (ACR), the American Roentgen Ray Society (ARRS), and the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA). Data were collected from the inception of each society through 2020. Societies were directly contacted for president and Gold Medal awardee names when this information was not available on society websites. Differences in the proportion of female presidents and Gold Medal awardees before and after 2012, by society, were performed using χ2 test; 2012 was selected as a threshold year as this represented when SAR was created. The proportion of female past presidents was 5%, 9%, and 33% for the SGR, SUR, and SAR, respectively, and 5%, 4%, and 7% for the ACR, ARRS, and RSNA, respectively. The proportion of female Gold Medal awardees was 5%, 4%, and 10% for the SGR, SUR, and SAR, respectively, and 5%, 7%, and 7%, respectively, for ACR, ARRS, and RSNA. There was a statistically significant increase in the proportion of women presidents and honorees in all societies after 2012 compared to before 2012, but no significant difference between societies in either time period. A higher proportion of female presidents and honorees were demonstrated across all societies after 2012.

A Longitudinal Study of Gender Parity Trends of General Membership and Leadership in the Neurocritical Care Society between 2002 and 2019.

Several studies in critical care and neurology demonstrate women under-representation in professional societies; representation trends within the Neurocritical Care Society (NCS) are unknown. We examined longitudinal gender parity trends in membership and leadership within NCS. A retrospective study of NCS membership and leadership rosters was conducted. To determine gender, self-reported binary gender was extracted. For individuals without recorded gender, a systematic Web-based search to identify usage of gender-specific pronouns in publicly available biographies was performed. According to previously published methods, available photographs were utilized to record presumed gender identification in the absence of available pronoun descriptors. We analyzed available data longitudinally from 2002 to 2019 and performed descriptive statistical and linear regression analyses. In overall membership, the proportion of women members demonstrated an average 11% increase between 2005 and 2018 (95% confidence interval (CI) - 8.1 to 30.1, p = 0.08). The proportion of women Board of Directors (BOD) members increased significantly over time to 50% in 2019. There was an increase in women Officers from 0% in the first 3years (2002-2004) to 40% in 2019, with two women Presidents out of 17 from 2002 to 2019. For available Executive Committee rosters, there was a statistically significant nearly 3% increase per year (95% CI 1.5-4; p = 0.0007) in the proportion of women members. Rosters for Committee members and chairpersons were also incomplete, but in an analysis of the available data, there was a statistically significant increase of 5% per year analyzed (95% CI 0.5-9.7; p = 0.04) in the proportion of women Committee members. We also found a statistically significant 4.3% increase per year analyzed (95% CI 2.4-6.1; p = 0.003) in the proportion of women Committee chairpersons. This is the first study of longitudinal gender parity trends within neurocritical care. We report that from 2002 to 2019, the NCS has undergone a significant increase in women representation in general membership, committee membership, and leadership positions.