The Leadership Institute, funded by the National Science Foundation to encourage women faculty in engineering and science to prepare for academic leadership roles, was designed to increase the accessibility of such training for faculty in the Midwest by providing short-term workshops within their geographic area at low cost. The leadership training was limited to women who had already received tenure and focused on the portable business and leadership skills women need to make a successful entry into department chair and dean positions. The participants learned about budgeting conventions at their home campuses, but most of the training was designed to generally equip them for academic leadership roles. This article describes the training and reports the results of longitudinal data collection to document the movement of women faculty into named leadership positions and assess the effectiveness of the leadership training
The Leadership Institute was funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) to encourage women faculty in engineering and science to prepare for academic leadership roles. The training for individuals was coupled with longi-tudinal data collection so that the movement of women faculty into named leadership positions could be documented. The longitudinal data are also helpful in assessing the effectiveness of the leadership training.
The Leadership Institute hoped to increase the representation of women in higher education leadership positions (chair, dean, and so forth) and support the NSF ADVANCE goal “to facilitate women’s advancement to the highest ranks of academic leadership.” The Institute was limited to women who had already received tenure and were in areas of study sup-ported by NSF (biology and biochemistry, chemistry, computer science, economics, engineering, geology, mathematics, physics, political science, and technology). The Leadership Institute was designed to increase the accessibility of such training for faculty in the Midwest by providing short-term workshops within their geographic area at low cost. The leadership training focused on the portable business and leadership skills (Groysberg 2008) needed for women to make a successful entry into department chair and dean positions. The participants were asked to learn about budgeting conventions at their home campuses, but most of the training was designed to generally equip them for academic leadership roles.
Background
Available information is sparse regarding women in leadership positions in the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) disciplines. The lack of literature is most likely due to the small number of women faculty in STEM and an even smaller number who have risen to leadership positions. Because of the trickle-down effect of few role models for women engineering students, “The dearth of academic women engineers in visible leadership positions perpetuates the under-representation of women engineers in academia, industry and government” (Love et al. 2004). Two significant publications by the National Academy of Sciences (Long 2001; Greenwood 2000) reported that less than 20% of tenured professors were women in science and engineering in 1995. Both publications ended their analyses of women’s success with tenure, but as tenured women are the available pool for leadership positions, the reports illustrated the bleak potential for substantially increasing the number of women from science and engineering as academic leaders in the near future.
Department Chairwomen
Nelson (2002) reported the percentage of department chairs held by women and minority men for several disciplines in the sciences and engineering; percentages ranged from 4 (computer science) to 29 (electrical engineering), with a median of 13.5%. Nelson’s data did not distinguish between female and Asian or minority male chairs; however, one would not expect that women would completely populate the chair positions. Niemeier and González (2004) surveyed engineering chairs at Association of American Universities campuses and found that 10% of mathematics, physical science, and engineering departments were led by women. According to Niemeier and González, “Becoming a department chair represents a critical test of the talent and resources considered necessary for higher level administrative positions … and often provides the successful chair with a prominent position whose influence outlasts the tenure as chair.” Departmental chairs provide the most significant pool for dean candidates, and a small chairwoman pool will presumably yield an even smaller number of sitting female deans.
Deans
In fact, there were only 15 women deans of engineering programs in 2003 (Layne 2003) out of a total engineering dean population in excess of 300. This number swelled to 23 by 2006 (Layne 2005, 2006) and then leveled off (Layne 2007). A close examination of the individual women engineering deans revealed significant movement (entrances and exits) within the dean corps. Exits of women from deanships are not generally due to attrition, but rather to advancement of these women into central administration posts (e.g., provost, chancellor).
Academic Upper Administration
Greenwood (2000), who was president of one of the University of California campuses, believed, “There is promise that in the next there will be substantially more female leaders in many areas of science.” An article in the Chronicle of Higher Education (Lively 2000) quoted a major search firm as saying, “We are five or six years away from the floodgates opening up” regarding successful women candidates for university presidencies. In addition, some research suggests that obstacles such as failure to be awarded department chair slots may not necessarily impede women’s progress. McKenney and Cejda (2001) reported that, while some women are promoted predictably from faculty to department chair to the dean’s office, some women are able to jump over intermediary layers. They concluded, “It would appear that for women a variety of credentials and experiences have become the medium of exchange.”
Switzer (2006) shared insight from women university presidents:
“Critical changes have reshaped contemporary organizations (flatter structure, self-managed teams, workforce diversity, and strategic alliances). As a result, organizations require leaders with strong relational abilities and team-oriented management, skills that have traditionally been associated with women.
“None of the women moved into senior administrative positions because they were unhappy with what they were doing. All enjoyed the successes and visibility of their early work as professors.… They did, however, become interested in the bigger picture somewhere along their journeys in these earlier positions. They especially enjoyed working in multidimensional assignments.”
Training Venues
Excellent leadership workshops exist to prepare faculty and educational administrators for administrative positions. The well-known Summer Institute for Women in Higher Education Administration at Bryn Mawr is one such program. However, it requires a substantial time commitment and, in these tight budget times, a high financial commitment as well. Within Missouri, the university system sponsors a President’s Academic Leadership Institute, but it is open only to sitting department chairs. It is not open to faculty preparing for or considering chairships or positions in deans’ offices. The American Council on Education programs are praised by sitting women college presidents (Madsen and Turnbull 2006).
A need exists for affordable and accessible leadership training for faculty women in engineering and the sciences who are in the stage of considering making the leap from faculty member to administrator. The NSF-funded Leadership Institute described in this paper was designed to allow women faculty to explore opportunities in leadership and be prepared when opportunities for advancement arose so that the on-the-job learning was minimized and success was optimized. The opportunity to obtain business and leadership training before entering an academic leadership position gave these women faculty a strategic advantage.
The literature reflects some progress on female representation in academic leadership roles. More important than the increase in women leaders is the indication that good administrative candidates are successful in these roles. Women faculty willing to accept leadership appointments are finding appropriate training and mentoring. Well-qualified women engineering academics are being added to the pool of leadership aspirants, which benefits everyone in the academy.
Leadership Workshop
The Leadership Institute’s NSF ADVANCE award spanned and supported three cohorts of participants. Each cohort was small in number, 15 to 30 women, because the sessions were designed to be highly interactive with individualized materials. Each year, the Institute was delivered as two separate sessions, each in duration ( total). The content of the Institute was developed and delivered by faculty and staff from the Midwest Center for Nonprofit Leadership at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. The sessions were similar to other nonprofit leadership development programs, with special attention to women in academia. They were interactive and included homework assignments to help maintain focus on the leadership training between sessions. Before and during the sessions, participants completed inventories measuring perceptions of leadership skills, communication styles, and conflict resolution modes. Guest speakers and role models were a particularly important feature of the Institute. Guest speakers were drawn from a range of fields and positions, including the following:
•
Former university president;
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Current university chancellor;
•
Two university curators (university governing board);
•
Former Ms. Black America;
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Current department chairwoman;
•
Industry vice presidents; and
•
University and consulting finance officers.
The Leadership Institute was designed to help participants bridge the gap between faculty responsibilities and leadership positions. Wolverton et al. (2005) provided an excellent survey of academic department chair attributes and pitfalls and reflected on the preparation of chairs from the faculty:
“Research is carried out, for the most part, in isolation or within small groups of extremely like-minded colleagues by individuals who thrive on independence and resent interference. In contrast, managing and leading academic departments is a communal affair. Department chairs no longer have the luxury of long, protracted, uninterrupted expanses of time to think, ponder and write. By its very nature, the department chairship is a series of interruptions and interactions with many people at multiple levels of the institution. Interpersonal skills, the ability to communicate, the willingness to respond rapidly to situations, among other skills, which are not requisite to being a good faculty member, are essential to being an effective department chair.”
The Leadership Institute was designed to have participants
•
gain basic knowledge of leadership dynamics in the higher education organizational setting;
•
increase self-awareness in personal leadership styles and understand the potential implications of future leadership roles in higher education;
•
be able to distinguish between leadership and management and the relevant applications for higher education;
•
develop basic knowledge of communication dynamics within higher education organizations;
•
enhance self-awareness of their personal communication style and understand its implications for their future leadership roles in higher education;
•
gain basic knowledge of strategic financial management as practiced in higher education;
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develop a basic understanding of strategies by which to build and sustain effective external relationships with key stakeholders; and
•
develop a personal action plan for sustaining personal health and life balance while achieving professional success in leadership roles in higher education.
Session topics and assignments are outlined in Table 1.
Table 1. Leadership Institute Activities
Timing
Activity
Part I (Days 1 and 2)
1. Leadership in public service organizations
2. Leadership perspectives
3. Effective leadership behaviors and practices
4. Communication and higher education organizations
5. Strategic management in higher education organizations
6. Emotional intelligence: The other side of leadership
7. Introduction to strategic financial management
8. The business of mentoring
Intersession homework
1. Each participant was tasked with learning about the budgeting structure at her university. The assignment included collecting typical financial reports for department chairs and interviewing their fiscal officer.
2. Each participant was tasked with identifying a mentor at her home institution and was asked to report to the Institute group how she established a relationship or intended to enhance her relationship with her mentor.
Part II (Days 3 and 4)
1. Strategic financial management
2. Conflict management
3. Strategic management in higher education organizations
4. Life balance and prime time
5. Personal action plan
6. The business of coaching and mentoring
7. Attitude and image
Leadership Institute Participation and Evaluation
Participants and Procedures
Selection criteria included faculty membership in NSF-supported areas (biology and biochemistry, chemistry, computer science, economics, engineering, geology, mathematics, physics, political science, and technology) and prior award of tenure. Participants could be faculty members or current university administrators who met the selection criteria. Participants were responsible for travel and lodging, but all costs associated with the Institute were paid for by the NSF ADVANCE award.
Assessment and Evaluation
Five years of longitudinal data were collected on the leadership activities of participants to measure the impact of the Leadership Institute on their careers. Participants were asked to describe their current leadership activities when they applied for the Institute. These data served as the baseline measure of leadership activities. At the end of each academic year for , participants were asked to report leadership activities from that academic year.
For individual assessment of leadership potential, the Leadership Practices Inventory—Updated (LPI; Posner and Kouzes 1993) was administered. The inventory was designed to measure five leadership practices—Model the Way, Inspire a Shared Vision, Challenge the Process, Enable Others to Act, and Encourage the Heart. Thirty items are rated on a 10-point scale; higher scores indicate greater evidence of the practice. Participants completed a self-survey and asked supervisors, peers, and direct reports to complete observer surveys. Each individual’s summary LPI report provides graphs with the ratings from each type of respondent so that the participant can compare her perceptions of her own leadership practices with the perceptions of supervisors, peers, and subordinates. The LPI was administered before the first session and again at the end of the 3rd and 5th year following the workshop. The participants were provided with a copy of The Jossey-Bass Academic Administrator’s Guide to Exemplary Leadership by Kouzes and Posner (2003) after the completion of the leadership training.
Each of the two leadership sessions was evaluated by participants with regard to usefulness of the information provided and level of participant satisfaction with the materials, presentation, speakers, facilities, and so forth. The participants valued personal inventories of communication (Jones and Mok 1977) and conflict style (Thomas 1992) in evaluations of the leadership training; the Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument and Communication Styles Survey were novel assessments for the participants. Regular faculty are seldom exposed to such assessment techniques, and these particular assessments answered developmental needs for the participants.
In response to the question, “What were the major benefits you received from participating in the Leadership Institute?” participants reported that the Institute
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“gave me a good chance to look objectively at myself and my career goals” ;
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“presented new ideas and approaches” ;
•
“acquainted me with problems and solutions” ;
•
“helped confirm some of my ideas” ; and
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other : “networking,” “support,” “allowed me to understand the dynamics of leadership, the responsibilities that go with it, conflict management, my current leadership style, and how to project my image more positively.”
Longitudinal Results
Baseline Status and Five-Year Leadership Roles
A summary of Year 5 findings is presented in Table 2. A major purpose of the Institute was to provide leadership training to women faculty who were not yet in administrative positions but who might be considering leadership roles in academe. Although most participants were not administrators, many performed leadership activities in professional associations or within their academic departments.
Table 2. Progress of Leadership Roles
Position title
Initial position(n)
Position after (n)
Associate professor (no administrative duties)
9
0
Professor (no administrative duties)
2
5
Associate chair
0
2
Department chair
2
3
Center director
1
2
Assistant dean
1
0
Dean
0
2
Central administration
1
1
National Science Foundation program officer
1
2
Individual Assessment
The LPI baseline results for the group are presented in Fig. 1. As discussed earlier, participants completed a self-inventory, and supervisors, direct reports, and peers completed observer inventories at their home institutions.
Fig. 1. Leadership assessment of faculty participants (self-assessment and observer assessment) at time of training and later ( Practices Inventory—Updated; Posner and Kouzes 1993)
Discussion
The data reveal objective recognition of the cohort’s leadership abilities. Table 2 shows a significant movement from traditional faculty roles to externally recognized, formal leadership titles. The authors acknowledge that the participants self-selected for the leadership training and brought their own motivation. It is difficult to discern the effect of the Leadership Institute on the participants’ development, but the literature acknowledges the general need for administrative training, leadership exploration, and mentoring. What can be said is that these seventeen women stepped into academic leadership roles.
The LPI data (Fig. 1) show a consistent improvement in specific leader attributes. At the end of , all categories show that the observers rated the participant higher than she rated herself. Observer ratings are more independent measures of leadership, because the assessments were made by outside, interested parties. The leadership training might claim more influence on these data because significant time during the workshop was dedicated to understanding these leadership attributes and how a participant’s score might be interpreted. A particularly well-received aspect of the Institute was the opportunity to explore individual leadership, communication, and conflict resolution styles.
Overall, participants’ evaluation of the Leadership Institute was very positive. Ratings for the quality of the Institute were high for all categories. In addition, participants reported many beneficial and useful aspects of the Institute.
Recommendations
Encouraging women faculty to consider formal leadership positions and providing structured opportunities to explore those options are likely to result in those faculty members’ participation as academic leaders. A simple act of encouragement might include giving a woman faculty a copy of The Jossey-Bass Academic Administrator’s Guide to Exemplary Leadership (Kouzes and Posner 2003) or another leadership book. Faculty with an interest in leadership are hungry for introspection, mentoring, and basic business skills. The newer, flatter, more participative organizational structures are particularly well suited to women’s leadership styles. Longitudinal data collection on women engineering faculty and leaders is needed to refine our leadership models and to encourage up-and-coming leaders.
Acknowledgments
The NSF ADVANCE Leadership Institute was supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation ADVANCE program (SBE-0318248).
References
Greenwood, M. (2000). “Advancing women into science leadership.” Who Will Do the Science of the Future? A Symposium on Careers of Women in Science, National Academy of Sciences, Committee on Women in Science and Engineering. National Academy Press, Washington, D.C., 59–74.
Lively, K. (2000). “Women in charge: More elite universities hire female provosts, creating a new pool for presidential openings.” Chron. High. Educ., 46(41), A33.
Long, J. S. ed. (2001). From Scarcity to Visibility: Gender Differences in the Careers of Doctoral Scientists and Engineers. National Research Council, Washington, D.C.
Love, N. G., Thole, K. A., and Aref, H. (2004). “Women academic leaders are key to transforming engineering colleges.” [Editorial] Engineering Trends, ⟨http://www.engtrends.com/news-2004-spring.html⟩
McKenney, C. B., and Cejda, B. D. (2001). “The career path and profile of women chief academic officers in public community colleges.” Advancing Women in Leadership, 9(1). ⟨http://www.advancingwomen.com/awl/summer2001/index.html⟩.
Niemeier, D., and González, C. (2004). “Breaking in the guildmasters’ club: What we know about women in science and engineering department chairs at AAU universities.” NWSA Journal, 16(1), 157–171.
Wolverton, M., Ackerman, R., and Holt, S. (2005). “Preparing for leadership: What academic department chairs need to know.” J. High. Edu. Policy Manage., 27(2), 227–238.
Deborah J. O’Bannon is associate professor, Department of Civil and Mechanical Engineering, University of Missouri-Kansas City, Kansas City, MO. She can be contacted via e-mail at: [email protected].
Linda Garavalia is assistant dean and professor of pharmacy, School of Pharmacy, University of Missouri-Kansas City.
David O. Renz is Beth K. Smith/Missouri Chair in Nonprofit Leadership and department chairman of Public Affairs, Bloch School of Business and Public Administration, University of Missouri-Kansas City.
S. Marie McCarther is assistant professor, School of Education, University of Missouri-Kansas City.
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