Thoughts on university leadership
The “obvious” tension between diversity and quality leapt onto the front page this week through a debate at Smith College. And just in case you’re unsure, the putatively obvious connection is that increasing diversity decreases quality.
The debate at Smith presents a new twist on this issue, and it offers at least two lessons to university leaders everywhere. Click here to read these lessons…
This posting first appeared as a guest blog at University World News on February 19th, 2012. European universities are failing in the way they use human resources. Women are underrepresented at the top levels of academia, and there are good reasons to think that this damages universities. In the 27 countries making up the European Union,… Read More…
The brightly colored Google logo, re-formed as a halo over the head of CEO Larry Page, caught my eye in an airport recently. Under Page’s picture, the cover of Fortune magazine promised a list of the 100 best workplaces, with Google at the head of the pack.
Is there any chance, any hope, any dream, that somewhere on that list, I might find a university?
To my disappointment, the promise on the cover of the 100 best “workplaces” was modified to “companies” on the inside of the magazine, and universities therefore weren’t even considered.
But what if they were? What would it take to get there? Is there anything we can learn from Google? Find out by reading more…
Gender diversity makes organizations better workplaces. Gender diversity makes organizations more profitable.
These are the central conclusions from Women matter: gender diversity, a corporate performance driver. In the five years since its appearance, McKinsey & Company’s report has become one of the most visible works on the value of gender diversity.
As we work together to develop the best arguments for enhanced gender balance in academia, we can look to Women Matter for inspiration.
Successful leaders are like successful researchers. They are creative, they build and use teams, they make contacts across traditional barriers, they motivate others to develop their vision further, and they easily assimilate critique of their ideas and actions. Researchers who make the jump to leadership positions should, in light of these parallels, be particularly adept… Read More…
There are fewer women at the top because they have a different work/life balance than men, it is claimed. Mothers’ careers progress slowly because they are mothers — because they have to spend more time on their children. There’s some appeal in this explanation; it seems intuitively correct. Mothers have greater childcare responsibilities than fathers. And while… Read More…
With focus and commitment, the University of Tromsø has become Norway’s leading university for gender balance. New statistics have arrived and they reveal that 27.4% of our full professors are women.
Tromsø is better than any other institution of higher education in Norway, and it is well ahead of the national average of 23%. Learn why and how we did it.
What should universities and colleges do when students don’t want to take our courses? What if no one wants a degree in German? What if Art History only attracts a handful of students?
We read often about the lost value of humanities degrees for the students who take them and how institutions lose money by maintaining a broad offering. Should we just shut those programs down?
Spanish professors hold women back. The system is easier on men. Women have to do significantly more to reach the top. This is the clear conclusion of the Spanish government’s White Paper on the Position of Women in Science in Spain. Men, the White Paper concludes, are 2.5 times more likely than otherwise identical women to become… Read More…
A decision to implement equality targets is a decision to pursue quality. Equality targets should lead to increased gender balance. And increased gender balance leads to many improvements, such as employee satisfaction and, concomitantly, the productivity of the organization. The concept of targets is the heir to the concept of quotas. And the claim that… Read More…
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