With over 60% of sitting presidents age 61 or older, higher education will see an unprecedented turnover in its leadership in the next decade. This presents a historic opportunity to shape the leadership of our nation’s colleges and universities for the decades to follow. The need is urgent and the demand is high; this will require the commitment and attention of sitting presidents and their boards, in partnership with affinity organizations and groups, to identify and prepare leaders who have the skill sets, attributes, and gender and demographic diversity to lead our contemporary higher education institutions effectively.
There are lessons to be learned from the corporate sector showing that women’s talents and management styles make them outstanding leaders. Studies of corporate-sector organizations ascribe such attributes to women leaders as innovative, productive, and successful. Indeed, gender diversity brings benefits in advancing the productivity and culture of complex organizations. Among other findings, women-led or women-governed organizations demonstrate financial success, productivity, innovation, employee satisfaction, retention, engagement, and positive reputations. Certainly the benefits associated with women leaders in the private sector should and do apply to colleges and universities as complex organizations in their own right.
Today, women hold 30% of our college and university presidencies. Progress has been made, but gains have been incremental at best, and parity remains substantially unmet in achieving a proportionate representation of women serving in the presidency.
ACE Leadership has launched an initiative called Moving the Needle: Advancing Women Leaders in Higher Education. The mission of the Moving the Needle initiative is to:
Create parity for women holding, and aspiring to hold, leadership positions in the academy through partnerships with higher education institutions, their presidents and governing boards, and other organizations, profit and nonprofit, with mutual goals of advancing women to senior-level decision-making and policymaking leadership positions.
The goal—an audacious one—is to achieve parity, with women holding at least 50% of chief executive positions in higher education by 2030.