At Academic Institutions, does having a woman in the top job (or the No. 2 slot) make a difference

?
>
> When it comes to faculty hiring, the answer appears to be Yes. And having a
> critical mass of women on boards of trustees also makes a difference. These
> are the results of a
> studyreleased
> Tuesday by the Cornell Higher Education Research Institute. The arrival of
> significant numbers of women in the academy and among the ranks of senior
> administrators has led to much speculation about the impact of having women
> leaders at institutions doing hiring. The new study -- using a large sample
> of institutions, a long time frame, and a methodology that seeks to account
> for other factors in hiring -- could provide new evidence to those who argue
> that change at the top of institutions is crucial to promoting change at the
> junior faculty ranks as well.
>
> The new study builds on the findings of one
> released by the
> Cornell center in January, finding that women have made slow but steady
> progress in their representation on college boards. Between 1981 and 2007,
> the percentage of trustees who are women increased to 31 percent from 20
> percent. The research was conducted by the Cornell researchers for the
> Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges. When those
> findings were released in January, researchers said that a logical next
> question was to explore the impact of having women in leadership positions.
>
> To examine that question, the new research uses data on hundreds of
> four-year colleges and universities, the gender split on their faculties
> from 1984 to 2007, and information on their presidents, provosts and board
> members. The formula used also takes into consideration the "expected"
> growth in female shares of faculties, by considering the differing supplies
> of female doctorates by field, and the relative emphasis at different
> colleges on fields where there are differing supplies of faculty talent. The
> period studied is one in which the percentage of women on faculties went up,
> although not at the levels of increases seen in the supply of new
> doctorates, so the study compares the relative gender diversification of
> faculties at institutions with differing demographics in senior positions
> and on boards.
>
> Among the findings:
>
> * Institutions with female presidents, female provosts (or academic vice
> presidents), and more women on boards of trustees saw larger increases in
> the share of female faculty members than did other institutions.
> * The magnitude of the impact of women in these positions is greater at
> smaller institutions, which the report suggests may be due to those being
> institutions "where central administrators may play a greater role in
> faculty hiring decisions."
> * The impact of having more women as trustees kicks in only when a
> critical mass has been reached, either of the female proportion on the board
> (25 percent) or the number of women on the board (5).
>
> The study notes that more work is needed to determine how these demographic
> shifts affect hiring. In particular, the authors cite a need for study of
> "on the ground" administrators -- deans and department chairs -- to see if
> their gender make-ups are related to hiring more women. And the study,
> citing a recent report on the hiring of women in science fields, notes that
> the presence of women in certain positions may send signals to applicants.
>
> "The report of a recent National Research Council committee, upon which one
> of us served, found evidence that the gender of the chair of a faculty
> search committee in science and engineering fields at major research
> universities influences the likelihood that female Ph.D.'s will apply for
> the position; apparently knowledge of the gender of the chair of the search
> committee signals something to potential female applicants about the
> seriousness of the department in wanting to expand female faculty employment
> and in providing leadership opportunities for female colleagues," the study
> says.
>
> The authors of the study are Ronald G. Ehrenberg, director of the Cornell
> Higher Education Research Institute; George H. Jakubson, associate professor
> of labor economics at Cornell; Mirinda L. Martin, a doctoral student in
> economics at Cornell; Joyce B. Main, a doctoral student in education at
> Cornell; and Thomas Eisenberg, an undergraduate economics major at
> Swarthmore College.
> - Scott Jaschik
>