Donald F. Smith, Cornell University
With Julie Kumble
During a presentation on Women’s Leadership
at the AAVMC meeting last week, we confronted the issue of the slow increase in
appointments of women to professorial and senior academic leadership positions over
the past three decades despite vigorous affirmative action policies in the
academy. “Can we learn some lessons from the successful increase in women’s
leadership in places like the Iowa Veterinary Medical Association (IVMA),” we asked,
“or are we going to continue the glacial pace of improvement that characterizes
many of our universities?”
As we reported in a posting here last year,
the IVMA, led by Dr. Tom Johnson, didn’t just increase the depth of the
candidate pool and help people understand and support a broader understanding
of gender diversity, they also fostered institutional change. By modifying the very
basic parameters of office-holding, they increased the pace of change.(1)
“Our leadership profile didn’t just happen,” Johnson told us during our 2013
interview.
Instead, they used a multi-pronged approach.
One was familiar to all of us, and involved developing leadership training
opportunities for the target audience of women and new graduates. The other initiative
was bolder: they made substantive institutional changes in the
association.
Of the several structural changes they instituted,
we mention just two. One was to institute term limits, thereby opening up
opportunities for more people to have a chance at leadership. Second, they
confronted the prevailing dogma that leadership required progressively more
challenging appointments, moving sequentially up the ladder one rung at a time
to attain the necessary qualifications through experience, rather than a
combination of experience AND creative mentoring PLUS targeted educational
opportunities.
How has veterinary academia fared in the
thirty-plus years since we have seen over 50% women enter our US colleges? In
the last five years (2010-2015), the increase in tenure track professorial
positions at all levels has only changed from 32% to 34%. The increase in
faculty administrators, from 25% to just 34%. The percentage of women in all
faculty positions in our 30 colleges ranges from 15% to 49%. Clearly, not what
any of us wants.
Is it time to consider a bolder approach?
How about the following:
Ø
Term limits for deans, associate
and assistant deans, department chairs and directors: four- or five-year terms,
renewable no more than once. In addition to ensuring more frequent turnover of
people in the most senior administrative offices, it would also allow colleges
to prepare two or three years in advance of the appointment, rather than just months
in advance. Though most dean searches are conducted over 12-14 months, the
actual period of inviting people to become candidates is often a mere four
months.(2) By
extending opportunities for inquiry, recruitment and extended visits to one
year or longer, the potential for active consideration of inspiring candidates
could increase exponentially.
Ø
What about changing these job
descriptions to accommodate greater flexibility for high quality candidates
with diverse portfolios? Do all deans need to be internationally-recognized research
scholars? Perhaps we need a less constrained concept of scholarship, one that
reflects the future needs of society rather than the traditional needs of the
academy. Do all deans need to be expert fundraisers, constantly on the move
from meetings a mile away with vice presidents for development, to meetings a
continent away with potential donors? Do we ever really assess the investment
of international travel on time away from our offices and our families? Do deans
really need to spend four hours a week in face-to-face meetings with provosts
and vice presidents? Is it time to say “no” to the unending reports that keep deans
from the important work of meeting with students and faculty, and from their
children? Accountability is important, but so is trust and a lighter hand on
university centralization. Is it time for deans to return to becoming academic
leaders more, and managers of centralized university units less?
“Can’t be done,” some would argue, “because
of federal and state regulations, the tightening university grip, and a myriad
of other challenges.” Perhaps. But with an added measure of creativity, open
minds, and our collective ability to problem solve, we might be able to make
the type of progress that our colleagues in organized veterinary medicine have already
been able to accomplish.
And by doing so, we could really increase the
richness and diversity of the potential applicant pool. Now, THAT would be
affirmative action, and perhaps the graphs would more accurately reflect the
face of veterinary medicine in 2020.
(1) Smith, Donald F. and Julie Kumble. Veterinary Leadership in Iowa. Perspectives in Veterinary Medicine,
December 12, 2013.
(2) The additional time is spent for provost to
meet with stakeholders, for the search committee to be established, and for the
position description to be written and advertised. Following the assembly of a
cohort of applicants, the final several months are devoted to interviews,
selection, and negotiation.