Dive Brief:
- The American Council on Education announced the Moving the Needle campaign this week, calling for support from higher education leaders to ensure half of all college and university chief executives are women by 2030.
- In announcing the initiative, ACE highlighted the fact that women now earn more than half of all college degrees but have made little progress in college leadership — from 2006 to 2011, the portion of college and university presidencies held by women rose by just five percentage points, to 26%.
- ACE is calling on current leaders to commit to sponsor and mentor female prospects, taking every vacancy as “an opportunity to advance women.”
Dive Insight:
Goals of the ACE campaign include generating a national sense of urgency around gender parity in higher education leadership, encouraging governing boards and decision-making bodies in higher education to consider new policies and practices for recruiting women, and building capacity in women at institutions. Already, 109 college and university leaders have pledged their commitment to the goal.
White women have been the single greatest beneficiaries of affirmative action programs since their inception, evidenced in part by the current gender dynamics in higher education graduation rates. Access to the highest levels of leadership, however, have remained elusive. Yet as campus protests continue to challenge racial climates on campuses across the country, higher education decision-makers would do well to consider under-representation from all excluded groups.