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Beyond the Degree: Menand women at the decision-making levels in Britishhigher educationLALAGE BOWNPublished online: 01 Jul 2010.

To cite this article: LALAGE BOWN (1999) Beyond the Degree: Men andwomen at the decision-making levels in British higher education, Gender andEducation, 11:1, 5-25, DOI: 10.1080/09540259920735

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Gender and Education, Vol. 11, No. 1, pp. 5–25, 1999

Beyond the Degree: men and women at the decision-makinglevels in British higher education

LALAGE BOWN, University of London, UK

ABSTRACT The study is an analysis of gender and power in British universit ies. It draws from alifetime of experience of the dif�culties encountered by those women who do reach senior decision-makingposition s in academic institu tions, in the UK and overseas. It spans a period of forty years which beginswith women as an unassimilated minority among student populations and moves to an analysis of theiropportunities for shared control beneath the glass ceilings of the levels they attain as established academics.A survey of the incumbents of senior management roles in universi ties reveals few women. Fewer attainhonori� c position s. Suggesting that the observations made represent an improvement on the past, the paperpresents two case studies of the implications of senior administrative work for academic women’sprofessional lives. The � rst is of a small universi ty weighted in favour of a narrow band of technologicaldisciplines and the second a large mainstream university with many women staff. From here, commentingon external in�uences in Britain and elsewhere, the paper conclu des by suggesting: ways in which women’sleadership in academic institutions might be encouraged; the role of the professional bodies in monitorin gand promoting this; and the learning required by women themselves to become effective as leaders forchange once in position .

1. Pream ble

This paper was researched and written for the international conference on Transitions inGender and Education, held at the University of Warwick in 1997. It was prompted in partby personal experience; I had reached the age of 70, a transitional time of life whichseemed to me a vantage point for looking backward, taking stock of failures and successesand perhaps deriving lessons of interest to fellow women academics. The study is,however, mainly intended as a general analysis of gender and power in the arena ofBritish universities—informed by my own experience in universities in a number ofcountries, but not dominated by the personal. I do intend to write something moreautobiographical on another occasion.

The study is about universities seen as institutions for research and teaching and forthe dissemination of knowledge. It covers all the institutions in the UK which go by thename of ‘university’ and are in membership of the Association of CommonwealthUniversities. It also covers colleges and research centres associated with these institutions,

Correspondence: Lalage Bown, 1 Dogpole Court, Shrewsbury SY1 1ES, UK.

0954-0253/ 99/010005-21 $7.00 Ó 1999 Carfax Publishing Ltd 5

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6 L. Bown

but not free-standing research centres. For reasons, given later, a glance is also cast atmajor learned societies—not part of ‘higher education’, but key in� uences on scholarshipand higher education policy in the UK. The statistics presented were gathered in 1997.As I suggest later, they need regular updating, but some sampling in mid-1998 indicatedthat there was no signi� cant change from the picture delineated here.

To start with the personal, I have been in academic life (that is employed by orattached to a university) since 1948. Mostly, because I was in Adult Education, I had agreat deal of autonomy. From 1962 I had opportunities to run a university departmentand to sit in a university senate; and from 1966 to 1992 I was a full professor and alwayshead of a department (except for sabbatical interludes). When I was Dean of Educationat the University of Lagos, I had a Faculty of 1200 students and over 200 academics andnon-academic staff, as well as responsibility for buildings and land. At the University ofGlasgow, I was head of department for 11 years, with a full-time academic staff of 23,but over 300 part-timers, running a programme which involved 14,000–15,000 adultstudents a year.

All this is relevant to my theme and perhaps explains my interest in the dif� culties formany women of reaching decision-making levels in academia. I am aware that I havebeen unusually fortunate, as a woman, to have had so much responsibility over such along period. This has of course meant that I have had to face almost all the challengeswhich a woman meets in these roles—the senior government of� cial who � atly refusedto meet me, demanding that the Vice-Chancellor send a man to negotiate with himinstead; a secretary under great stress because she was being laughed at by her fellowsfor working with a woman; the numerous occasions on which there is simple disbeliefthat as a women one could be a professor.

Very early in this rather long (and ful� lling) career, I came to two conclusions. Onewas that it was desperately important to see more of one’s fellow-women in positions ofpower within the system—not for the sake of power or ‘gender tribalism’, but in orderto facilitate decisions about teaching, curricula, research and appropriate work conditionswhich would help women as well as men to gain the maximum chance to realise theirpotential and contribute their best to their institution and to scholarship. Therefore, Ihave always played an active role in university deliberations, as well as in the academicunion, have involved myself willingly in promotion procedures, encouraged women’sdevelopment and con� dence and have aimed to work with others to increase the numberof women in the decision-making bodies of all kinds.

A second conclusion was that it was valuable for women to shore up their base withinacademia by taking on roles in public policy agencies which intersect in some way withuniversity work. This is because some public policy decisions have important impacts onthe academic system and need a gender dimension at the formative stage. It is noticeablethat nearly all the women featured in the publication, by the Times Higher EducationSupplement, Beyond the Glass Ceiling (Grif� ths, 1996), have operated in this way and anexemplar for me has been the New Zealand academic and politician, Marilyn Waring,who shifted her discipline of Economics from its ignoring of women’s work by pressingfor changes in national accounting in her own country and at the United Nations (seeBown in Masson & Simonton, 1996).

This paper is written against that background and its preoccupation is with thetransition of women from being the objects of higher education—the undergraduates,junior researchers, part-time lecturers—to becoming the subjects, people who share in thecrucial resolutions and rulings which determine the experience and opportunities ofundergraduates, postgraduates, researchers and teachers of both genders. It is a � rst

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Women in British Higher Education 7

attempt to treat the topic in this way and is written in the hope that others (women andmen) may improve, correct and clarify the work I have done.

It should be made plain at the outset that there are other social categories besideswomen who are underrepresented as subjects. Class and ethnicity are also factors inaccess to decision-making, and much of what I say about women would also apply toworking-class and ethnic minority academics (of both genders). Further, no one wouldsuggest that simply increasing the number of women in power positions will automati-cally bring about change in curricula or work conditions or the male-oriented culture ofuniversities. Experience in universities has been that some of the women who do achievesenior positions either accept a secondary role or become incorporated in the maleproject. But my assumption would be that if there were a better gender balance at thetop, there would be at least a chance of change in the climate of decision-making. Withmore women in senior positions, it would also be likely that they would feel lessprecarious in pressing for change. I could argue this anecdotally, but obviously it has toremain an assumption until the balance does alter.

2. From Access and Participation to Shared Control

Less than 40 years ago, male academics at the University of Oxford could characterisewomen students and women’s colleges as ‘an unassimilated minority in our midst’ (OxfordMagazine, quoted Brittain, 1960). The persistence of a minority position for women waswell-aired by Suzanne Lie & Lynda Malik in the 1994 World Yearbook of Education, whichshowed gender imbalances at most levels in universities and colleges round the world,their theme being The Gender Gap in Higher Education.

Initial concern about that gap was inevitably about access, and much writing aboutgender and higher education has focused on the problems of access to learning forwomen. First, there was the establishment of the right of women to access, the beginningsof the right to attend universities as students, follow the same courses as men and gainthe same quali� cations. As is well known, the � rst university in the UK to offer full rightsto women students was the University of London in 1877 and these rights were thenautomatically applied in all the colleges which later developed under London’s tutelage(both in Britain and overseas). It was followed by the four ancient Scottish universities,empowered by an ordinance of 1892. The ancient English universities lagged far behind,prompting this parody of the border ballad Jock of Hazeldean:

They sought in college and in ha’,The ladye wadna stay.She’s ower the borders and awa’To win a Scots BA (quoted Brittain, 1960)

(In fact, in Scotland the ladye would have gained an MA—the traditional Scottish � rstdegree.)

The second concern was to move from an ‘unassimilated minority’ position to one inwhich there was a fairer overall balance of access for females and males. Malik & Lieshowed that in the 17 countries which they studied in depth, only six had achieved afemale access rate of 50% (or slightly above). Those six did not at that point in timeinclude the UK, although the 1994 audit of the Scottish research and campaigning groupEn’Gender showed women making up 49% of � rst-level higher education students inScotland. Currently, there is a parity of numbers between female and male students inBritain. (Incidentally, this is outside the thrust of my present discussion, but in some

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8 L. Bown

countries access � gures need to be interpreted in the light of a tendency for families to� nd ways of sending sons abroad for higher education, while they are unwilling to makea similar investment in their daughters—or are reluctant to send them away fromhome—so that more women students attend the local universities, but this does not meanthat more women than men are actually entering higher education.)

The third concern, highlighted internationally by Lie & Malik and for Scotland by theEn’Gender audits, is the skewing of access as a result of subject segregation. There mayappear to be parity of access if numbers are looked at in the aggregate, but when the� gures are broken down, more women appear in some subjects/disciplines and moremen in others. Thus, in Western Europe and the USA, fewer women than men have anopportunity to qualify in engineering and technology—although in some of the countriesof the former Soviet empire this was not the case.

All these concerns about gender and access have to remain live in the UK at themoment. Cuts in spending on the system and the attrition of grants for individualstudents are likely to tell against women’s access, so that rights, balance of numbers andthe breakdown of subject segregation are all at risk.

Nevertheless, there has been a transition of concern to another live issue: access to adegree has enabled women to participate in the higher education process, but still (as saidin the Preamble) as objects, with decisions about curriculum, organisation, the validity ofknowledge and the system itself remaining largely in the hands of men. A classiccomment made by the politician and writer, Mary Agnes Hamilton, can be applied here:

[Women] have passed, once and for all, from being passive spectators intobeing active participants in a world where such participation is anything butamusing, except for those who happen to possess the form of power and thepassport to independence which alone our society honours. (in Strachey, 1936)

She was referring to the relation between political access and economic power, but thecomment can apply just as well to the relation in universities between students and junioracademics on the one hand, and on the other, the people with the passport to power atthe apex.

Where, then, are women as subjects, sharing in the decision-making in and aboutacademia? This question was implicit in Margaret Sutherland’s pioneer study, WomenWho Teach in Universities (1985), in which she interviewed women academics in � veEuropean countries. By de� nition, those whom she interviewed were the survivors withinthe system, but it was quite disheartening to read her report of how few women hadeither hope of or interest in joining the ‘corridors of power’, often for reasons with whichone could empathise. Of West German women university teachers, she reports:

not all … wanted the administrative responsibilities that professorial statusbrings. One was repelled by what she perceived as a professor’s workload.Some, who had been involved as representatives of their department orteaching level in university committees were not attracted by the in-� ghtingwhich occurred on certain occasions. They would rather be involved inresearch and teaching than in these power struggles.

Other writers have followed up the problem since then. Carol Dyhouse, in her excellenthistory of women in British universities from 1870 to 1939, moves forward in the historyto note that in the 1990s, British universities were still seen as ‘bastions of male power andprestige’ (Dyhouse, 1995). An interesting attempt at practical change in the last decade wasChristine King’s Glass Ceiling movement, in which a number of women academics trainedthemselves in ways of both beating and joining the system. In my observation, this was

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Women in British Higher Education 9

an empowering movement and it would be good to have a tracer study of the membersof the group and where they now are within the academy. For a start, Christine Kingherself has become Vice-Chancellor of Staffordshire University.

There have been some attempts to see where women are located in UK academichierarchies, either nationally or within individual institutions. The Association of Univer-sity Teachers has done studies of the professoriate in Britain, including studies of gender.In Scotland, En’Gender reports regularly on this as part of its annual audit of women’sposition in various sectors of activity. I personally did an analysis for the University ofGlasgow towards the end of the 1980s, at which point the most senior woman in theorder of precedence ranked number 56 (although one woman professor represented theSenate on the University Court). Monitoring such data has shock value, but also servesas material for conscientisation of policy-makers and men and women seeking changeand for diagnosis of where change is most needed.

The fact that these studies concentrated on the professoriate and the proportion ofwomen within it has, however, limited their value. It is becoming more apparent thatprofessors have much less power than in the past. Reasons include: the increase in theabsolute numbers of professors (however few are still female); the custom of rotatingdepartmental headships; and, crucially, the changes to the ways in which universities arenow managed.

I suggest that it may now be more important to look at a smaller group of keydecision-makers in each institution and see if women are among them. This groupusually comprises those who would conventionally have been called the universityof� cers: the Vice-Chancellor or Principal and his/her deputies; the Registrar; the Bursar;and the Librarian. These people are almost always in evidence when major decisions ofacademic policy are made, whereas traditional mechanisms like university senates havedeclined sometimes into debating shops.

As a result of this observation, I have therefore attempted to produce a snapshot ofthe situation in 1996/97, of where women are overall in the decision-making roles,including their share of the major university of� ces. There are limitations to this. First,there are variations in the way institutions operate, so that the picture is only anapproximation. Secondly, the exercise needs repeating from time to time to see if thereare trends or just lurches up and down. Thirdly, I am mindful of an article in ScottishAffairs by Prof. Sally Brown of the University of Stirling: ‘Research on gender ineducation—monitoring bleakness or instigating change’ (Brown, 1993). She pleads forresearchers to pay more attention to analysing the reasons for gender gaps rather thansimply describing them. Auditing and monitoring do have the uses mentioned above, butshe is right in suggesting that the data should be used to illuminate problems and focuson the why and how of change.

In order to move the discussion from description to the question why?, I have pickedout a couple of case studies which seem to suggest some circumstances in which andreasons why women are not more involved in academic policy and decision-making. Iwill also suggest that what goes on in academia is in� uenced by outside bodies with apolicy focus, in which women are also in a small minority.

The last phase of the discussion will be to make, very brie� y, some internationalcomparisons and the conclusion will suggest some ways of instigating change.

3. The Picture of Academic Hierarchy in 1996/97

Elsewhere I have argued that history indicates that women’s scholarship � ourishes where

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10 L. Bown

they have their own space and where they are operating in a collaborative, democraticsystem (in Masson & Simonton, 1996). The traditional liberal model of a university inprinciple ought to have favoured and fostered women, since there were democraticfeatures in elected faculty boards and elected senates representing all constituencies. Myexperience as a young academic was that there was a chance to express views and takepart in major institutional decisions. In the post-liberal era this is no longer the case.Hierarchies loom larger and small clusters of people at the top of the system have powerconcentrated in their hands. This style of organisation is quite unpalatable to manywomen, but unless enough women become involved in it, they will have little hope ofeffecting change. The castle must be captured before it can be rebuilt as a morecomfortable dwelling.

Are women at the moment anywhere near capturing the castle? With the help of acomputer program developed at the Association of Commonwealth Universities (ACU),I tried to gauge where women were in the hierarchies. I also checked the computer resultsagainst published data in the ACU’s own directory and other directories, and addedmaterial from other sources. The data relate to 146 universities and colleges; noinformation was available on another � ve. The full list of 151 institutions is given inAppendix 1. The 146 for which I had data include both the University of London andits constituents and associates and the University of Wales and its constituents. Some ofthe London components are major academic players, while others are quite small, butall were included since some of the small ones have a disproportionate signi� cance becausethey promote unusual disciplines.

Five senior academic positions were then examined for each institution, to see howmany women held them across the system. These were the � ve already referred to:Vice-Chancellor or Principal; Pro-Vice-Chancellor or Deputy Principal; Registrar (orsenior academic administrator by another title); Bursar (or senior � nance of� cer); andUniversity Librarian. These are the key post-holders, all except the Bursar generally withacademic status and, as said earlier, with the new managerialism in the post-liberaluniversity, as a group they are at the centre of power—in spite of acknowledged variationsin custom, practice and structures.

Appendix 2 shows that 62 of the 146 colleges and universities in Britain had no womenin any of these � ve positions—that is in 42% of them. There were no senior women insix of the eight colleges of the University of Wales, nor in three of the four ancientuniversities of Scotland. More telling, there were no senior women at � ve of the 10universities who came top of the latest Research Assessment Exercise—the heavyweightsof the system. The University of Warwick itself has no woman in the top positions asde� ned, despite a long track-record in women’s and gender studies. The absence ofwomen decision-makers in major research universities and colleges is alarming, sinceresearch is all too often gender-biased (a further comment will be made later on this).

Where are the women in the other 58% of institutions? Appendix 3, Table AI showsthat another 14% have more than one senior woman academic of� cer. These are the oneswhere there might be a critical mass in the leadership to bring about change; and it canbe seen that four out of the 11 places with a woman Vice-Chancellor have at least oneother woman at the top. These facts should not be overplayed, however. Where thereis a woman Pro-Vice-Chancellor, there are often two or three men Pro-Vice-Chancellorsas well, with a man having seniority in the team and with the woman having a lessprestigious portfolio. Further, where Registrarial jobs are divided up, individual holdersmay have less power and weight. It is rather a bleak scenario that only 20 out of 146institutions have more than one woman in a leadership role.

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Women in British Higher Education 11

All the same, the arrival of 11 women Vice-Chancellors (or equivalent) must be seenas a de� nite advance. Appendix 3, Table AII lists the women at present in this centralrole. In the past, there have been only two women university heads—Dame LillianPenson, Vice-Chancellor of the University of London from 1948 to 1951 and DameRosemary Murray, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cambridge from 1975 to 1977.The early 1990s, by bringing the former polytechnics into the university system, broughtin two new women Vice-Chancellors: (Baroness) Pauline Perry of South Bank Universityand Dr Ann Wright, University of Sunderland. Pauline Perry has since moved on, butother women have been appointed, some to former polytechnics or colleges of highereducation, others to an earlier generation of universities (East Anglia and Keele). A cynicmight say that women are getting to the top in institutions which are smaller, � nanciallyweaker or slightly unorthodox, because those institutions are no longer attractive to men.I would prefer to see the arrival of a visible minority of women Vice-Chancellors as asign of hope. Perhaps the most interesting of recent appointments has been that of DrAlexandra Burslem as Vice-Chancellor of Manchester Metropolitan University: herexperience matches that of many women in academia, since she started as a maturestudent.

The general picture of academic hierarchy in 1996/97 is, then, one of a leadership stillvery largely male-dominated, but of 20 institutions with more than one woman in keyposts (including four Vice-Chancellorships) and seven more women in the top academicleadership role of Vice-Chancellor or equivalent among the 64 universities and collegeswhich have at least one woman in a key post (Appendix 3, Table AIII). All this isprogress of a kind. The problem is whether in any institution there is a critical mass ofwomen who are ready to in� uence change. Very often a lone woman is ineffective orhelpless—a captive of an overwhelming male majority. The opportunity for manoeuvredepends on the character of that majority. Are there men colleagues sympathetic to andunderstanding of the value of a gender perspective in curriculum, research and workingconditions? If there are, the handful of senior women can make an impact on these. Ifnot, then it will be hard for the senior women to achieve any movement in the institutionor the system.

4. Wom en in Other Areas of University Governance

A great deal of power is clustered around the � ve key academic or academic-related jobsin any university institution and this is why the number of them held by women wereexamined. There are other aspects of university governance which have signi� cance andthese were studied as well. Data were accessible for 121 institutions for this part of thework; the list of those for which data were not available will be found at the end ofAppendix 4.

The governance roles identi� ed were: Visitor, Chancellor and chair of the Court orCouncil (or governing body). The traditional positions of Visitor and Chancellor arelargely ceremonial. Appendix 4, section (a) shows that 27 of the 121 institutions lookedat had a woman Visitor or Patron (mostly HM the Queen) and section (b), Table AIVthat 11 at the present time have women Chancellors. Although these positions arehonori� c, it could be argued that some mileage is to be gained by having a woman asthe visible embodiment of the whole university, in providing a symbol and a role model.Furthermore, it should be remembered that the Visitor is in theory a last resort forappeals, so the position is not nugatory. There are, it seems, hints that the DearingCommittee may recommend new tasks for Visitors in monitoring quality, so it remains

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12 L. Bown

of concern that there should be some women involved as Visitors (and as their adviserstoo in the case of Royalty).

Chancellors also have some in� uence above their purely ritualistic functions. Anecdo-tally, in my experience and observation, they contribute advice and encouragementwhich is respected. Both men and women Chancellors are likely to be committed to theinstitution and to support its cause in a variety of ways. When the late Dorothy Hodgkin,FRS and Nobel prize-winner, was Chancellor of the University of Bristol, I was told bya number of sources how helpful she was as a top-� ight academic with very broadexperience. We should perhaps question whether the women Chancellors at the presentare those most suitable to carry that kind of help to their universities. If they do not havedirect academic experience, their effectiveness as mentors to the top academics might bevitiated.

More critical in the governance of universities and colleges are the bodies composedof academics and ‘lay people’, whether called Courts, Councils, Boards of Governors,which have oversight over material and � nancial resources, staf� ng and other non-academic matters. Governing bodies may have a profound effect on working conditionsfor both women and men scholars and take the ultimate decisions about departmentalclosures or mergers or expansion which in� uence academic disciplinary priorities. Yet,out of 121 institutions, only four have women as sole chairs of their governing bodies andanother three have women as joint chairs (Appendix 4, Table AV). Clearly, women haveonly got a toehold in this part of university governance—probably because these chairsare mainly � lled by prominent local personalities, politicians or businessmen, and womenare in a minority in those spheres as well.

It was recognised earlier that patterns of governance and leadership vary across thehigher education sector. In the three oldest English universities, there are idiosyncraticsystems and structures. In Cambridge, for example, the main locus of power has beenidenti� ed as the Board of Regents by women academics and they hold half the placeson it. All the three have another source of power: the headship of a college or ‘house’.Appendix 5, Table AVI shows the gender balance among those headships for Oxford,Cambridge and Durham.

In Cambridge, there are six women college heads out of 30—an advance on the threewho were there in the past, as heads of women’s colleges. In Oxford there are also sixhouses with women heads, out of 47 colleges altogether; the number here is little changedfrom the days where there were � ve women-only colleges so that there were � veheadships entrenched for women. There is a new phenomenon, however, as three of theformer men-only colleges now have women heads, including the two old and prestigioushouses of Merton and Exeter. This is a breakthrough which some of us had not expected.When in 1994 I wrote a paper for the centenary of the arrival of women undergraduatesin Aberdeen (Masson & Simonton, 1996) I expressed the fear that once colleges weremixed, there would be a general tendency for all heads of houses to be male. Fortunately,I and others seem to have been unnecessarily cynical—or pessimistic.

Heads of colleges in Durham too have a special role. Only two of them out of 14 arewomen at the present time—no advance on the past.

5. Analysis and Rationale

What this enquiry has shown so far is that women are still in a restricted minority whenit comes to academic decision and institutional governance, but that there are modestchanges towards a more equitable balance between men and women. This should give

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Women in British Higher Education 13

some cause for encouragement to those of us who believe that it is healthy as well as justfor women to have a fair share in the decision-making processes.

At this point, I want to recapitulate and extend the argument for women taking thatfair share. First, if gender is taken into account in planning, institutions should becomemore friendly to women, both as students and as academics. This encompasses not onlysuch matters as the provision of creches and the avoidance of unsocial hours formeetings, but also monitoring the allocation of funds for travel and conferences, forexample, and the even-handed distribution of workloads in departments (so that welfareand admissions roles are not all ascribed to women).

More fundamentally, research and teaching as a whole ought to become moregender-sensitive. In curricula, gender is still on the margins—and it will continue to beso unless there are women ready to advocate change and in a position to steer it through.In spite of Waring, for example, much economics is still taught as if unwaged work doesnot count. In research, top males’ priorities are almost unchallenged and yet if women’sinterests too are to be inserted, women have to be in positions from which they canadvocate shifts in focus and resource allocation. There are particular anomalies in regardto scienti� c and technological research. As Patricia Haynes says in her lively bookReconstructing Babylon (1989): ‘Women have never lived without technology. Yet we barely have atoehold in the discou rse and direction of it.’ More polemically, Dale Spender says (and I makeno apology for repeating a quotation I have used elsewhere):

It is men, not women, who control knowledge, and I believe that this is anunderstanding we should never lose sight of … We can produce knowledge, wehave been doing so for centuries, but the fact that it is not part of ourtraditions, that it is not visible in our culture, is because we have little or noin� uence over where it goes. We are not the judges of what is signi� cant andhelpful, we are not in� uential members in those institutions which legitimateand distribute knowledge. (Spender, 1982)

The rationale, then, for wanting to see a substantially increased number of women in thepositions of power and in� uence in the academy is ultimately about the legitimation ofa gender perspective in a university’s work and about ensuring that curricula andresearch programmes across the system are not purely male constructs.

More women in the professoriate would also help to bring about this change—as weknow, the current ratio is about four women professors to 96 men overall, but in somedisciplines women are not there at all. The critical necessity, however, remains forwomen to be at the very top of academic decision-making, to be in the citadel.

By now, I hope it will have been noticed that I have largely avoided the word‘management’. Top men and women in academia are managers (often on a scale whichwould surprise our detractors in some other sectors, incidentally—the University ofGlasgow, for example, is the third largest employer in that city). But an emphasis on amanagement role tends to emphasise the conservative, the maintenance of a system andexisting policies, while what I am suggesting here is that new decisions are needed tochange structures, processes and content.

6. Two Case Studies

Where are the barriers to more women reaching the upper echelons of academia andmaintaining a position there? Simply to talk glibly of the glass ceiling is not enough.

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14 L. Bown

Some of the barriers may be illuminated by a couple of case studies. One relates tothe unevenness of disciplinary access raised in section 2 of this paper. Institutions whichare heavily weighted towards certain disciplines may be assumed to have a smallernumber of women academics at all levels. To test this, I looked at the staff list ofCran� eld University, which is largely scienti� c, technical and agricultural. The majordisciplines are shown in Appendix 6 Table AVII, and it will be seen that the totalproportion of established staff posts held by women is less than 10%. It should, however,be noted that some of that small proportion of women are in senior positions. Forinstance, the Professor of Ballistics at the Defence College is a woman; she has been inthe news as the expert called upon in the trial of the Oklahoma bomb suspects toappraise FBI scienti� c evidence.

I did not have time to analyse staff lists in medical schools where I suspect that (withsome exceptions) women tend to be in a minority in the powerful specialisations; but acursory look at London’s United Medical and Dental Schools gave the indication thatwomen were in a minority there too. Such entrenched male bastions are becoming rarer,but, as Lie & Malik describe, there are many institutions and departments with ascienti� c or technological emphasis where the women are bunched together in thefoothills of the system.

What happens in a large mainstream university with plenty of women staff and abroad range of disciplines? My former University of Glasgow was chosen and two typesof evidence were adduced: research done by a former student of mine, Gayle Morris, in1992 and an analysis of power structures in the university in 1997. The outcomes hintat some of the conditions which may limit women’s progress in the system.

Gayle Morris’s case study of Women in Academia has drawn wide attention. She foundsigni� cant frustration and dissatisfaction among women in Glasgow at all levels and inall faculties. Current pressures and stresses probably mean that men are dissatis� ed too,but this research re� ected the particular problems faced by women. Judgement ofperformance is, as we all know, largely based on research output (which affectspromotion and � nancial reward), but contract appointments and job insecurity for overa third of the women hampered both research planning and the building up of acoherent research record. There was also extra pressure on women to be ‘good citizens’by taking on welfare roles such as student counselling and the less prestigious committeework such as student admissions. These tasks were not resented in themselves, butwomen did resent the fact that men who avoided such chores gained an edge in researchtime and in access to the more powerful and status-bearing committees.

Higher up the ladder, because women are so much fewer in number than men, theburden of committee work became very heavy. If a woman wished to have an input intodecisions—and most felt an obligation on behalf of other women in junior positions—shehad to take on many hours of work, again to the detriment of her research and of timefor re� ection, not to mention women’s other roles in family and community. The largecohort of women whom Morris interviewed did not want to opt out of academic life, butthey had a sense that current rules and structures placed them at a disadvantage in theirattempts to make the most of it.

Analysis of current University of Glasgow structures suggests that disadvantage will bemagni� ed in the future, and not just in Glasgow. The University Senate has become avery large and unwieldy body, with a professoriate alone of 267 people, of whom 15 or5.6% are women. A College of Senate has been instituted, pared down to 118, still rathera large group. In it, women number 14, or 12%. In the formal order of precedence,women have moved up, but not in any number. The � rst woman in the professoriate is

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Women in British Higher Education 15

now at number 16, the next at number 18 and the third at number 38. In suchconditions, women have little power.

Most decisions are in practice taken elsewhere. One mechanism is the EducationCommittee, a body of 33 people which includes six women. The Committee re� ects ashift of power away from academics, however, as 10 out of the 33 are administrators (andfour of the six women are in that group). Most radical is a new insertion into thestructure, following a consultancy report by Coopers and Lybrand: the grouping ofdisciplines into 11 Planning Units which have devolved budgeting, and whose headsmeet as a group to discuss both � nancial and academic plans. Only one of that groupis a woman—my successor as head of the Department of Adult and ContinuingEducation. There are hints now that her unit is small in size compared to the others andshould then be amalgamated with another. If that precarious foothold goes, women willhave virtually gone from decision-making at Glasgow. The Principal, Vice-Principal,Clerk of Senate and all Deans are men at present and on the University Court there isjust one woman—the non-academic staff union representative. The conclusion from thisdescription is that as the new managerialism shifts power away from the traditionalorganisations such as Senates, with their vestigial democracy, into unrepresentative smalloligarchies, so women will be largely de� ned out.

Thus, while the broad picture in the 146 institutions shows some increase in thepresence of women at the very top—shows some movement forward—at the same timemicro-studies show some of the reasons why women are not at the top in larger numbersand hint that some new developments in the way institutions are run may tell againstwomen’s opportunities for sharing power with men. The challenges are: disciplinarysegregation; cultural problems; and a possible threat from the new managerialism.

7. Contextual In� uences on Academ ic Agenda

So far we have looked at institutions without putting them in context. Although relativelyautonomous, universities are subject to decisions of politicians and also to in� uences fromquasi-academic agencies. To build up a complete impression, it would be desirable tolook at the gender composition of the funding councils and the research councils—a taskfor a later date.

Most academics would think of those councils, but I wonder how many would thinkof the major learned societies? The Royal Society of London, the British Academy andthe Royal Society of Edinburgh administer and distribute research grants, give publicityto research and offer advice, either proactively or reactively to politicians and othernational policy-makers. They have serious in� uence, however impalpable, and they offera channel through which academic issues can be given a hearing. For a long time thesesocieties were closed to women and many will know the oddity of scholarly history whenthe celebrated Scottish scientist, Mary Somerville, had to send her husband to read herpaper ‘On the magnetiz ing power of the more refrangible solar rays’ at the Royal Society inLondon in 1826, since she was barred from entry. She was never accepted, either inLondon or Edinburgh, although she published four substantial books between 1832 andher death in 1872.

Because I have easiest entry to it (as a Fellow), I would here put forward the exampleof the Royal Society of Edinburgh. In 1996, there were 1112 Fellows, of whom 40 (or3.6%) were women, and 69 Honorary Fellows, of whom six (or 9%) were women. The� gures as of March 1997 are 1146 ordinary Fellows, of which 51 (or 4.4%) are women.The longest lived woman Fellow was elected in 1949, but it was only in the late 1980s

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16 L. Bown

TABLE I.

Date Total Fellows elected No. of women Fellows elected % Women

1994/95 60 3 51995/96 60 6 101996/97 42 8 20

that more than a handful of women were elected and there is now a trend for more tocome in. The result of elections in the last 3 years are shown in Table I. Women havevery rapidly begun to take part in the running of the Society. It is governed by a Councilof 25 members and � ve of these are women, which is quite remarkable. There are threewomen among the 12 of� cers. Eight of the 40 women Fellows have served or are servingon the Council. These are the visible signs of the Society’s operation and the Society hasalso had a committee on women in the Fellowship (although this has not achieved much).

The point is that such a body in� uences public opinion on scienti� c and academicmatters and its Fellows have a chance to put ideas to public enquiries of all kinds, suchas the Dearing Committee. It is comfortable that women are there and in a proportionat least not far from the proportion of women professors. There is still, however, someovert negative reaction to any suggestion of increasing the role of women in the RoyalSociety of Edinburgh and women’s voice in the representations on policy is still quitesmall. But at least women are there and being given the opportunity to widen their role.My experience has been that it is fruitful for women to be involved in such bodies.

8. International Com parisons

To move the context further outwards, what happens in other countries with similarsystems to our own?

The Commonwealth has since 1964 funded fellowships and scholarships to encouragethe ablest scholars from one country to study or work in another. The underlyingassumption is that they would be the high � yers, destined for senior positions andparticularly senior positions in universities. A tracer study was carried out in 1989 ofwhat had actually happened to former Commonwealth award-holders. In practice, alarge number had become senior academics, but the � nal report says:

A regrettable though not unexpected statistic appears …: among the 528university professors who responded [to the tracer study] only 58 are women,con� rming the dif� culty that women experience throughout the Common-wealth in being appointed to the highest educational positions. The � guresamong professors should be contrasted with the � gures ‘others in education’(i.e. mainly school teachers), where women account for nearly one-third of thetotal, suggesting that they have much less dif� culty in gaining employment injobs that are stereotypically seen as appropriate for women. (CommonwealthSecretariat, 1989)

There are, however, individual countries in the Commonwealth which compare veryfavourably with the UK situation. Appendix 7 shows that in Australia, out of 42institutions, seven have women Chancellors and eight others women Pro-Chancellors.The proportion of women Vice-Chancellors is less than in Britain (only two out of 42 or5%), but only 17% of institutions have no women in leadership positions, compared with

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Women in British Higher Education 17

Britain’s 42%. Another research task for the future would be to tease out an explanationfor such a contrast and also to explore what impact the comparatively noticeablepresence of women has had on the character of universities in Australia.

9. Conclusion

The thrust of this paper has been that change is needed, to give women a fairer sharein all the decisions taken in the academy, and with the assumption that a critical massof women decision-makers would affect the institutions in ways which would make themmore gender-sensitive.

In conclusion, I have three suggestions for moving towards a fairer share. The � rst isthat a UK-wide audit of women’s locus in university leadership should be undertakenregularly. It could, without much dif� culty, be done in a more sophisticated way than Ihave done here, including widening out to include the gender balance in fundingcouncils and research councils. Perhaps the journal Gender and Education could undertaketo publish it annually, with funding from a suitable source, such as the Equal Opportu-nities Commission and in cooperation with the Universities Statistical Record.

The second suggestion is that the Association of University Teachers and other unionsand professional associations should be enlisted to campaign for and orchestrate changein hierarchies—asking questions, for instance, about equal opportunities at the appoint-ment of university of� cers and promoting Equity portfolios for Pro-Vice-Chancellors/Deputy Principals, as in Australia. A colleague has also pointed out that useful supportcould be gained from the Commission on University Career Opportunities (CUCO).

Thirdly, however hard it may be, women academics of any level above lecturer haveto grasp the responsibility of in� uencing, in whatever way is open to them, the publicpolicy agencies which affect universities from outside. Earlier, I mentioned MarilynWaring. As a woman she questioned a basic tenet of traditional economics, namely thatwork is a paid activity, and has fought against its application to national and UnitedNations public accounts systems. Her strategy for shifting the economics agenda, as bothan academic and a politician, has been to enlist an audience outside academia. Sincegender-biased economics does damage both within and beyond the academic curricu-lum, the pivot for change may be where the policies are made, rather than in theacademy itself. Her example shows the value of working at the interface betweenacademia and the surrounding policy world. Her concern was with curriculum. Otherconcerns such as research allocations and equity programmes may also be addressed inthis way.

These are three practical suggestions to encourage change. I hope that other ideas willcome from colleagues both male and female, and that all together they will lead to anauthentic partnership in decision-making between women and men.

NOTES

[1] I am very grateful to the Association of Commonwealth Universities for access to their data on womenin universities and colleges and for permission to use the ACU Library. In particular I thank ColinHewson and Nick Mulhern.

[2] On the day this paper was given, the publishers launched a new book on Academic W omen by Ann Brooks(Society for Research into Higher Education and Open University Press). Her work not only provides richdata on women’s experiences and setbacks and their locus in the teaching hierarchies in Britain and NewZealand, but also puts forward an interesting framework for studies of this kind.

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18 L. Bown

REFERENCES

BRITTAIN, V. (1960) The W oman at Oxford (London, Harrap).BROWN, S. (1993) Research on gender in education: monitoring bleakness or instigating change, Edinburgh,

Scottish Affairs, 5,.COMMONWEALTH SECRETARIAT (1989) Commonwealth Scholarship and Fellow ship Plan Tracer Study (Final Report).

Author: Alastair Niven (London, Commonwealth Secretariat).DYHOUSE, C. (1995) No Distinction of Sex? W omen in British Universities 1870–1939, Women’s History Society

(London, UCL Press).EN’GENDER (Annual) Gender Audit (Edinburgh, En’Gender).GRIFFITHS, S. (Ed.) in association with the Times Higher Education Supplement (1996) Beyond the Glass Ceilin g.

Forty women whose ideas shape the modern world (Manchester, Manchester University Press).HAYNES, H.P. (1989) Reconstructing Babylon (London, Earthscan).LIE, S. & MALIK, L. (1994) World Yearbook of Education 1994. The Gender Gap in Higher Education (London, Kogan Page).MASSON, M. & SIMONTON, D. (Eds) (1996) W omen and Higher Education: past, present and future (Aberdeen,

Aberdeen University Press).MORRIS, G. (1992) W omen in academia: a case-study of the University of Glasgow , M.Phil dissertation, Department of

Adult and Continuing Education, University of Glasgow.SOMERVILLE, M. (1873) Personal Recollec tions from Early Life to Old Age of Mary Somerville (London).SPENDER, D. (1982) W omen of Ideas (London, Routledge & Kegan Paul).STRACHEY, R. (Ed.) (1936) Our Freedom and Its Resu lts (London, Hogarth Press).SUTHERLAND, M. (1985) W omen W ho Teach in Universities European Institute of Education and Social Policy

(Stoke-on-Trent, Trentham Books).

Appendix 1. Full List of UK Universities and Colleges Scanned

University of AberdeenUniversity of Abertay DundeeAnglia Polytechnic UniversityAston UniversityUniversity of BathBath College of Higher EducationUniversity of BirminghamBolton Institute of Higher EducationBournemouth UniversityUniversity of BradfordUniversity of BrightonUniversity of BristolBrunel UniversityUniversity of BuckinghamBuckinghamshire CollegeUniversity of CambridgeUniversity of Central England in BirminghamUniversity of Central LancashireCheltenham & Gloucester College of Higher

EducationCity University, LondonCoventry UniversityCran� eld UniversityDe Montfort UniversityUniversity of DundeeUniversity of DurhamUniversity of East AngliaUniversity of East LondonUniversity of EdinburghUniversity of EssexUniversity of ExeterUniversity of GlamorganUniversity of Glasgow

Glasgow Caledonian UniversityUniversity of GreenwichHeriot-Watt UniversityUniversity of HertfordshireUniversity of Hudders� eldUniversity of HullKeele UniversityUniversity of Kent at CanterburyKingston UniversityLancaster UniversityUniversity of LeedsLeeds Metropolitan UniversityUniversity of LeicesterUniversity of Lincolnshire and HumbersideUniversity of LiverpoolLiverpool John Moores UniversityUniversity of London and its constituents(Colleges)

BirkbeckCharing Cross & Westminster Medical SchoolGoldsmithsHeythropImperialInstitute of Education (ULIE)King’sLondon School of EconomicsLondon School of Hygiene & Tropical MedicineQueen Mary & West� eldRoyal Free Hospital School of MedicineRoyal HollowayRoyal Postgraduate Medical SchoolRoyal Veterinary CollegeSt George’s Hospital Medical School

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Women in British Higher Education 19

School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS)School of PharmacyUnited Medical & Dental Schools of Guys and St

Thomas’sUniversity College, LondonWye College

(Institutes of Advanced Study)British Institute in ParisCentre for Defence StudiesCourtauld InstituteSchool of Slavonic and Eastern European Studies

(Members)School of Advanced StudyCentre for English StudiesInstitute of Advanced Legal StudiesInstitute of Classical StudiesInstitute of Commonwealth StudiesInstitute of Germanic StudiesInstitute of Historical ResearchInstitute of Latin American StudiesInstitute of Romance StudiesInstitute of US StudiesWarburg Institute

(Associates)Institute of Cancer ResearchJews’ CollegeLondon Business SchoolRoyal Academy of MusicRoyal College of MusicTrinity College of Music

London Guildhall UniversityThe London InstituteLoughborough UniversityUniversity of LutonUniversity of ManchesterUniversity of Manchester Institute of Science &

Technology (UMIST)Manchester Metropolitan UniversityMiddlesex UniversityNapier UniversityUniversity of Newcastle-upon-TyneUniversity of North LondonUniversity of Northumbria at NewcastleUniversity of NottinghamNottingham Trent UniversityOpen UniversityUniversity of OxfordOxford Brookes UniversityUniversity of Paisley

University of PlymouthUniversity of PortsmouthQueen Margaret College, EdinburghQueen’s University of BelfastUniversity of ReadingRobert Gordon UniversityRoyal College of ArtUniversity of St AndrewsUniversity of SalfordUniversity of Shef� eldShef� eld Hallam UniversitySouth Bank UniversityUniversity of SouthamptonStaffordshire UniversityUniversity of StirlingUniversity of StrathclydeUniversity of SunderlandUniversity of SurreySurrey Institute of Art and DesignUniversity of SussexUniversity of TeessideThames Valley UniversityUniversity of UlsterUniversity of Wales and its constituents

University of Wales, AberystwythUniversity of Wales, BangorUniversity of Wales, CardiffUniversity of Wales, SwanseaUniversity of Wales, LampeterUniversity of Wales College of MedicineUniversity of Wales Institute of Science and

TechnologyUniversity of Wales, Newport

University of WarwickUniversity of the West of England, BristolUniversity of WestminsterUniversity of WolverhamptonUniversity of York

Total: 146 institutions

Not included, owing to lack of data:Canterbury Christ Church CollegeNene CollegeRoehampton Institute of Higher EducationRoyal Agricultural CollegeRoyal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama

Total not included: 5 institutions

Appendix 2. Universities and Colleges with no Women Of� cers, 1996/97

University of AberdeenUniversity of Abertay DundeeAnglia Polytechnic UniversityAston UniversityBath College of High EducationUniversity of Birmingham

*Bolton Institute of Higher EducationUniversity of BrightonUniversity of BristolBrunel UniversityBuckinghamshire CollegeUniversity of Exeter

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University of GlamorganUniversity of GlasgowHeriot-Watt UniversityLeeds Metropolitan UniversityUniversity of LeicesterUniversity of Lincolnshire and HumbersideUniversity of London constituents

Charing Cross & Westminster Medical SchoolInstitute of Education (ULIE)Royal Veterinary CollegeUnited Medical & Dental School of Guys & St

Thomas’sUniversity College, LondonCentre for Defence StudiesCourtauld InstituteSchool of Advanced StudyInstitute of Advanced Legal StudiesInstitute of Historical ResearchInstitute of Latin American StudiesInstitute of Cancer ResearchJews’ CollegeLondon Business SchoolRoyal Academy of MusicTrinity College of Music

The London InstituteLoughborough UniversityUniversity of Manchester Institute of Science and

Technology (UMIST)Middlesex University

University of Newcastle-upon-TyneUniversity of Northumbria at NewcastleUniversity of NottinghamUniversity of OxfordUniversity of PaisleyUniversity of PlymouthUniversity of PortsmouthRoyal College of ArtUniversity of St AndrewsUniversity of SalfordUniversity of Shef� eldUniversity of SouthamptonUniversity of Surrey*Surrey Institute of Art and DesignUniversity of UlsterUniversity of Wales constituents

University of Wales, AberystwythUniversity of Wales, BangorUniversity of Wales, SwanseaUniversity of Wales, LampeterUniversity of Wales College of MedicineUniversity of Wales, Newport

University of WarwickUniversity of WolverhamptonUniversity of York

Total: 62 out of 146 or 42%

(NB: full data not available on institutions marked*)

Appendix 3. Institutions with women in academic leadership positions, 1996/97

TABLE AI. Institutions with more than one senior woman/academic of� cer 1996/67

Institution Position held by women

Cheltenham & Gloucester College of Higher Education Director, *RegistrarCoventry University Prof/Dep VC (1 of 2), RegistrarKeele University VC, RegistrarLiverpool John Moores Provost, RegistrarUniversity of London:

Birkbeck College VC, Registrar, LibrarianGoldsmiths College Vice-Principal, RegistrarHeythrop College 2 RegistrarsLondon School of Economics Registrar, LibrarianUniversity of London School of Pharmacy Registrar, LibrarianWye College Registrar, LibrarianInstitute of Slavonic Studies 2 RegistrarsInstitute of Romance Studies Hon. Director, Registrar

University of North London Dep/Pro-VC (1 of 2), RegistrarOxford Brookes University Registrar, LibrarianQueen Margaret College Principal, Vice-Principal (1 of 2)University of Reading 2 Dep/Pro-VCs, LibrarianShef� eld Hallam University Dep/Pro-VC, RegistrarStaffordshire University VC, RegistrarUniversity of Sunderland VC, Pro-VCThames Valley University 3 Registrars

Note: *Registrar is used for senior administrators.

Total: 20 out of 146 institutions or 14%.

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Women in British Higher Education 21

TABLE AII. Institutions with women heads (Vice-Chancellors/Principals)

Institution Position Name

University of Bournemouth VC Prof. Gillian SlaterCheltenham & Gloucester College of Higher Education Director J. TrotterUniversity of East Anglia VC Dame Elizabeth Esteve-CollKeele University VC Dame Janet FinchUniversity of London:

Birkbeck College Master Baroness BlackstoneInstitute of Romance Studies Hon. Director Prof. Annette LaversRoyal College of Music Director Dr Janet Ritterman

Manchester Metropolitan University VC Dr Alexandra BurslemQueen Margaret College Edinburgh Principal Joan StringerStaffordshire University VC Prof. Christine KingUniversity of Sunderland VC Dr Anne Wright

Total: 11 out of 146 or 8%.

TABLE AIII. Institutions with only one woman in a leadership position

Institution Position held by a woman

University of Bath *Finance Of� cerUniversity of Bournemouth VCUniversity of Bradford Dep/Pro-VCUniversity of Buckingham LibrarianUniversity of Cambridge Finance Of� cerUniversity of Central England in Birmingham *RegistrarUniversity of Central Lancashire RegistrarCity University, London Dep/Pro-VCCran� eld University RegistrarDe Montfort University RegistrarUniversity of Derby Dep/Pro-VCUniversity of Dundee Dep PrincipalUniversity of Durham Finance Of� cerUniversity of East Anglia VCUniversity of East London Finance Of� cerUniversity of Edinburgh LibrarianUniversity of Essex Dep/Pro-VC (1 of 3)Glasgow Caledonian University Librarian (professorial title)University of Greenwich Dep/Pro-VC (1 of 2)University of Hertfordshire LibrarianUniversity of Hudders� eld RegistrarUniversity of Hull Finance Of� cerUniversity of Kent at Canterbury LibrarianKingston University RegistrarUniversity of Lancaster LibrarianUniversity of Leeds Dep/Pro-VC (1 of 4)University of Liverpool LibrarianUniversity of London RegistrarUniversity of London, Imperial College Dean of City & Guilds CollegeUniversity of London, King’s College LibrarianUniversity of London, School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine RegistrarUniversity of London, Queen Mary & West� eld College Senior Vice-PrincipalUniversity of London, Royal Free Hospital School of Medicine LibrarianUniversity of London Royal Holloway College Finance Of� cer

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TABLE AIII.—con tinued

Institution Position held by a woman

University of London, Royal Postgraduate Medical School LibrarianUniversity of London, St George’s Hospital Medical School LibrarianUniversity of London, School of Advanced Study LibrarianUniversity of London, British Institute in Paris RegistrarUniversity of London, Centre for English Studies RegistrarUniversity of London, Institute of Classical Studies RegistrarUniversity of London, Institute of Commonwealth Studies RegistrarUniversity of London, Institute of Germanic Studies RegistrarUniversity of London, Institute of US Studies RegistrarUniversity of London, Warburg Institute RegistrarUniversity of London, Royal College of Music DirectorLondon Guildhall University RegistrarUniversity of Luton Dep/Pro-VCUniversity of Manchester Dep/Pro-VC (1 of 4)Manchester Metropolitan University VCNapier University Dep Principal (Campus Principal)Nottingham Trent University LibrarianOpen University Dep/Pro-VC (1 of 5)Queens University of Belfast Dep/Pro-VC (1 of 3)Robert Gordon University Finance Of� cerSouth Bank University RegistrarUniversity of Stirling Dep/Pro-VCUniversity of Strathclyde Dep Principal (1 of 3)University of Sussex Senior Pro-VCUniversity of Teeside Dep/Pro-VCUniversity of Wales RegistrarUniversity of Wales, Cardiff RegistrarUniversity of Wales, Institute of Science & Technology RegistrarUniversity of the West of England, Bristol Dep/Pro-VCUniversity of Westminster Registrar

Notes: * Finance Of� cer 5 Bursar, Director of Finance, etc.; * Registrar 5 Senior Administrative Of� cer.

Summary:Women VCs/Heads 5 Librarians 13Dep/Pro-VCs/Principals 18Registrars 21 Total: 64 out of 146 or 44%.

Appendix 4. Women in University Governance, 1996/97

(121 institutions: see section (d) for list of institutions for which data were unavailable.)

(a) Visitors

HM The Queen is Visitor to 18 universities, including London, and Patron to six London University Colleges.

Other women Visitors or Patrons are:

University of Hertfordshire Dr Mary ArcherOpen University Rt. Hon Betty BoothroydQueen Margaret College HRH The Duchess of Gloucester

Total: 27 institutions out of 121 for which data were available (or 22%) have a woman Visitor.

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Women in British Higher Education 23

(b) Chancellors

TABLE AIV.

Institution Chancellor (or other titled as indicated)

Bournemouth University Baroness Cox of QueensburyUniversity of Birmingham Baroness Thatcher of KestevenUniversity of Buckingham Baroness Thatcher of KestevenUniversity of Greenwich Baroness YoungLancaster University HRH Princess AlexandraUniversity of London HRH The Princess RoyalLondon Royal Free Medical School Prof. Dame Sheila Sherlock (President)Oxford Brookes University Helena KennedyUniversity of Ulster Rabbi Julia NeubergerUniversity of the West of England, Bristol Dame Elizabeth Butler-SlossUniversity of York Dame Janet Baker

Total: 11 out of 121 institutions or 9%.

(c) W omen Pro-Chan cellors/Chairs of Courts, Council or Governors

TABLE AV.

Institution Position Name

University of Birmingham Joint Vice-Chair of Council Gillian MiscambellUniversity of Bradford Pro-Chancellor (Joint) Baroness Lockwood of DewsburyUniversity of Bristol Chair of Council Stella Clarke JPUniversity of Exeter Pro-Chancellor (Joint) Margaret LorenzGlasgow Caledonian University Chair of Court Celia UrquhartUniversity of Portsmouth Chair of Governors Caroline WilliamsQueen Margaret College Pro-Patron Rt. Hon. Countess of Elgin & Kincardine

4 individual chairs, 3 joint chairs.

Total: 7 out 121 institutions or 6%.

(d) Institutions for which Data were not Available

Anglia Polytechnic UniversityBath College of Higher EducationUniversity of BrightonUniversity of Central England in BirminghamUniversity of Central LancashireCheltenham & Gloucester College of Higher

EducationUniversity of DerbyUniversity of GlamorganUniversity of Hudders� eldLeeds Metropolitan UniversityUniversity of London Institute of Cancer ResearchUniversity of London Jews’ College

University of London Royal Academy of MusicUniversity of London Royal College of MusicUniversity of London Trinity College of MusicLondon Guildhall UniversityLondon InstituteMiddlesex UniversityUniversity of Northumbria at NewcastleNottingham Trent UniversityUniversity of PaisleyUniversity of PlymouthRoyal College of ArtUniversity of Sunderland

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Appendix 5.

TABLE AVI. Women heads of Oxbridge and Durham Colleges, 1996/97

Institution Position Name

CambridgeClare Hall President Prof. Gillian BeerGirton College Principal Juliet CampbellHomerton College Principal Kate CampbellLucy Cavendish College Principal Baroness PerryNew Hall Principal Anne LonsdaleNewnham College Principal Onora O’Neill

Total: 6 colleges out of 30

OxfordExeter College Rector Prof. Marilyn ButlerKeble College Warden Dr Averil CameronMerton College Warden Dr Jessica RawsonSomerville College Principal Mrs Catherine HughesSt Anne’s College Principal Dr Ruth DeechSt Hilda’s College Principal Mrs Elizabeth Llewellyn-Smith

Total: 6 colleges out of 47

DurhamSt Mary’s College Principal Joan KenworthyVan Mildert Principal Dr Judith Turner

Total: 2 colleges out of 14

Appendix 6.

TABLE AVII. Women academic staff, Cran� eld University, 1996/97

Subject/Campus Total academics Women % Women

Aeronautics 42 4* 9.5Biotechnology 9 1 11.0Industrial & manufacturing sciences 47 4† 8.5International eco-technology 5 0 0Management 90 13‡ 14.5Mechanical engineering 38 1 2.6Shrivenham (Defence College) 126 13§Silsoe (Agricultural College) 61 4 6.6

Totals 418 40 9.6

Notes:* 1 Professor (Aerospace Psychology)† 1 Professor and 2 Senior Lecturers/Research Fellows‡ 1 Reader (currently also Dean)§ 1 Professor (Ballistics) and 3 Senior Lecturers

All others are lecturers or Teaching Fellows (i.e. 31 out of 40).

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Women in British Higher Education 25

Appendix 7. Women in University Governance and Academic Leadership in Australia, 1996/97

Total number of institutions 5 42.

(a) Governance

Institutions with women Chancellors 7 or 17%*Institutions with women Pro-Chancellors 8 or 19%

Note: * In � ve of these institutions, there is a single position of Pro-Chancellor; in three others there are jointpositions and in one of them (Deakin), both Pro-Chancellors are women.

(b) Academic Leadership

Institutions with no women in such positions 7 or 17%Institutions with women VCs 2 or 5%*Institutions with women deputy heads or Pro-VCsInstitutions with more than one women in academic leadership 14 or 33%

Note: * Women are either senior or only deputy head in four institutions. In another, both deputies are women.Positions include, in other cases, Deputy VC for Science and Engineering (James Cook University) andPro-VC, Equity (Grif� th). Deputy VCs are senior rank to Pro-VCs in the Australian academic hierarchy.

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