Girl Bosses Go Big

Welcoming our first woman president at PC

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It is a truly historic time at Presbyterian College, where my friend and colleague Dr. Anita Gustafson is now our 20^th president. She is the first woman to assume the role, and in a truly exciting confluence, she’ll be joining Ruth Roper, our first woman Board chair, Dr. Erin McAdams as our faculty chair, and Dr. Kerry Pannell as our first woman provost. And, in probably another first that I have yet to verify, my dear colleague Dee Nichols will be our first woman athletic director.

I’ve never had this many women bosses before, and I’m here for it. When I got the job at PC in 2012, it was Dr. Gustafson who called to extend the job offer. I remember getting the call in Villard Hall at the University of Oregon, and I can’t fully explain the relief and elation after three years on the academic job market (right after the economic collapse of 2008). Once I arrived on campus, Dr. Gustafson was a patient and understanding mentor to a sometimes impatient and hotheaded junior faculty member. She hosted the faculty mentoring program in her home, and bought me the cutest Hanna Andersson baby pajamas when I was pregnant with Alex.

She also taught our U.S. Women’s History courses, and organized the Women’s History events every year. When she left to become the Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at Mercer, we really missed her in the Women’s and Gender Studies program, and I couldn’t be more delighted to have her back, steering the ship during a particularly turbulent time for higher education.

As I’ve written about before, and as Diane Perpich and other colleagues are busy teaching at Clemson in their Women’s Leadership program, women are highly successful as leaders, if we can make it into those roles. This semester we’ll discuss women’s advancement in my Introduction to Women’s and Gender studies course, and we’ll consider a number of theories that explain why there are still so few women in top leadership. One issue is that in some industries, there are fewer women have those jobs, and so there are fewer people with relevant experience to advance through the ranks. But in jobs that employ equal numbers of men and women, there are still often fewer women in leadership roles, which theorists have explained through the idea of the glass ceiling, or having invisible barriers (organizational sexism, for example) that prevent women from advancing.

These barriers aren’t always about individual bias. Sometimes it’s about structural inequality. I think this explains in part why so few women run for political office: those positions often have only meager salaries that would never cover the costs of childcare. This is certainly true in South Carolina, where state representatives earn about $30,000 dollars a year. While the legislature isn’t in session year-round, consider all the time and energy to organize campaigns and solicit donations. How could women with children, or women earning 80% or less of what men make, afford to run for these positions?

That we have so many women in leadership roles at PC this year (there are a lot more I’m not listing!) is truly remarkable, not just because they are incredibly accomplished but also because they have broken through these glass ceilings. Here’s hoping those ceilings are shattered and we can sweep up the pieces for the dustbin of history. Proud to be a Blue Hose!*

*Our unusual college mascot: a metonymic reference to the stockings worn by Scottish warriors, also possibly a reference to the blue stockings our early 20^th century athletes wore.