Shattering Yale’s glass ceiling
When the University of Pennsylvania named then-Yale Provost Judith Rodin its president in December of 1993, much was made of the fact that a woman had finally risen to the top post at an Ivy League school. “I think it’s about time,” Rodin said at the time.
Yale pointed out that it had already had a female president. Hanna Holborn Gray, after all, had served as acting president from when Kingman Brewster stepped down in 1977 to when A. Bartlett Giamatti assumed the presidency in 1978.
But, as Penn dutifully rebutted, an acting president is not a full president.
At...
the presidency should go to the most qualified person. nothing else matters -- not even gender.
The biggest mistake Yale ever made was picking Giamatti over Gray.
The story (and this story) of women at Yale is fascinating; hopefully Needham will write another article looking at the history of minorities in the Yale administration.
Alices through the looking glass ceiling
As a contemporary at Yale of Lorimer and Robinson, however as an academic rather than a lawyer, I will testify that both women worked tirelessly to firmly suppress equal employment opportunities for academic women at Yale superbly trained for careers in higher education by the Graduate School of Arts & Sciences (as were Levin, Giamatti, et al). The graduate school has been producing a continuous supply of excellent women for careers and leadership in higher education for over a century, (mothers or not) yet even the time line you represent ignores this fact.
let's play a little game...
what's one similar physical characteristic of all the women pictured for the article?
ooh! ooh! ooh! i know. i know. they are all white
They all have heads!
i was thinking that they're all so pretty! what a cool article.
It's unfortunate that this article didn't mention Gwendolyn Sykes - Yale's first CFO.
“there clearly is no glass ceiling at Yale for women.”
WHAT????? Even as a female student trying to major in the sciences I've encountered it!
obviously the human resources guy is going to say there's no glass ceiling.
Exactly! I'm glad SOMEBODY understands this.
@#12
Oooooh, do tell!
("Trying" to major in science? Is Yale's heteronormative oppressive patriarchy restraining you in some way?)
The next president of Yale must be a black lesbian with blond hair and only one leg. It'll be embarrassing if we have a straight male with a normal number of limbs.
LOL @ #16.
The real glass ceiling exists for racial minorities over white women. White men can relate more to the white women as they share a common culture and upbringing. Racial minorities are disenfranchised and marginalized from elite administrative posts. Yale should consider recruiting more minorities rather than obsessing with promoting more white women in the name of equality.
Whenever "groups" complain that they can't get ahead in business/govt/institutions, I am often led to wonder: why don't they do what the "white men" do? That is: start your own?
Don't like that biz isn't giving you the promotion you need? Start your own!
Don't like that tenure is so hard to come by in your university? Start your own! (And before you day "well that would be HARD! Well, duh: but, e.g., the Olin Tech campus seemed to figger it out PDQ).
So: lotta folks demand a "helping hand" to get ahead in a pre-existing scaffold, but never seem able to. just. do it.
(And to those who *do* have your own entrepreneurial bents: I applaud you! I note that B-school, esp. SOM, has quite a broad range of diversity and precious few of those grads--regardless of sex or "race"--have trouble imposing their own vision on the world.)
I still look forward to hearing how Yale science is oppressing #12. Are labs skewed toward males? Are problem sets too masculine? Is Professor McCrusty too diffident or indifferent to be of use as a mentor? Just wondering...)
#19: The "white men" that often get promoted in the business world are not the ones that necessarily started the business. They are promoted because they are "white men." It is with this concept that many people have a problem with. It is truly riduculous to suggest that the "white man" that drove the big businesses to bankruptcy during this recession are somehow associated with their origins.
Women were discriminated against in this country longer than minorities. They did not get the right to vote until after minority men and were not admitted to many Ivy League universities until after minority men. Minorities have the advantage of affirmative action. Women statistically receive lower wages than men of any race and are more likely to be harrassed or discriminated against at work than men, regardless of race.
So get off your high horse, #18, and accept the fact that women are included in the umbrella term "minorities".
i think gwen sykes was an astronaut before coming to yale.
#21: Then why is it that no racial minorities are even discussed here? It is clear that there are many more women administrators than minorities. I can only name one or two black professors or hispanic professors or no administrators. Shame on Yale.
this article is horribly contrived. why do we "have" to have a woman president? give the job to the most qualified candidate even if they are a white anglo-saxon protestant who went to exeter. who cares? insecure people do!
How do you define "qualified" for a subjective positions such as this? If you are going to base that on prior experience, obviously you are not going to get a minority or a woman that has prior Ivy League experience due to institutional racism. "Qualifed" is a subjective term for the continued preference for whites in our society.
@ Hieronymous
"Whenever "groups" complain that they can't get ahead in business/govt/institutions, I am often led to wonder: why don't they do what the "white men" do? That is: start your own?"
Um, have you been to this country? Have you seen the market?
Right. Entrepreneurship. In the Hard Sciences. So easy. So easy...
Speaking of women in the sciences at Yale, don't forget the Dean of the School of Engineering & Applied Science, T. Kyle Vanderlick, and C. Megan Urry, the Chair of the Physics Department.
#26: words of defeatism, thoughts of the weak.
I know countless hard-science entrepreneurs; indeed, my own father was one.
Are you claiming that only men are smart/stupid enough to go it alone?
Nothing ventured, nothing gained. Enjoy your office job.
It's outrageous that only 20% of tenured faculty are women. I wonder how much that statistic has moved over the years relative to peer institutions. This statistic only should embarrass Yale.
this is a great article, but the next president absolutely has to be a woman. it'll be embarrassing if we have another man in the job.