Congratulations to the women reading this. Chances are, you’ve already reached some level of enlightenment, or you wouldn’t be affiliated with one of the region’s most supportive communities for women?the University of Utah.
Women’s Week provides a great opportunity for us to say thanks for all the U does for women. First and foremost, it provides high quality education at a reasonable price. A college education can double to triple one’s life-time earnings and job stability. Women are essential to our well-educated work force. But working is not all we have on our minds, nor should it be.
Too often, women and girls get distracted or become disenchanted with our educational system. They give up on education far too soon. Some lack the confidence necessary to apply to college. Others become discouraged at the recognition their more vocal male counterparts receive. It happens more often in science and math, which is why the U has programs such as ACCESS, and the Museum of Natural History’s Youth Teaching Youth High School Internship program to combat this.
Although the messages sent to girls about their ability to succeed in school may be subtle and often unintended, they still exist. How else can one explain girls’ loss of interest in science instruction at puberty when throughout elementary school young girls and boys show an equal interest and success in science? Ironically, girls lead boys developmentally. They talk earlier, read earlier and count earlier. In preschool, they score higher on IQ tests than their male peers. They usually receive better grades in elementary school than boys. Yet by the time they reach the fifth grade, boys classified as “gifted” far outnumber girls.
I don’t want to place undue blame on our schools and teachers, though, because our choices are our own.
After a few years organizing toddler play-groups and hitting the sale rack at Gap Kids, some women wind up asking, “Is this all there is?” They begin to look more fondly upon the collegiate dialogue and discourse we need in order to think analytically and responsibly about the challenges we and our children face.
Others can’t find the time for college until being met with realities that are even more harsh: bankruptcy, domestic abuse and divorce, among them. No woman pictures this in her future. But why don’t more women picture themselves in a glamorous black cap and gown? I have long advocated that before young women begin family planning, they have a college plan.
I try to avoid giving personal advice. I find that because of my forceful personality, people don’t ask me for it often, either. But I do have some beliefs that I would like to share, because they may be pertinent during Women’s Week. They are: No woman (or man) has ever regretted earning a college degree. Women in higher education can and should do more to support one another.
The reasons my career as a staff member and now as a teacher at the U have been so fulfilling are related to those beliefs. I have supervised six brilliant interns, and all but one of them were women. I saw how their passions for their studies grew at the U, and how their internships provided practical experience as well. I earned my master’s while working for the U. While this degree has so far opened more windows than doors for me, I built long-lasting relationships with some powerful women role models?teachers and students.
Lately, I’ve noticed some of my students slacking off a bit, which is customary during spring semester. I feel like it too. Then came the request for a conference after class from one of my female students. It turns out she became engaged during the Olympic break. She’ll need to end the semester early, because of her wedding plans. I don’t mind her absence, but I fear for what may be in store for her future. I hope she graduates.
I’ve recently been participating in the Staff Leadership Seminar for Women, a professional development program sponsored by the Presidential Commission on the Status of Women. It’s intended to provide institutional perspective on the background, issues, and problems of higher education today. We’ve yet to speak about how female faculty members possibly manage the hurdles to tenure while having and raising children. To me, that’s the essential roadblock to hiring and retaining a highly qualified and diverse faculty. But we have succeeded in building one supportive network of peers, colleagues and mentors, as the program’s purpose suggests.
Still, I found it heart wrenching listening to Utah Valley State College Academic Affairs Vice President Lucille Stoddard talk about how lonely she has been as a top woman in Utah higher education. Or, when Westminster College President Peggy Stock, profiled in Salt Lake magazine, echoed the same sentiment. After the precedents they’ve set and the roles they’ve modeled, these women constantly face critics who say, “a man could do a better job than you have.” Where were the supporters, men and women, who should have been there, shouting at the top of their lungs, “YOU GO GIRL?”
Stoddard and Stock have, against tremendous odds, made it as women in higher education. What worries me more is the young women who aren’t.
Anne Palmer Peterson, who earned her master’s of public administration from the U in 2000, is manager of academic programs in Academic Outreach and Continuing Education. She runs the Intermountain Academy for Leadership in Higher Education.