Gendered Organizations: The Impact on Women Leaders at

Community Colleges

Pamela L. Eddy, Central Michigan UniversityElizabeth M. Cox, Iowa State University

American Educational Research AssociationAnnual Meeting, Chicago, IL

April 11, 2007

The “people’s colleges”

• 29% of community college presidents are women (American Council on Education, 2007)

• Yet women comprise more than a majority of community college enrollments- 57% (NCES, 2004)

• 80% of current community college presidents plan to retire by 2011(Shults, 2001)

Research Questions

• Will the exodus due to retirements open the door for women to have more presence in community college leadership?

• What is the influence of gendered organizational structures on women leading community colleges?

Leadership Literature Overview

• Male norms for leadership (Amey & Twombly, 1992)

• Masculine work ethic in management (Kanter, 1993)

• Disembodied worker and the job (Acker, 1990)

Research Study

• Phenomenological study of six, female community college presidents

• Prime source of data collection was individual interviews

Findings

• Portrait of female community college presidents

• Sequenced career pathways

• Getting tough

• Working in a man’s world

• Breaking away

Portrait of Study Presidents

• All married—nationally only 83%

• Two with K-12 background

• One from student affairs

• One from enrollment management

• Two via academics

Sequenced Career Paths

• Husbands’ retirements

• Children grown

• Promotions on hold

Getting Tough

• Role of language

• Female labels

• Role of hierarchy

Working in a Man’s World

• Disembodied workers

• Labor negotiations

• Not like other women

Breaking Away

• Collaboration

• Relationships

• Creating new means of operating

Conclusion

• Community colleges are gendered organizations despite espoused values of being democratic institutions.

– With more than a majority of women as students, but less than a third of the presidents represented by women supports Acker’s (2006) definition of gendered organizations.

Moving Forward

DiCroce (1995)1. Initially break down institutional gender

stereotypes;

2. Penetrate institution’s power structure and redefine its sense of power;

3. Use power of office to alter gender-related institutional policy;

4. Raise collegial consciousness and initiate collegial dialogue on gender related issues;

5. Become an active player for public policy development and debate beyond college level

Actions to Move Toward a Less Gendered Organization

• Acknowledge that the goals and mission of the organization are not gender neutral

• Integrate gender equality into the organizational mission and goals (Ward, 2004)

Actions to Move forward

• Identify factors within the community college environment that are contributing to greater gender equality and replicate them (Britton, 2000)

• Examine ways gendered practices within the organization are rewarded outside organizations (Ward,

2004) and move toward changing, if not eliminating, the system

Despite this seemingly discouraging conclusion, the research provides a means of “giving voice to women in order to articulate feminist viewpoints, overturn unitary representations of experience to make way for the multiplicity of not only gender, but race, ethnicity, age, and class” (Hatch & Cunliffe, 2006, p. 275)