“If we want to see women
moving into these positions,
we need to socialize search
firms and boards to look
at different pathways in
for women.”
Sara Diamond, president of OCAD University
“It was a very, very male world,” said one former male president to Dr.
Cafley. “It was a very distasteful experience for me because it was my first
real encounter with [an] old boys club and all the negative connotations
that that meant.”
Another participant in Dr. Cafley’s research, a woman, confided: “People
don’t take you seriously … They don’t think you know about numbers and
money … They think they can bully you a little bit more, they can push you
around a bit.”
Most recently, one woman’s rise to university president ended before
it even began. Wendy Cukier, formerly vice-president, research and inno-
vation, at Ryerson University and founder of its Diversity Institute, was
scheduled to take over as Brock University’s first female president on
Sept. 1. However, just days before it was to take effect, the chair of Brock’s
board of trustees, John Suk, announced that the appointment was cancelled
in a “mutual decision.” Few other details were given. Linda Rose-Krasnor, a
psychology professor and president of the Brock University Faculty Associ-
ation, said the news “left many of us in a state of shock [and] confusion.”
in an effort to overcome some of the barriers women face, Universities Canada officially launched last year a network of women presidents.
Among other things, the initiative aims to develop a supportive network
to mentor newly appointed women presidents as well as those who aspire
to the presidency; to seek out speaking engagements and other opportunities to raise the profile of its members; and to ensure that they are nominated for top honours such as the Order of Canada and the Killam Prize.
“My hope for the network is that it will be an environment that
can help to promote the value of women in executive-head positions, that
can provide sponsorship opportunities for women … but also can do
some advocacy in the broader context,” says Sara Diamond, president of
OCAD University.
One issue the network hopes to tackle is finding ways to ensure equity
and diversity on university governing boards and to foster boards that will
support women presidents. “If we want to see women moving into these
positions, we really need to socialize search firms and boards to look at
different pathways in for women,” Dr. Diamond says, and to ensure that
women make their way up the appropriate ladders within academia so that
they acquire the skills that are attractive to search firms and boards. “The
kind of skill set that is increasingly required for these roles is pretty wide
and there isn’t that much training within that path up the ranks,” she says.
A panel of women presidents spoke about the importance of diversity at this year’s annual conference of the Canadian University Boards
Association held in Halifax in April. The advancement of women’s leadership was also a major topic of discussion at the Universities Canada
membership meeting in Toronto that same month. Bill Thomas, chief executive officer of KPMG Canada, addressed the latter meeting and spoke
about the strides his own organization has made in appointing women to
leadership positions.
Mr. Thomas said the biggest barrier to women’s advancement is unconscious bias. He challenged all presidents to think about the leadership
teams at their own institutions and what changes could be made to ensure that women have an opportunity to participate fully in its leadership. Universities Canada President Paul Davidson says his organization
is offering unconscious bias training for university presidents similar to
the training that KPMG used. “This is an urgent challenge. It’s an ongoing
challenge,” Mr. Davidson says.
In another effort to promote gender diversity, Universities Canada
recently changed its bylaws regarding regional representation on its
executive board. The goal is to have women eventually make up half
of the board, says Mr. Davidson, and have it reflect the true diversity
of the country.
Canada’s French-speaking universities are taking part in a broader
initiative. The Agence universitaire de la Francophonie, a group that represents the world’s francophone universities, launched a network of senior
women administrators two years ago. The network plans to run a mentor-ship program to encourage women to seek out leadership positions, including those of dean, vice-president and president. It soon hopes to launch
a centralized agency that will track the number of women in these roles
at the more than 800 French-speaking universities around the world and
conduct research on what hurdles stand in the way of their advancement.
