The Woman Who Broke Oxford’s 800-Year-Old Glass Ceiling
No woman has ever run the U.K.’s prestigious Oxford University. But that’s all about to change with the appointment of new vice-chancellor Louise Richardson.
Richardson’s new role, pending approval by the school’s congressional board, would put her at the head of the school, overseeing day-to-day activities.
“I look forward to the day when a woman being appointed isn’t in itself news,” Richardson told The Guardian. “Unfortunately, academia, like most professions, is pyramid-shaped—the higher up you go, the fewer women there are.”
Women are most often employed at lower-paying institutions, in lesser positions, and steered away from coveted tenured positions, according to a 2011 report from the American Association of University Professors. Women academics earn about 80 percent of what their male peers do, a figure that has remained stagnant since the 1970s, the study states.
At U.S. universities, women make up 38 percent of professors at the doctorate level. Women fill 22 percent of those jobs in the U.K.
Richardson is an expert in international terrorism and security whose credentials include a stint as a dean at Harvard University and serving as vice-chancellor and president at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland.
Along with paving the way for high-powered female academics, Richardson will focus on making Oxford more accessible to female students—who make up 45 percent of its undergraduate enrollment—as well as to lower-income students.
“This has been a priority for me at St Andrews, where we have dramatically increased the proportion of poor kids we accept,” Richardson told The Guardian. Richardson’s parents didn’t attend college, nor did most of her six siblings.
“I am utterly committed to others having the same opportunity I have had,” she said.
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Original article from TakePart
