Report Shows Significant Increase in Women's Leadership at Nation's Top Research Universities ("R1s")

BOSTON, May 31, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- A new report released today by the Women's Power Gap (WPG) shows that in less than two years, the percentage of women presidents at the nation's top research universities ("R1s") rose from 22 percent to 30 percent. This was driven by the fact that, within this time frame, more than half (53 percent) of all newly appointed presidents were women. In addition, women are at the helm of six of the eight Ivy League institutions.

Today's report is a follow-up to an earlier study, The Women's Power Gap at Elite Universities: Scaling the Ivory Tower, which examined diversity data at the nation's top research universities. The WPG analyzes gender, racial, and ethnic data for top leadership, including the president, provost, board chair, academic deans, presidents' cabinets, and governing boards. It ranks institutions based upon the representation of women in top leadership posts with the goal of creating a race to the top. 

"It is heartening to see more women leading our nation's elite universities," said WPG President Andrea Silbert. "This speaks to an increased awareness of the importance of having academic leadership that represents the diversity of the student population it serves. Women have outnumbered men on college campuses for decades, so it's high time we're starting to see more gender and racial diversity reflected in the highest roles in academia."

Despite the positive news, there is still a long way to go to achieve racial and gender parity in the Ivory Tower: 

• Only six percent of college presidents are women of color.
• Women account for fewer than 30% of board chairs.
• Nearly 40% of universities have never had a woman president.

The report cites lack of diversity data as a major obstacle to greater progress. The WPG has yet to find a single university that provides race and gender data for their boards of trustees or senior leadership. A key recommendation is that all academic institutions receiving taxpayer dollars (either through public funding or government contracts) be required to provide intersectional data of governing boards and top leadership, just as NASDAQ mandates all companies on its exchange to do. 

About the Women's Power Gap: The goal of the Women's Power Gap (WPG) is to dramatically increase the number of women from diverse backgrounds among chief executive officers and C-suite leaders across all sectors of our economy. We collect and analyze publicly available data and rank companies and institutions on the proportion of their women executives, with a particular focus on women of color. Our reports highlight the barriers to gender and racial equity and promote systemic practices and policies to dismantle them and remove obstacles that all underrepresented groups face. The Women's Power Gap is an initiative of the Eos Foundation.

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SOURCE Eos Foundation