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When NASA astronauts first walked on the moon in 1969, eight-year-old Pamela Melroy was watching. Very few people who saw the Eagle land have forgotten the sight, but for Pam, the experience was more than awe-inspiring-it changed the course of her life. |
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How to Get Your Girls to Consider Women's Colleges
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Connecting the Dots to Find the Right Fit
NACAC piloted a new 30 minute “burst” information session in Denver – not nearly enough time for us to talk about our favorite subject: this generation of girls and helping them find the right fit in the increasingly complicated college selection process. Bottom line: “It is all about her.” This is an expanded version of the PPT that was presented at NACAC on October 6, 2012. It includes additional key messages and research findings that you can tailor to meet your advisees’ needs.
Section 1 (4 - 15) Kimberley’s and Kristen’s Presentation in Denver |
Thoughts at Commencement 2012
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Finding the right fit in a college is an incredible journey. It’s a journey to find the college at which you will thrive and reach your academic and personal potential. It’s also a journey to find the college that will best prepare you for success in life after college. One tack to take on your journey is to look at last things first – look at what commencement speakers tell the graduating class as they begin their new life after college. The dominate themes in the words of wisdom shared at women’s colleges – to listen and to speak out and give voice; to be courageous and to take risks and seize opportunities; to give and to make a difference at your seat at the table – whatever and where ever that table is; to be curious and to discover and continue to learn and grow – weave a rich fabric that shapes the answer to the call to action delivered at one women’s college: “The question I ask you graduates is: What will your story be?” You can either browse them all, alphabetically or select individual colleges:
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Connecting the Dots to Find the Right Fit: How to Get Your Girls to Consider Women’s Colleges
L-R: Kimberley Lewis, Bryn Mawr College; Deb Shaver, Smith College; and Kristin McAndrew, Saint Mary’s College |
Independent Educational Consultants Association, May 3, 2012 A presentation at the spring conference of the Independent Educational Consultants Association explored the dimensions of the college selection process that young women need to consider in order to find the right fit in college – and why a women’s college might be the right fit for them. To see what Susan Lennon (President of the Women’s College Coalition), Kimberley Lewis (Senior Assistant Director of Admissions at Bryn Mawr College), Kristin McAndrew (Director of Admission at Saint Mary’s College) and Deb Shaver (Dean of Admission at Smith College) talked about with counselors, click here. Stay tuned: The Women’s College Coalition has embarked on a bold research initiative to answer the provocative question, “Why Does the World Need Women’s Colleges?” New research findings from NSSE, Hardwick~Day, Linda Sax and other sources will be posted to our website as they are available. Join us in our noble mission: “The Women’s College Coalition, in concert with its members, transforms the world through the education and success of women and girls.” |
At the Pinnacle of Hillary Clinton's Career
 Secretary of State Clinton |
At the Pinnacle of Hillary Clinton's Career Secretary of State Clinton (Wellesley ’69) has won over her harshest critics and become so popular that some Democrats are envisioning a future in which she replaces Joe Biden as vice president on the 2012 ticket and then—dare they imagine it—takes the top job in 2016. I am late for a black-tie dinner, running down Manhattan’s West Side Highway in a cocktail dress and bare feet, evening sandals clutched in one hand, a recorder and notebook in the other. In a covered garage at Chelsea Piers, I catch up to my mark—a string of town cars, SUVs, and police cars, lights blazing—just as Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton steps onto the red carpet. Her entourage files into a curtained-off room to the side of the banquet hall, and her security detail waves me in behind them—I’ve been following her for a few weeks now, from Washington, DC, to Europe and now New York City. I’m frantically scanning the group for the State Department press aide, my eyes still adjusting to the darkened antechamber, when I practically walk into Secretary Clinton. She looks at me; I look at her. Her eyes are disarmingly blue; my face is red. Her gaze travels down to the stilettos in my hand, then to my bare feet. I follow suit, as if I’m in one of those dreams where you find yourself in high school French, taking a test you didn’t study for, and you suddenly realize that you forgot to put on clothes. |
Twenty-One Women’s College Named to the 2012 President’s Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll
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April 2, 2012 The 642 colleges and universities named to this year's Honor Roll reported that nearly one million of their students engaged in service learning and more than 1.6 million participated in other forms of community service, serving a total of more than 105 million hours, often using the skills learned in classrooms. Why do service learning and community service matter in college? See below. . |
California women still lag in key categories
 MSMC of Los Angeles on the Times Square PR Newswire |
The Women’s College Coalition has embarked on a bold research agenda, the objective of which is to answer the question, “Why does the world need women’s colleges?” One dimension of this work – illuminating the factors that can impede or enhance the well-being and success of women and girls before, during, and after college – is best described through reports on the status of women and girls that Alverno College, Trinity Washington University, and Mount St. Mary’s College have released for Wisconsin, Metropolitan Washington DC area, and California, respectively. About these reports, Mary Meehan, president of Alverno College, said “The mission of a women’s college extends beyond the classroom. We have a responsibility to educate the community on issues impacting women and girls. We have a moral imperative to be a voice in the local and global communities as ways women contribute to our society. We have an obligation to create a culture committed to women and girls.” Women earn college degrees at a higher rate than men in California, but men still have advantages in leadership roles and earning power, according to an analysis by Mount St. Mary's College. March 29, 2012 By Rebecca Trounson, Los Angeles Times California women have made significant strides in recent years, obtaining college and graduate degrees at a higher rate than men, for instance, but they still lag their male counterparts when it comes to leadership roles, earning power, and proficiency in advanced science and math, a new report shows. The analysis (Click Here to download 2012 MSMC Status of Girls) released Thursday, takes a wide-ranging look at how women and girls are faring across California. It points to recent achievements in some areas but highlights continuing inequities in many others, including women's low representation in elected office, in high-paying science and technology careers, and in the top ranks of the state's major public companies |
Commentary: Women’s Colleges, HBCUs Have Nurtured the Best and the Brightest
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March 22, 2012 My own family is a case in point. |
Women’s College Coalition has embarked on a bold research agenda
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The Women’s College Coalition has embarked on a bold research agenda, the objective of which is to answer the question, “Why does the world need women’s colleges?” Hardwick Day and NSSE findings, and work the Coalition is doing with Linda Sax (author of The Gender Gap in College: Maximizing the Development Potential of Women and Men) are distinctive points in the research agenda. The Coalition released new findings in webinars conducted in February and March 2012. We released the findings of our first Hardwick~Day Comparative Alumnae Survey in 2008. And while the world in which we work has changed significantly since then, the four key messages that came out of the 2008 findings, remain constant with the new, recently released findings. |
Gloria Steinem, a Woman Like No Other
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IN 1970, when the Senate was first debating passage of the Equal Rights Amendment, a featured speaker was Gloria Steinem, a 36-year-old magazine writer with a growing reputation as a forceful advocate of women’s issues. “During years of working for a living, I have experienced much of the legal and social discrimination reserved for women in this country,” Ms. Steinem told the almost exclusively male gathering. “I have been refused service in public restaurants, ordered out of public gathering places and turned away from apartment rentals. All for the clearly stated, sole reason that I am a woman.” |
Why I Moved: Linda A. Bell
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March 4, 2012 Name: Linda A. Bell Age: 53 New Job: Provost and dean of the faculty at Barnard College; professor of economics Position she's leaving: Provost and professor of economics, Haverford College Highest degree: Doctorate in economics from Harvard University When I heard that I had been nominated for the position of provost at Barnard, I was intrigued. There are so many wonderful things about Barnard that dovetail with both the trajectory of my career and my experience as an academic researcher. Barnard is a small college, but its unique relationship with Columbia gives it the resources of a place that's much larger. So many things make it particularly appealing: It's a liberal-arts college for women; it's in New York City; and its roster of famous and distinguished alumnae is really quite extraordinary. I have long been an advocate of women's education and mentorship. My research has focused on the powerful effect that female mentors have in helping women in corporate settings overcome gender pay differences and advance to the top executive ranks. Barnard students are poised to take on these positions of leadership, and it will be exciting to help develop and mentor these women at the very beginning of their careers. |
Women's colleges tap underutilized leadership talent
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Women's colleges tap underutilized leadership talent In a few short months, thousands of newly minted college graduates will leave Boston with dreams of future success. According to the U.S. Census, more than half of these students will be women; and according to the consulting firm McKinsey & Co, if we check back with these women in several years, they will not have attained the same level of success as their male counterparts. Research by McKinsey and the women’s advocacy group Catalyst shows that women account for more than half of entry-level professionals in the largest American industrial corporations, but only 14 percent are on executive committees. Women represent just 3 percent of Fortune500 CEOs, and less than 15 percent of corporate executives at top companies worldwide. The sad truth is that only minimal progress has been made in the past few decades for women to make a significant break-through into leadership positions. The reasons for this disparity are multifaceted, yet one of the strongest answers to this problem, I believe, can be found at some of America’s most enduring institutions: women’s colleges. As a graduate and president of a women’s college, I have no doubt that these educational outlets continue to play a vital role in educating and preparing women for leadership positions, helping our nation tap into an enormous segment of underutilized talent. |
Female Participation in College Sports Reaches All-Time High
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Report: 2012 Women in Intercollegiate Sport 1977 to 2012 |
January 22, 2012 Forty years after the passage of federal legislation used to prevent gender discrimination in college sports, female participation opportunities have reached a record high. Nearly 200,000 female athletes will suit up this year on 9,274 NCAA teams. That's an average of 8.7 women's teams per college¬—the highest number ever, according to a report to be released on Monday. Although some sports have seen a decline in participation—including ones with high numbers of minority athletes—the overall numbers have grown markedly during the past two years. That is remarkable, considering the budget constraints many institutions have faced, say the report's authors, R. Vivian Acosta and Linda Jean Carpenter, professors emerita of Brooklyn College. They've been studying women's sports since the enactment of Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972. |
I Was Impossible, but Then I Saw How to Lead
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Ruth Simmons, former president of Smith College
This interview with Ruth J. Simmons, president of Brown University for the last 11 years, was conducted and condensed by Adam Bryant. Dr. Simmons is stepping down at the end of this academic year and will continue as a professor of comparative literature and Africana studies. Q. Do you remember the first time you were somebody’s boss? A. Probably the first time I was a boss was when I was associate dean of the graduate school at the University of Southern California. I was in my early 30s. Q. Was that an easy transition? A. It was. If I had to ask myself why, I would say it’s because I’d probably been building to the point where I was capable of doing those things without actually knowing that I could. And if you ask me how far back that went — this assemblage of skills and experience — I’d probably say that it went back to my childhood. Q. How so? A. I realized that I was an inveterate organizer from the earliest age. I’m the youngest of 12 children. And although I was the youngest, I tried to organize things in my family. When there were disputes, I tried to mediate. And I intervened in school as well to tell teachers what they were doing wrong, or at least to tell them what I didn’t like about what they were doing. I intervened sometimes in classes to take a leadership role. By the time I got to college, I was impossible. |
More proof that mentors matter
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Ruth Simmons, former president of Smith College
"That was defining for me, the notion that women didn't have to play restricted roles." The libraries at Brown University contain some 6 million items—not just books but also Babylonian clay tablets and locks of Abraham Lincoln's hair. It's striking, then, that the woman in charge of this university came from a home where paper, pencils, and books were as hard to come by as a first edition of the Canterbury Tales. Growing up on a farm in East Texas, the youngest of 12 children, Ruth Simmons could easily recount the story of her life as one of deprivation and hardship. Her father was a sharecropper and her mother was a part-time maid. Yet she's more apt to remember it fondly. "My journey has not been all that arduous, contrary to the way that my life is often presented," she says. "I had this wonderful grounding by my parents, and then an extraordinary streak of luck." Those attributes took her from the farm to a series of important firsts: the first black president of a Seven Sisters school, the first African-American at the helm of an Ivy League institution, and the first female president of Brown. For all this, she credits a series of mentors who challenged, prodded, and supported her along the way. |
2011 Nobel Peace Prize Awarded to Three Activist Women
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Photos by - Left: Chester Higgins Jr./The New York Times; center: Jane Hahn for The New York Times; right: Yahya Arhab/EPA |
“We cannot achieve democracy and lasting peace in the world unless women obtain the same opportunities as men to influence developments at all levels of society.” (Citation, 2011 Nobel Peace Prize) October 11, 2011 LONDON — The Nobel Peace Prize for 2011 was awarded on Friday to three campaigning women from Africa and the Arab world in acknowledgment of their nonviolent role in promoting peace, democracy and gender equality. The winners were Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf — Africa’s first elected female president — her compatriot, peace activist Leymah Gbowee and Tawakul Karman of Yemen, a pro-democracy campaigner. They were the first women to win the prize since Kenya’s Wangari Maathai, who died last month, was named as the laureate in 2004. Most of the recipients in the award’s 110-year history have been men and Friday’s decision seemed designed to give impetus to the cause for women’s rights around the world. |
For Women on Campuses, Access Doesn't Equal Success
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October, 2 2011 The influence of gender is lurking on our campuses—in classrooms, in residence halls, on the bleachers at athletic events. It follows students as they study abroad, and it is the elephant in the room when students are learning to lead. The gender-laden experiences of our students have unanticipated consequences in their own lives and in society as a whole, yet those of us in higher education generally behave as if we live in a "postgender" world. |
Connecting the Dots to Find the Right Fit
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Connecting the Dots to Find the Right Fit
A presentation at the 67th annual conference of the National Association for College Admission Counseling explored the dimensions of the college selection process that young women need to consider in order to find the right fit in college – and why a women’s college might be the right fit for them. To see what Hector Martinez (Director of College Guidance at The Webb Schools), Deb Shaver (Director of Admission at Smith College), Jessica Reback (’11, Smith College and Teach for America – New Orleans at William J. Fischer Accelerated Academy, 7th/8th Grade English Language Arts/Writing) and Susan Lennon (President of the Women’s College Coalition) talked about with high school guidance counselors, click here for the abbreviated version of the presentation and click here for the expanded version, which includes the research, data, and dots that were presented – NSSE, Hardwick~Day and Linda Sax, etc. – as well as the stories behind the pictures in our newest poster. |
The Re-Education of an Amnesiac
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Smith College Student Authors “Lives,” the end piece in The New York Times magazine. “From tying shoes to taking college courses, a woman who lost everything learns it all again.”
September 16, 2011 I’m not your typical undergraduate. I am a 46-year-old wife and mother with three adult children. Depending on how you count, I may be twice as old as the traditional students or essentially the same age as they are. After all, my life as I know it began 23 years ago, when, in a freakish accident, I was hit in the head by a ceiling fan in our home in Fort Worth, Tex. At that moment, everything and everyone I ever knew, and all I had ever learned, was erased completely from my mind. |
It is all about you.
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The Women’s College Coalition has released its newest poster to more than 14,000 high school guidance counselors and others who influence the college selection process. The target audience for the poster is prospective students. It is all about you. Your education and success matter. What matters in college matters after college – and it matters in your college selection process. Finding the right fit in a college – the college at which you will thrive and reach your academic and personal potential, the college that will best prepare you for success – is one of the most important decisions you will make. Finding the right fit is all about you. It’s about who you are and what matters to you. It’s about your dreams and expectations – of yourself and your college experience, both in and out of the classroom. Every picture tells a thousand words. The pictures on the poster tell the stories about many of the dimensions of finding the right fit and why a women’s college – which is all about the education and success of its students – might be the right fit for you. To learn more about the stories the pictures tell, Click here. Posters can be purchased ($1 each plus shipping and handling); Click here. |
Views: Closing the Gap
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Views In its just-issued report "Women in STEM: A Gender Gap to Innovation" the U.S. Department of Commerce writes that while women fill close to half of all jobs in the U.S. economy, they hold less than 25 percent of science, technology, engineering, and math jobs. The gender gap in STEM jobs persists despite the fact that more women now graduate from college than men and the fact that women in STEM fields tend to have more equitable wages compared to those in non-STEM jobs. Women major and earn degrees in STEM fields, creating a female talent pool, but they tend to pursue careers in education and health care. Some may say, "Well, so what? There are some jobs men like, and some jobs women like." Or they may even argue that there are some fields for which one sex has a greater aptitude than the other. |
Women See Value and Benefits of College; Men Lag on Both Fronts, Survey Finds
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SOCIAL & DEMOGRAPHIC TRENDS Half of all women who have graduated from a four-year college give the U.S. higher education system excellent or good marks for the value it provides given the money spent by students and their families; only 37% of male graduates agree. In addition, women who have graduated from college are more likely than men to say their education helped them to grow both personally and intellectually. These results of a nationwide Pew Research Center survey come at a time when women surpass men by record numbers in college enrollment and completion. |
Career Advice: SHE'S GOT IT: LYNN PASQUERELLA
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Lynn Pasquerella President of Mount Holyoke College |
She's Got It! Lynn Pasquerella is president at Mount Holyoke College, in South Hadley, Massachusetts. Mount Holyoke is a highly selective liberal arts college for women, renowned for educating women leaders. Prior to becoming president on July 1, 2010, Pasquerella was provost at the University of Hartford. She holds a Ph.D. in philosophy from Brown University and is married, with twin college-aged sons. I met President Pasquerella in Toronto this past June at the Worldviews Conference on Media and Higher Education. We immediately launched into a lively conversation about University of Venus and Mount Holyoke and our respective work on promoting new leadership in higher education. In reflecting on that conversation, I realized that it needed to go public. I was inspired by my conversation with Lynn and I knew that others would find it equally inspiring. [A spin-off from University of Venus, She’s Got It! is a newly launched career column at Inside Higher Ed featuring interviews with executive level women and men in the education sector. Read more about it here.] |
In response to the debt crisis, former congresswoman and Smith alumna, Jane Harman '66, yearns for a lost bipartisan era.
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Rep. Jane Harman (D-CA) greets U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu (L) and Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson ahead of their testimony before the House Energy and Commerce Committee on Capitol Hill April 22, 2009 in Washington, DC., Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images |
Escape From the Asylum Three months into my new job as president and CEO of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, I watch the dysfunction in Congress with dismay. I served there for nine terms and left earlier this year after a huge reelection victory. The chance to lead a truly bipartisan institution that blends policy and scholarship was a challenge I could not turn down. Many new colleagues and former constituents ask me when and why Congress became so broken. My answer: the breakdown started in the 1980s, when politicians began to value winning elections and building single-party majorities over responsible governance. Today, representatives would rather blame the other guy for not solving a problem than work with him or her on a bipartisan solution. Working together requires sharing the credit—but that might give the other party an opportunity to win, which is something seemingly unthinkable now. |
Many of America’s most powerful women went to a college you’ve never heard of.
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July/August 2011 The Trinity Sisters Sister Ann Gormly is almost ninety, but she still skips the elevator and climbs the steep wooden staircase in the main hall of Trinity College, her alma mater and former employer of many years. I met her there one cold afternoon in early December, on the college’s small hillside campus in northeast Washington, D.C. She guided me up one flight of steps, down a long, quiet hallway, and into a spare white meeting room, where she and three of her fellow nuns told me about one of the more remarkable and unacknowledged institutions in twentieth-century American higher education. |
The implications of teen sleep deficits
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July 19, 2011 Smith sophomore, Grace McKay-Corkum, who studies circadian rhythms and sleep with Smith Professor Mary Harrington, reports on recent sleep research in light of proposals to change school start times in Northampton, MA to a later hour. |
