Elevating the Voice of Mid-Career Academic Women Leaders in Broadening Participation in STEM

Leadership Opportunities for Mid-Career Women

Welch et al. (2019) stated that mid-career is characterized as a time of creativity and productivity for some women in academe, but disillusionment and stagnation for others. Senior academic leadership opportunities are vehicles through women’s mid-career stagnation into creativity, productivity, and meaning. Senior academic leaders have distinct titles and positions, such as deans, provosts, vice presidents, and presidents. While the work of senior academic leaders varies, a common element of academic leadership is that the work is vision-driven, grounded in advocacy, centered in equity, and focused on stewardship (Montgomery, 2020). Senior leadership roles can provide mid-career women an outlet to exercise their creativity and acquired power to implement change and reinvigorate career aspirations and fulfillment (Kiral and Basara, 2019).

The problem is that women are underrepresented in senior academic leadership positions (Fuesting et al., 2018; Yeh, 2018). Usually, serving as department chair is the mid-career entry point for women faculty. Unfortunately, many do not aspire to continue beyond leading as a department chair. This stagnated aspiration creates a void in the leadership pipeline. The gap in transitioning mid-career faculty into senior academic leadership positions impacts succession planning, leadership sustainability, and mid-career stagnation (Baker et al., 2019; Zenger, 2013).