Women urged to be own advocates

Five of the state’s 11 college presidents are women, dwarfing the national average of 26 percent, as of 2011, according to the Washington, D.C.-based American Council on Education.

Four of those five women were brought together last week, along with Gov. Gina M. Raimondo, to both celebrate the strength of female leadership in the Ocean State and encourage others to follow in their footsteps.

“I can’t point to any other state with such a high percentage of women in the college presidency,” said Kim Bobby, the director of ACE’s inclusive excellence group. “It’s something to promote and applaud … but it also tells us it shouldn’t be so unique.”

Rhode Island may be ahead of the curve in terms of women leaders in higher education, but that wasn’t always so. In 2003, former Salve Regina University President Therese Antone and former Brown University President Ruth T. Simmons were the only female higher education leaders in Rhode Island. And Raimondo is the state’s first female governor.

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Barriers women face to advancement locally still do exist but they chiefly come from within, said Nancy Carriuolo, the Rhode Island College president who founded Rhode Island Women in Higher Education. The newly reconstituted ACE state chapter brought the female college leaders together for a panel discussion and honored Raimondo with a leadership award.

“We’re not going to be an advocacy group,” said Carriuolo. “I see the group as teaching each woman how to be her own advocate.”

Brown University President Christina H. Paxson did note that child care in Rhode Island needs to improve.

“Child care is not as good here as it is in other places,” said Paxson. “I see that as a problem.”

But the general feedback Carriuolo got from women who attended the event was that they liked the presentation from executive coach Cynthia Reed about ways they could “create opportunities for themselves.”

Indeed, Mim Runey, president of Johnson & Wales University’s Providence campus, said she doesn’t dwell on her female identity, even though “it has been pointed out to me in my career by men that I am a woman. But it’s not [at the] top of my mind.”

The state’s other female college presidents are Sister Jane Gerety, at Salve Regina, and Rhode Island School of Design’s Rosanne Somerson. The latter could not attend but did provide a video for the event.

There are many ways to be a leader without being a university president, says Carriuolo.

“We’re all very proud of the fact we have five women presidents in Rhode Island, but that’s five people,” she said. “At the meeting 150 women turned out who are at various stages in their careers. Not all of them will become presidents or want to, but they all want to be valued for their skills and knowledge.” •

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