This past May, I had the opportunity to talk with Dr. John T. Delaney, Dean of the Joseph M. Katz Graduate School of Business at the University of Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania, regarding the women empowerment and leadership program I launched in March 2011. The purpose of Women History Makers-DC, MD & VA and Leadership Tuesdays is to:
•Highlight and profile women role models in Washington, D.C., Maryland, and Virginia who have been trailblazers and pioneers •Provide resources to develop, strengthen and encourage women to pursue leadership •Provide online and offline opportunities for mentoring and motivation that enable women to live better lives. (See womenatliberty.com for more information.)
Given the low rate of women in corporate senior executive and Board of Directors’ positions in U.S. companies, I decided that I wanted to focus our talk on the representation of women in those areas. I also wanted to find out how Katz is addressing this problem in its MBA and Executive Education programs. Further, I wanted to know if Katz was involved in any partnerships and/or research to 1) explain the cause for the lack of women and minorities in leadership positions; and 2) improve the status quo.
Some of the statistics that informed my conversation with Dr. Delaney came from "Women In America, Indicators of Social and Economic Well-Being", a 2011 Report released by the White House Council on Women and Girls. (See Leadership Tuesdays for the statistics.) As mentioned in his earlier guest blog for Leadership Tuesdays, The Great Business School Challenge Hidden In Plain Sight, Delaney discussed the enrollment rates for women at some of the U.S. top business school programs and the reasons why women may not be pursuing graduate business degrees at the same rate they are getting other professional degrees in law and medicine.
Although going to (graduate) business school is not the only path into senior executive leadership, more often than not, it has become an important milestone in preparation for senior business leadership. We also talked about how the “glass ceiling” and some of the decisions that women make during their career, like having children and...
