- Lay the Foundation Stone for All Inclusive Higher Education System
- Posted By:
- Karen W.
- Posted On:
- 16-Sep-2009
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The past few decades has seen a rapid increase in the involvement of women in the higher education field. However, they are yet to reach their goal of complete equity, especially in universities and colleges. various researches have been conducted to examine the access of women to colleges, their faculty status, their ability as administrators and presidents, their leadership skills and areas of study in post graduate as well as undergraduate work.
One of the first significant efforts was initiated by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the year 1960, when the first dormitory for women, the Stanley A. McCormick Hall was completed. According to Katharine McCormick who donated the building to the institute, this dormitory opened the doors to facilitate more number of women entrants into the institute.
It is however a known fact that it requires much more than constructing labs and dormitories is not the permanent solution to building inclusive institutions.
A wide range of cultural, invisible, visible and structural norms must be revisited which are the building blocks of any higher education institute. These are in fact the norms that reflect administrator’s, faculty’s and student’s experiences. They are based on foundations laid decades ago and are not sometimes flexible enough to accommodate changes resulting from diverse experiences, identities and knowledge gained and contributed by men and women over time to the learning enterprise.
It is time to now rebuild, rethink and restructure these norms based on a strong foundation of inclusive excellence. Today we find a lot of women strong enough to don the mantle of leadership. They take up enough responsibilities and conduct their duties well enough to be the lead architects of future institutional structure.
There must be a combined effort to develop a potent and sustainable new design for higher education system in the twenty-first century. There has been various attempts at exploring the implications of feminist leadership and their method of implementation. Certain campuses also examine the effectiveness of an all inclusive campus which includes women from different backgrounds and identities.
Many share the view that one of the key aspects that can help in effective cultural transformation includes potent and powerful women’s leadership. For instance, Duke University has already put in motion an initiative to foster qualities of leadership in women students. Some advocates recommend innovative leadership training programs for coloured women. A meaningful leadership is possible only with fostering and developing institutional leadership.
The future hopefully is well geared towards redesigning higher education institutions with the help of a strong women’s leadership. This will help improve collaborative educational environments and an all inclusive scenario which can help our nation face challenges in a better manner. Higher education must be rebuilt to serve our nation which is extremely diverse and requires a strong and committed architectural team whose experiences and ideas have the power to transform our nation. It is the duty of every leader associated with higher education today to work towards this endeavour and lay a new and sustainable foundation stone.