Mary Sue Coleman, elected yesterday to be the next University of Michigan president, is one of three women currently leading Big Ten universities. Coleman, who will start her term as president Aug. 1, has held leadership roles in the higher education community for many years.
She is joined by former University provost Nancy Cantor, who is now chancellor at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, and Sharon Stephens Brehm, the chancellor of Indiana University at Bloomington.
But despite Coleman following in the footsteps of 12 male presidents and being the first woman to hold this position, she and others are placing the emphasis on the job and not the gender.
“My sense is that it is important for us to note that Mary Sue Coleman was the first woman to be elected president, but that is not the entire story,” said Earl Lewis, chair of the Presidential Search Advisory Committee.
He added that though she is the first woman president, she was chosen because of her qualifications across the board.
“Mary Sue was named president because she combined experience, ability and vision and if she lacked those things ,she would not have been selected. That’s part of who she is, that’s not all of who she is,” he said.
When asked if she considers herself a role model for young women who might aspire to the presidential position, Coleman again addressed the role she is taking on as opposed to focusing on the fact that she is a woman. “This is a hard job, it is a difficult job for both men and women,” she said.
Coleman added that she hopes young people, regardless of gender, recognize their potential and the possibilities for their futures.
“I would hope that all young people know that they can aspire to be whatever they want (to be)” she said.
Charles Colbert, vice-chancellor for administration and human resources at the Urbana-Champaign campus, is working for a woman for the first time in an administrative capacity. Though he was not involved in Cantor’s hiring process, Colbert said he would not have thought that her being a woman would influence the decision “at all,” as the University of Illinois has had women leaders at both its campuses.
“(Cantor) is a very good person to work for – very smart, very highly regarded in the local community as well as the national scene,” Colbert said, adding that although working for a woman is a new experience for him, he has not noticed any difference between her and the men he has worked under.
“I have been doing this work for 30 years,” he said. “I don’t notice that she’s different than any males I’ve worked for.” He added that he has been “quite pleased” with how things are going so far and said she is a “very exciting person to work for.”
As far as women’s roles on campus over the years, women were not allowed in the Michigan Union until 1954. They took the initiative to find their own place in the University with the creation of the Michigan League in the 1929.
Women have always been eligible to be selected for the role of University president, though educational circumstances in earlier years made it all but a practical impossibility.
With more women holding high positions in the academic community, that is no longer the case.
“Clearly now there is a deeper cohort or pool of women in key academic leadership positions,” Lewis said. “And so as a result, each time we search for a new University president, we include the possibility that women candidates will emerge in the pool,” he said.