Perspectives on Leadership from Female Engineering Deans

Abstract

Despite tremendous gains over the past 30 years, women are still severely underrepresented in engineering and engineering education. The advancement of women into leadership roles in engineering education has the potential to make engineering as a career more attractive to young women and to encourage women currently pursuing careers in engineering education to aspire to leadership positions themselves. This article reports on a series of structured interviews in which women deans of engineering were asked to describe their role and accomplishments as dean, their career paths, and their perspective on the impact of gender on their leadership style. The interviews provide insights into how these women saw themselves as leaders and how they were leading their institutions in creating engineers for the 21st century.