ABSTRACT
Academic administration, much like its private-sector counterpart, business management, has been historically characterized by a clear sex-based division of labor. Women in senior administrative positions are still few, while, at the same time, they are overrepresented in lower-level support positions and within traditional fields for women. Recent literature recognizes that organizational factors create and reinforce the glass ceiling in academia. Moreover, the career paths of academic women, which often differ from those of male administrators, act as barriers to women's advancement. There is also a growing policy-oriented literature that develops and evaluates organizational strategies for equalizing the gender balance in higher educational administration. Women are now the majority of undergraduate students nationwide and are achieving numerical parity with men in master's level graduate programs. That their representation among faculty and administration has not increased so dramatically is a cause for concern and further research.
