The University of Georgia has experienced a static level in women holding leadership positions in the administration for over a decade, even as the proportion of female faculty has grown, which mirrors national, heavily scrutinized trends in higher education and the private sector. So, in spring 2015, President Jere W. Morehead and Provost Pamela Whitten launched the Women’s Leadership Initiative address this gender stagnation.

After a ten-member planning committee assessed what barriers were preventing the university from developing, recruiting and hiring qualified women for campus leadership positions, the University is now rolling out new policies and programs related to recruitment, hiring and retention, leadership and career development, and work-life balance.

Some main points of the initiative include training hiring administrators in new methods to avoid bias and emphasizing the recruitment of a diverse talent pool, and launching the Women’s Leadership Fellows program, which will offer a selected group of faculty a yearlong series of seminars, discussions and workshops on leadership development and early exposure to administrative training. These fellows will all be tenured faculty, but a development series is being launched to address early-career faculty and make them aware of the opportunities for advancement at the university.

UGA Human Resources will be promoting work-life balance by hiring a Work-Life Resources Coordinator to help university employees productively address concerns about work-life balance. They also will be creating easily accessible resources with consolidated information about child care, wellness programs, telecommuting and leave policies.

“The Women’s Leadership Initiative marks a turning point in how the University of Georgia attracts, retains and advances its faculty, staff and administrators,” Whitten said. “We are putting into place a set of policies and resources to ensure that the gates of opportunity remain open for everyone.”

For more information, read the entire press release.