TY  - JOUR
AU  - Ehrenberg,Ronald G.
AU  - Jakubson,George H.
AU  - Martin,Mirinda L.
AU  - Main,Joyce B.
AU  - Eisenberg,Thomas
TI  - Do Trustees and Administrators Matter? Diversifying the Faculty Across Gender Lines
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 15606
PY  - 2009
Y2  - December 2009
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w15606
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w15606.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Ronald G. Ehrenberg
Cornell Higher Education Research Institute
271 Ives Hall East
Ithaca, NY  14853-3901
Tel: 607/255-3026
Fax: 607 255 4496
E-Mail: rge2@cornell.edu

George Jakubson
Cornell Higher Education Research Institute
257 Ives Hall
Ithaca, NY 14853-3901
E-Mail: George.Jakubson@cornell.edu

Mirinda L. Martin
Cornell Higher Education Research Institute
273 Ives Hall
Ithaca, NY 14853-3901
E-Mail: mlm299@cornell.edu

Joyce B. Main
Cornell Higher Education Research Institute
273 Ives Hall
Ithaca, NY 14853-3901
E-Mail: jbm245@cornell.edu

Thomas Eisenberg
Cornell Higher Education Research Institute
273 Ives Hall
Ithaca, NY 14853-3901
E-Mail: teisenb1@swarthmore.edu
AB  - Our paper focuses on the role that the gender composition of the leaders of American colleges and universities -trustees, presidents/chancellors, and provosts/academic vice presidents - plays in influencing the rate at which academic institutions diversify their faculty across gender lines. Our analyses make use of institutional level panel data that we have collected on for a large sample of American academic institutions.

We find that, other factors held constant including our estimate of the "expected" share of new hires at an institution that should be female, that institutions with female presidents/chancellors and female provosts/academic vice presidents, and those with a greater share of female trustees, increase their shares of female faculty at a more rapid rate. The magnitudes of the effects of these leaders are larger at smaller institutions, where central administrators may play a larger role in faculty hiring decisions. A critical share of female trustees must be reached before the gender composition of the board matters.
ER  -