Even as Canadian universities suggest their gender issues have largely been resolved, many women in academia tell a different story. Systemic discrimination, the underrepresentation of women in more senior and lucrative roles, and the belief that gender-related concerns will simply self-correct with greater representation add up to a serious gender problem. Although these issues are widely acknowledged, reliable data is elusive. Glass Ceilings and Ivory Towers fills this research gap with a cross-disciplinary, data-driven investigation of gender inequality in Canadian universities. Research presented in this book reveals, for example, that women are more likely to hold sessional teaching positions and to face difficulties obtaining funding. They are also poorly represented at the upper echelons of the professoriate and must contend with a gender pay gap that widens as they move up the ranks. Contributors consider the daily grind of academic life, social, structural, and systemic challenges, and the gendered dynamics of university leadership, all with an eye to laying the groundwork for practical and meaningful institutional change.

The book answers the questions of how and where America educates its leading chief executive officers. Where are America’s top executives educated? What do they study? Do they typically attend the nation’s most elite colleges? Or do they, like millions of other students, choose colleges because of reasons like proximity, cost, and state pride? How important are advanced degrees to their success? Is the MBA a prerequisite for becoming a CEO? I address these questions based on a study of 344 of the country’s highest profile CEOs selected to represent a wide range of organizations and businesses. The book will establish a theme that the majority of America's most high-powered CEOs did not attend elite colleges/universities or earn an MBA or graduate from highly selective institutions. Certainly, a significant number did so and were advantaged by the opportunity, but more often they were able to fashion for themselves a high-quality education at a rich array of institutions - public and private, regional and flagship, small and large, religious and secular. What proves more important than what colleges these leading executives attended, is the kinds of deep relationships and mentored experiences they developed. I illuminate these experiences through several vignettes in each chapter.

Academic Labor beyond the College Classroom initiates a scholarly and professional conversation, calling upon faculty to participate in, reimagine, and transform their institutional and professional work to look beyond just teaching and research. Chapters in this contributed volume offer case studies, strategies, and exemplars of how faculty can re-engage in institutional service, mentoring, governance, and administrative duties to advance equity efforts at all levels of the university, calling for what Dr. Nancy Chick names in the Foreword as a "scholarship of influence." This book draws from a diverse range of methodologies and disciplines, issuing an invitation to faculty "across the divide" of their specific college, school, or corner of the university into cross-conversations and partnerships for positive change.

This book examines twenty-five years of the Australian framework for student equity in higher education, A Fair Chance for All. Divided into two sections, the book reflects on the legacy of equity policy in higher education, the effectiveness of current approaches, and the likely challenges facing future policymakers. The first section explores the creation of the framework, including the major elements of the policy, the political context of its development, and how it compares with international models developed during the same period. The performance of the six student equity groups identified within the framework is also examined. The second section of the book considers future trends and challenges. The Australian university sector has undergone seismic change in the past twenty-five years and faces further changes of equal magnitude. The twenty-fifth anniversary of A Fair Chance for All comes as Australian higher education is poised for another wave of transformation, with rising expansion, competition, and stratification. While the emerging landscape is new, the questions have changed little since A Fair Chance for All was first conceived: How should we define student equity, and what policies are likely to promote it?

Higher education has undergone a massive transformation in teaching and learning in a very short period of time since the onset of Covid-19. Students, teachers and universities have had to adopt online and blended learning, often with little or no experience or models of good practice to draw upon. It is clear that blended and online learning are here to stay. This book draws on research from universities that have adopted online and blended learning to facilitate the expansion and diversification of their intake; which resulted in considerable experience and expertise in online and blended teaching. The book describes a model, tested with qualitative and quantitative data, which shows how teachers can support the retention and success of online and blended learners with four high-quality pedagogical elements: bite-sized videos of interest and relevance; learning materials that are well organised and provide a clear learning roadmap; discussion forums which are set up and moderated so as to result in lively student-student and student-teacher interaction; and, online teachers being approachable and responsive to communication with individual students through email, phone and online communication platforms. This model is explained and profusely illustrated with examples from the teaching of award-winning teachers. This book introduces the concept of a spectrum from traditional to contemporary models of admission and course delivery in higher education. It explains how universities which have adopted a contemporary model, with high levels of blended and online learning, have been able to expand their intake and markedly diversify the student body. It discusses how to support the retention and success of online and blended learners. Student support services are examined from the perspectives of service providers and online and blended learners and the case is made for support services being aligned with student needs. The book has a discussion of university management systems which utilise feedback at all levels to improve alignment between support service provision and student needs.

Traditionally, transnational feminists have examined the fields of gender, sexuality and Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer (LGBTQ) studies by critically addressing issues of colonialism, white supremacy, globalization, capitalism, and heterosexism. Like most fields within higher education, gender and sexuality studies, womens studies, and LGBTQ studies are still dominated by white scholars; moreover these are predominately scholars from colonial 'western' cultures. Many universities and activist groups are arguing for a global queer community and movement for rights, protection, and freedoms for LGBTQ communities. From the academy to the streets, members of the LGBTQ community and their allies are challenging global heterosexism. This special issue of Wagadu is dedicated to an interdisciplinary, intersectional, multi-movement, and multi-dimensional critique of heterosexism, from a global social justice queer perspective. Regardless of the topic or whether from a practical or theoretical perspective, all authors challenge the current paradigm of heteronormality that exists locally, nationally and/or globally in this special issue of WagaduA Transnational Journal of Womens and Gender Studies.

How colleges and universities can live up to their ideals of diversity, and why inclusivity and excellence go hand in hand. Most colleges and universities embrace the ideals of diversity and inclusion, but many fall short, especially in the hiring, retention, and advancement of faculty who would more fully represent our diverse world—in particular women and people of color. In this book, Abigail Stewart and Virginia Valian argue that diversity and excellence go hand in hand and provide guidance for achieving both. Stewart and Valian, themselves senior academics, support their argument with comprehensive data from a range of disciplines. They show why merit is often overlooked; they offer statistics and examples of individual experiences of exclusion, such as being left out of crucial meetings; and they outline institutional practices that keep exclusion invisible, including reliance on proxies for excellence, such as prestige, that disadvantage outstanding candidates who are not members of the white male majority. Perhaps most important, Stewart and Valian provide practical advice for overcoming obstacles to inclusion. This advice is based on their experiences at their own universities, their consultations with faculty and administrators at many other institutions, and data on institutional change. Stewart and Valian offer recommendations for changing structures and practices so that people become successful in ways that benefit everyone. They describe better ways of searching for job candidates; evaluating candidates for hiring, tenure, and promotion; helping faculty succeed; and broadening rewards and recognition.