Universities Australia Executive Women (UAEW) Group Workshops
Professor Anne Cummins and Professor Gail Whiteford were elected as Co-Chairs of the UAEW group for 2012 and again for 2013. In their first year, they initiated a series of workshops designed to meet the group's commitment to enhance employment equity in the higher education workforce. The workshops focus on building skills in areas identified by women as essential for their executive competency. The 2012 workshops were very well received attracting on average 80 participants from as many as 21 universities. The 2013 series is now underway.
Topics covered in 2012 were:
- Senior Management Toolkit - sessions covered financial and HR management
- Improving Career Prospects in Higher Education - sessions on presenting with power and influence, career coaching methods and networking through social media
- Leadership Potential - sessions dealing with leadership and power, standards and quality, understanding leadership styles and resilience
Interest in the 2013 workshops is strong and information about the current workshop can be found here.
Strategy for Women: 2011 - 2014
Universities Australia is committed to fully utilising the skills and capabilities of all members of its workforce and to continue to address the challenges facing women who enter and contribute to higher education. It will support ongoing efforts by its members to bring about employment equity and an inclusive culture, building on the equity achievements of past years. The Strategy sets the following goals and targets:
- Encourage universities to continue to take responsibility for ensuring equitable work practices and to incorporate equity strategies and targets in their strategic planning, with unambiguous leadership by the Vice-Chancellors.
- Increase the recognition of the contributions of women to the productivity and advancement of Australia's universities (FASTS recommends a stronger business case linking diversity and innovation).
- Improve representation of women in Higher Education at all levels to more strongly reflect representation in society, including Indigenous women.
- Increase the proportion of women in senior leadership positions particularly at the Vice-Chancellor level, and including Deans, Directors and Senior Managers and in a wider range of portfolios and discipline groupings.
- Identify women in middle management and mentor them as the future senior leaders in Higher Education (Nature, June 2010, p1107).
- Test the effectiveness of interventions at critical points in women's careers.
- Showcase senior executive women via media profiling at strategic points throughout the course of the plan.
Strategy for Women: 2011 - 2014
Action Plan for Women Employed in Australian Universities
Universities Australia supports ongoing effort across the sector to bring about improved employment equity and an inclusive culture. The secretariat continues to work actively with the Universities Australia Executive Women senior leadership group to move towards the priority goals of the AVCC Action Plan for Women Employed in Australian Universities:
- to continue to encourage all universities to integrate equity strategies and performance indicators into their institutional plans and to support the priorities in this Plan
- to improve significantly the representation of women in senior roles by encouraging equity initiatives in critical areas
- to monitor the patterns of entry of women into academia and respond to barriers to sustained entry
- to improve the monitoring of gender equity in workforce data and access to information and
- to identify, and engage universities with, critical matters through research on gender equity issues and dissemination of good practice.
Second action plan (2006 - 2010)
First action plan (1999 - 2003)
Gender Differences in Early Post‐PhD Employment in Australian Universities
Based on the second Action Plan, Universities Australia Executive Women commissioned The University of Queensland Social Research Centre to investigate gender differences in early post PhD employment in Australian universities, and the influence of PhD context and family on women's academic careers. The results of this investigation aim to clarify implications for women's prospects for advancement.
Statistics
DEEWR's Staff dataset provides a breakdown of women employed in Australia's universities by institution, level and type of appointment, and highest qualification held. Salaries data is available from a variety of sources, including university annual reports, the Australian Higher Education Industrial Association and the National Tertiary Education Union.
See also
Women in Research discussion paper (November 2005)
Promotions policy and practice in Australian universities (July 2005)
How Far Have We Come? Gender Disparities in the Australian Higher Education System - Federal Parliamentary Library Issues Paper (June 2003)
