Читать книгу The Deans' Bible - Angie Klink - Страница 10

DEANS OF WOMEN AT UNIVERSITIES AND COLLEGES across the United States were once connected as a nurturing network of mentors by their own professional organization, founded in 1916 as the National Association of Deans of Women (NADW). The early founders worked diligently to professionalize the position of dean and to legitimize their roles on predominantly male college campuses. The organization metamorphosed through the twentieth century, changing its name three times before shuttering in 2000.

Deans of women opened doors and opportunities for female students, faculty, and administrators throughout American campuses. Their scholarly journal, research monographs, symposia, and conferences provided evidence of the immeasurable contributions that the association and its members made to higher education and women’s voices in that education.

At the 1956 NADW annual conference in Cincinnati, Ohio, President Eunice Hilton declared a new name for the forty-year-old association. It became the National Association of Women Deans and Counselors (NAWDC).

In 1973, the name changed again as the word “administrators” was added. The organization became the National Association for Women Deans, Administrators, and Counselors (NAWDAC), a name it would hold until 1991, when the group moved into a new identity.

In 1990, a fundraising consultant hired by NAWDAC recommended a name change using the ideas of “women in education” and “women’s leadership” as a guide. The membership of NAWDAC voted to change the association’s name to the National Association for Women in Education (NAWE). The word “dean” was no longer part of the seventy-five-year-old organization’s distinctiveness.

By the turn of the twenty-first century, NAWE experienced increased competition for membership from other professional organizations. Society had also shifted away from supporting single-sex groups; NAWE came to an end in 2000. The association’s legacy and immense contributions to the advancement of female students, faculty, and administrators in higher education live on through its historical contributions—contributions that are of the utmost importance still today.

In 2012, the American Council on Education’s (ACE) survey of college presidents found a profession dominated by white men—a portrait that has hardly changed since the NADW was founded in 1916. Today, 26 percent of institutional leaders are female. No doubt, the deans of women would encourage females to persevere, for there is still work to be done for the issue of women’s educational equity and advancement—still a goal to be attained in the twenty-first century.

Today, the National Student Affairs Archives (NSAA) at the Center for Archival Collections at Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, Ohio, comprises the institutional papers of numerous national, regional, and state professional student affairs associations. The NSAA also is home to “The Student Affairs History Project,” a website devoted to the history of the student affairs profession. The NSAA was a helpful resource in the writing of The Deans’ Bible.