The UCSF Center for Gender Equity today hosts women from throughout the UC system who will attend “Women Leaders 2008: A Symposium About Women in University Settings.”
The symposium, which has been held every other year since 1998, seeks to give women – particularly those from the University of California – an opportunity to come together to discuss and examine where women are today in gaining access to positions of leadership in higher education.
The biennial conference takes place today and tomorrow at the Parc 55 Hotel in downtown San Francisco. The keynote speakers are civil rights activist Dolores Huerta, co-founder and first vice president emerita of the United Farm Workers of America, AFL-CIO, and acclaimed author Maxine Hong Kingston, senior lecturer emerita in the Department of English at UC Berkeley. For her memoirs and fiction, including The Fifth Book of Peace, The Woman Warrior, China Men, Tripmaster Monkey and Hawai’i One Summer, she has earned numerous awards, among them the National Book Award.
Many of the panels focus on issues of self-development. Topics include: Accessing the Leader Within Through Expressive Arts, Organizational Savvy: Avoiding Political Blind Spots, Using Technology to Your Advantage in the 21st Century, and Validating Our Voice and Visibility, among others.
While women have clearly made great strides in reaching higher management levels in University settings, much work still needs to be done. The conference explores this and other related issues in dealing with women in leadership. While women make up 64.8 percent of the UC systemwide workforce, they hold 31.7 percent of senior management jobs, according to an October 2007 study by the UC Office of the President.
The Center for Gender Equity at UCSF strives to create programs and initiate policies that sustain an inclusive and equitable campus community, according to Amy Levine, EdD, director of the center.
Levine, who was appointed as a Presidential Staff Fellow in UC President Robert Dynes’ immediate office, has been partnering with Associate President Linda Williams since January 2007 to implement a systemwide Creating Change Initiative to address the career advancement of the University’s women staff. Among the results of that initiative is the formation of a systemwide committee on the status of women, according to Levine, who will complete the fellowship at the UC Office of the President on July 1.
Over the years, the Center for Gender Equity has evolved to accommodate and anticipate the changing needs of the UCSF community, as well as changes in the broader social context, with respect to what constitutes meaningful gender analysis and which tools are most effective in addressing persistent inequities.
The programs, services and resources provided by the three components of Center for Gender Equity – Women and Gender Resources, Sexual and Relationship Violence Resources, and Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Resources – are informed by the staff’s collective professional training and experience.
