Leadership at Ivies

I know in the grand scheme of things I am a nobody in higher education. Working for a for-profit institution is probably career suicide and if my current employment doesn’t work out I’ll have to get a job at Verizon. With that said, I am always looking to learn from the experts and the leaders in my field so I looked over The Chronicle of Higher Education’s snapshot of The Look of Leadership at the Ivy League, part of their Diversity in Academe series.

The Chronicle asked leaders at Ivy League institutions to report their “gender, age, and race and ethnicity” and received a one-third response rate; because of the low response rate they excluded “age and race and ethnicity.” When I looked at all the pictures of Ivy leadership I came to the following conclusion: most are white; most seem to be male; most are old(ish).

The more I thought about all the pictures and the low response rate I came up with two questions: 1) what is the point of running this article; and 2) does The Chronicle want to start a conversation about race, gender, and age by posting pictures of people?

There are many different facets of diversity and the big two are always race and gender. Unfortunately when you focus on these two aspects of an individual you ignore what also makes each person unique. If you ask the president of Brown if being female is the most important part of her professional life she will probably say no. If you ask the Vice President for Planning and Budget at Cornell if being black is the most important part of her professional life she will probably say no. If you ask the dean of the graduate school of the College of Arts and Sciences at Harvard if being Chinese is the most important part of his professional life he will probably say no.

With this said, I understand that your physical being is important and people will perceive and assume things about you because of your race and gender. But again I must ask; what is the point of running this article?

The Chronicle stated that only a third of leaders responded, 254 people, so a rough estimate of all the leaders at the Ivies would be around 800 (lowballing). If the Ivies mirrored the US population then the following would be true in relation to ‘gender’: 51% would be female, or 408; 49% would be male, or 392. In relation to ‘race’: 62% would be ‘white,’ or 496; 18% would be ‘hispanic,’ or 144; 13% would be ‘black,’ or 104; 5% would be ‘asian,’ or 40; 2% would be ‘multiracial’ or ‘other,’ or 16.

Does this pictorial representation of leadership at the Ivy’s mirror the US population? Should leadership at the Ivy’s mirror the US population or do Ivy’s deviate from demographic norms in the United States because of their global reach? What should leadership at the Ivy’s look like?