Beyond the Glass Ceiling

Women academics’ under-representation at top levels of administration in universities is undoubtedly a serious problem across the world. The objectives of the “Beyond The Glass Ceiling: Women Rectors Across Europe, Women and Leadership In Higher Education” Conference are to examine the position and the experiences of women in higher educational administration and discuss the strategies that have been/can be used to improve the inclusion of women at this level. The conference aims to achieve these objectives through analysis and comparison of different international practices and policies.

One other goal of the conference is to attract attention of such higher education instutions as EUA (European University Association), IAU (International Association of Universities), IAUP (International Association of University Presidents) SEFI (European Society for Engineering Education) and CUM (Community of Mediterranean Universities) to women’s representation problems at administration and ask their support and help to create networks and platforms of collaboration regarding these objectives.

The second conference on “Beyond The Glass Ceiling: Women Rectors Across Europe, Women and Leadership In Higher Education”, was hosted by ITU and supported by IAUP (International Association of University Presidents) and EUA ( European University Assosication), and held in Istanbul on 12-14 April 2010. The chair of the organizing committee of the conference was Prof. Dr. Gülsün Saglamer who is the former rector of Istanbul Technical University.

The first “Women Academics Beyond the Glass Ceiling: Women Rectors across Europe” Conference was held with the attendance of 8 European and 10 Turkish participants on the 11th of November 2008. The following participants attended this year’s conference: