WVII speaks with Ferrini-Mundy, Gardner in reports on women in leadership
WVII (Channel 7) spoke with Joan Ferrini-Mundy, president of the University of Maine and University of Maine at Machias, and Susan Gardner, professor of higher education and director of UMaine’s Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies program and the Rising Tide Center, for the two-part report “Breaking Barriers: Women in Leadership.” “The glass ceiling, at least according to the U.S. Department of Labor, is a set of unknown barriers that exist that will hinder particular groups of people from achieving particular levels of employment,” said Gardner, who noted stereotypes can lead to different expectations for women. Record numbers of women are leading their professions, but there is still bias, the report states. One example is the gender pay gap, according to Gardner. “It’s not that anybody can go around and say it’s exactly because of this problem that this is happening. It’s all these combined things. It’s these stereotypes, it’s these implicit biases,” she said. “A problem that has gotten a lot of attention nationally is implicit bias,” said Ferrini-Mundy. “And that is something that we have to all pay attention to and there are all kinds of great training opportunities and ways to be attentive to that.” Part 2 focused on personal stories of the women featured in Part 1. “We talk about pulling ourselves up by our own bootstraps, (but) some of us were born with longer arms,” said Gardner about why it’s important for women to support each other and serve as mentors. But not all role models need to be women. Ferrini-Mundy told WVII that while working toward her degrees in male-dominated STEM fields, many pushed her to exceed her own expectations. “I had a couple of really serious, meaningful, important mentors in my life. One was my graduate student adviser. He was the first person who said, ‘Maybe you should just stay on and get a Ph.D.’ It never occurred to me that I would do that,” Ferrini-Mundy said, adding some advice for young women. “Stay really open to serendipity and to opportunities. You can’t always plan exactly what the next move will be, so be ready for when some intriguing opportunity comes your way and do something brave with it.”