“Higher Education remains a male‐dominated endeavor even while it is becoming afemale‐dominated structure”

epresentation of non‐cisgender boardmembers may be even more critical given the growing (albeit slow) improvement offemale representation.

must also be cognizant of and consider the inclusion of non‐cisgender individuals on overseeing agencies

recent study even suggested corpora-tions with more balanced gender diversity adopt more “green” policies and are lesslikely to be sued for environmental law violations

Given the changing demo-graphics of students pursuing postsecondary education, this may be particularly criti-cal for the future of American higher education.

esearch has suggestedthat institutions with females in key leadership positions have greater success atincreasing female representation in the faculty and in upper‐level administrative posi-tions (

expected to assimilate into White male culture, demonstrating that they are “one ofthe boys”

likely to serve on the powerful executive/audit (21% female member-ship, on average), budget and finance (21%), and compensation committees (23%), andare more likely to serve on academic or student affairs and education policy commit-tees (31%)

ack predecessors and mentors to guide them through theirtenure.

equality at the postsecondary board table is unlikelyto occur soon.

Put differently, institutions may consider maintaining about25% female representation on their board as being “enough” gender diversity to con-vince external stakeholders they are mindful of these dynamics, without disenfran-chising potential future (and well‐connected) trustees.

niversity of Michigan (62.5% female) and Michigan StateUniversity (50.0%) – both of which uniquely select their governing board membershipthrough statewide elections

subject areas researched by an institution and the industries to whichtrustees are connected

secure revenue streams in light of decreasingsupport from traditional funding sources, which in the United States includes stateand federal government funding (

academic capitalism

restricted to 22 members, at least twoof whom possessed financial expertise and one commercial expertise. Failure tocomply with these protocols would result in financial sanctions for the university(Vidovich and Currie 2011). Therefore, the Australian national government has had apronounced and direct role in university governance and oversight of governing boardmembership, further restricting the opportunity for female representation to beimmediately improved

trustee boards of pri-vate colleges and universities are typically self‐perpetuating, whereby the current oroutgoing board members have a significant role in selecting future or replacementmembers

32% reported altering their careers tocare for others,

Others argue the existence of a “pipeline” problem, withnot enough qualified women prepared for leadership positions, implying that femaleunderrepresentation is a supply rather than a systemic issue

private college and university boards are more likely to be tied to corporateboard membership, including norms and values such as a “masculine ethic,” which“materially and discursively, privileges males and assumed male attributes”

emales represent a lower proportion of the faculty at elite institutions

ommunity college sector, female representation was even greater, at 38.0%in 2018, but still paled in comparison to the more than 50% of community college enroll-ees that were female

507 private non‐profit schools responding wasslightly higher, at 30.2%

71.6%male to 28.4% female

men outnumbering women by more than two to one, on average.

Female representation continued to grow in the1980s and 1990s, increasing from 15 to 30%, but this progress seems to have stagnatedin recent years (Glazer‐Raymo 2008).

advancement of women’s presence on governing boards wasbolstered by the rapid expansion of postsecondary education in the 1960s and theadvent of Title IX in 1972;

143 college boards revealed only 75 female trustees in total, repre-senting just 3% of all trustees at responding schools

women were excluded from postsecondary governing boards for the first 240 yearsof higher education in the United States

iscusses in detail the associationbetween female underrepresentation on governing boards and connections to corpo-rate firms and industry.

Given themajority‐female student population of today’s American university and the similargrowth of female faculty, administrators, and staff in the academy (Metcalfe andSlaughter 2008; King 2010), the underrepresentation of female board members is par-ticularly noteworthy.

across the globe, board members are “overwhelm-ingly white [and] male”

overarching responsibilities of these organizations remainsimilarly aligned globally

universities are generally regulated by central governments

more closely associated with national governments

increasedthe visibility of governing boards

channels to the business and political worlds

remain removed from daily decision‐making

complexorganization of administrators, faculty, staff, and students