Female Senior Members Asked to Climb High on the Academic Ladder – Prof. Dzansi McPalm
The Dean of the School of Creative Arts, Prof. Mary Priscilla Dzansi-McPalm has urged Female Senior Members of the University of Education, Winneba to strive for excellence in Academia. She asked that they aspire to climb high on the academic ladder to make females visible at the top.
She made this statement whiles addressing Female Senior Members at a platform created by the Gender Mainstreaming Directorate of the University on 1st June, 2017. The platform which was aimed at allowing female Senior Members (teaching and non-teaching) to interact, share ideas, challenges and success stories of their career development and progression in the University brought twenty females from selected departments and offices.
She urged the women to do self-introspection and assess themselves in the light of key questions such as how they see themselves as women, whether they feel intimidated sometimes, whether they would want to remain forever at where they are and several other questions. She indicated that females can also become professors and excel on that rank. She observed that it was very difficult for women to go forward in their careers because of the multiple roles they play in society and have to juggle many responsibilities at the same time. She encouraged the women to have healthy competition with their male counterparts, attend international conferences to present articles and also publish in their subject areas. She continued that female lecturers, especially those benefiting from the mentoring programme should make good use of the opportunity to progress in their career development. In her words “if you are not forthcoming with your articles for publication, then your mentor cannot mentor you.”
Addressing the gathering, the Ag. Director of Gender Mainstreaming Directorate, Obaapanin O. Adu said that over the years between 2006 and 2017, a number of interventions have been put in place to encourage women to enter into key positions. Interventions such as scholarships schemes have been given to female postgraduate students to undertake further studies and were appointed to join faculty on completion of their programmes. Also, the Affirmative action policy was put in place to encourage more women to gain appointment at the university. Statistics in 2006 show that there were: two females and seven male professors in UEW, One female and 17 males for Associate Professor, 11 Females and 57 males for senior lectureship, 43 females and 188 males for lectureship.
This represents 17 percent of females and 83 percent of males in the university system. This indicates that there were 269 males as lecturers and only 57 women teaching.
She added that after a decade; there are four male professors and one female, 30 males and three females for Associate Professorship, 20 females and 107 males for senior lectureship, senior research fellows or senior research assistants, 56 female lecturers and research fellows and 184 males, 11 female assistant lecturers and 32 males.
She expressed worry that after many years women were still visibly missing from key positions in the University. She stated that women still have a lot of work to do in order to have a fair representation in terms of statistics and having their voices heard.
She added that for non-teaching senior members, the University has;
- One male registrar , five female Deputy Registrar’s in analogous rank
- Senior Assistant Registrar (analogous rank) 11 females and 33 males
- Assistant Registrar (analogous rank) 22 females and 54 males
- Junior Assistant Registrar- three males and one female
A lively discussion followed with the women asking questions and sharing their personal experiences of how they managed to handle their families, work and travels abroad to pursue further studies.
It was proposed that the meeting be held quarterly for female senior members and the Gender Directorate should facilitate the re-organization of the Female Senior Members Association in the University.
Source: Media Relations
