The purpose of this study was to investigate and analyze career sponsorship of selected current women senior-level administrators in higher education to determine whether mentor/protege relationships occurred in their careers and whether the sponsorship was a factor in their career advancement. / Regionally accredited public and private institutions in the United States granting at a minimum the baccalaureate degree were chosen for inclusion in this study. During the 1978-1979 academic year, 1,644 individuals were employed as presidents at their institutions. Of this number 113 (6.8 percent) were women. During the same period, 6,774 individuals were employed as vice-presidents, of whom 521 (7.7 percent) were women. A Survey of Women Senior-Level Administrators (SWSLA) was developed and mailed to a sample of 245 of these women. Responses to the SWSLA were received from 179 individuals (73.1 percent). / The majority of the respondents ranged in age from 30 to 50 years and had become senior-level administrators during the same age span. The majority had been in higher education administration between five and twelve years and had spent one to four years in their current position, if not members of religious orders, and five to fourteen years if they were members of religious orders. / Over 70 percent of the presidents and 50 percent of the vice-presidents reported the highest degree earned was the doctorate. Two-thirds of the presidents and half of the vice-presidents who were not members of religious orders reported being married or having been married during their careers. The majority of the respondents were employed at private coeducational institutions with fewer than 2,500 students. / The respondents selected as the most important factors in the advancement of their careers being competent, possessing the appropriate academic credentials, and being in the right place at the right time. Having drive and determination and being sponsored were the next most frequently selected factors. / The respondents enumerated bosses, female professors and teachers, husbands, mothers, fathers, and female friends and colleagues as the persons who had most directly influenced their careers. / Encouragement, reinforcement of a sense of competence, guidance and advice, and role modeling were the most frequently mentioned types of assistance provided by the influential persons. Few mentors in the classic sense who nurtured, supported and taught the protege were described by the respondents. The types of assistance described appeared instead to fall along a continuum of advisory/support relationships. / Using guidelines describing a mentor as "a person who sponsors or grooms," nearly two-thirds of the women indicated the presence of mentors in their careers. The mentor was of help to more than half of the women in gaining their present positions. There was a high level of agreement among the women that having a mentor is helpful to a woman beginning a career in administration. / Over three-fourths of the women indicated that they had acted as a mentor in the past. Nearly all the women indicated that they would act as mentors in the future, expressing their support for women seeking careers in higher education administration. / The relationship between having had a mentor and the background variables of the respondents were tested by the chi-square distributions and none were found to be significant. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 41-03, Section: A, page: 0961. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1980.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:fsu.edu/oai:fsu.digital.flvc.org:fsu_74108 |
| Contributors | MANN, BARBARA ANN., The Florida State University |
| Source Sets | Florida State University |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text |
| Format | 168 p. |
| Rights | On campus use only. |
| Relation | Dissertation Abstracts International |
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