The just-released American Council on Education report, The American College President, found that there were no gains in the number of presidencies for African Americans. Research that I conducted in the spring of 1996 on data collected from African American and White women who were college presidents demonstrate, to some degree, why this is particularly true for African American women while women in general -- clearly, White women -- are experiencing progress.

I specifically looked at the kinds of jobs women had on the way to the presidency to see if I could tell African American women exactly what jobs were needed to gain access to the highest rank in higher education administration. My findings suggest that the situation we are dealing with is very complicated and not achievable merely by getting the right jobs. There are some answers, but still more questions.

In examining the careers of African American and White women college presidents, the good news is that I found that they had similar jobs on the way to the presidency. Both groups followed not one career track, but several. Actually the tracks were too diverse and complex to enumerate. However, most women came to the presidency directly from an appointment in academic affairs -- including chief academic officer, school dean, dean of instruction, and related positions.

Women can come to the presidency from just about any series of positions -- including various positions in student, business, and development affairs. There are even instances where a woman can become a college president without ever having held a position in higher education. While this usually happened with women who were members of religious orders, none of them were African American. No African. American women became president directly from the faculty while several White women were able to do so.

However, it sometimes depends on where women have these positions whether or not women can leave them to become president. For example, a woman can go from the position of dean of students to a presidency if she is employed at a two-year institution. But no woman with that position at a four-year school rose immediately to the presidency.