A Marriage-Driven MBA Boom?

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Faculties at Elite Business Schools Still Skew Heavily Male

 

Seeing is believing. If you were to enter the faculty offices at many leading business schools, you’d probably think you stepped onto the set of Mad Men.

So, it shouldn’t be any surprise that Bloomberg Businessweek reports that only 17.8% of tenured professors at seven Top 10 programs are women. And the numbers aren’t much better for the entire business school faculty at these schools, either.

According to data collected by Bloomberg Businessweek, the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business performed the worst among participating schools, with women comprising only 14.7% of the faculty. Among tenured professors, that percentage is 7.1%. Conversely, the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan had the best showing, with 27% of women being tenured or tenure-track.

Three of Bloomberg Businessweek’s Top 10 ranked schools—Wharton, Kellogg, and Johnson (Cornell)—declined to participate.

According to Dean Sumil Kumar, Booth has made substantive progress, with women now comprising nearly a quarter of professors in line for tenure. Ross, which is led by Dean Alison Davis-Blake, is openly recruiting women. For new faculty hires, they’ve set a goal of 40%, which they’ve met over the past two years. Bloomberg Businessweek also reports that 50% of Ross’ senior faculty leaders are women.

Still, the numbers reflect a pattern. Last year, the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business reported that men consistently outnumbered women in MBA programs by a 2:1 ratio from 2002-2012. According to the GMAC, the percentage of women applying to business school shrank in 2013. What’s more, Wally Hopp, the senior associate dean at Ross, observes that the structure of academia makes institutional change difficult. “You can move the needle with your hiring slowly, but it takes eight years to get to tenure,” he says. “We’re not crowing about our numbers. This is a long-term commitment, not something that can be fixed overnight.”

As we reported in last week’s installment, some indicators, such as income and employment, are improving for female MBAs. With the percentage of female students often doubling the percentage of female professors in business schools, you can expect an influx of women into teaching and leadership roles within the next decade.

Source: Bloomberg Businessweek

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