| In the early 1970s a small group of
senior-level women from New England campuses met to discuss the
lack of career opportunities for academic women. They discussed
mutual interests, calling themselves “Committee for the Concerns
of Women in New England College and Universities” (the Concerns
Committee). This Committee drafted a proposal to create a referral
service for women with appropriate qualifications for faculty and
administrative jobs. In 1972 they received a modest grant from the
Ford Foundation to create Project HERS (Higher Education Resource
Services) at Brown University, which offered referral and placement
services, career counseling workshops, and administrative training
seminars. The Project had a dual mission – to improve the
opportunities and status of academic professional women and to aid
colleges and universities in compliance with the requirements of
Title IX (of the Education Amendments of 1972) that mandated an
end to discrimination based on gender in employment.
In 1976 Project HERS moved from Brown University to Wellesley College,
again with support from the Ford Foundation. HERS, New England responded
to the needs of women in the job market; they sponsored career counseling
workshops and started the Management Institute for Women in Higher
Education at Wellesley College. The Management Institute, originally
supported by the Fund for the Improvement for Post-Secondary Education,
is a series of five weekend seminars focused on teaching administrative
skills.
Project HERS was so successful that the Ford Foundation granted
further funding to establish HERS, Mid-Atlantic at the University
of Pennsylvania in 1974 as a separate administrative unit. It was
conceived of as a sister organization that would move beyond the
referral function to offer an increasing range of services. In 1975,
Director Cynthia Secor proposed a residential program co-sponsored
with Bryn Mawr College to offer appropriate administrative training
for women seeking advancement in higher education. The Summer Institute
for Women in Higher Education Administration started in 1976 and
was initially funded by a three-year grant from the William H. Donner
Foundation. By 1978, the Institute was self supporting and continues
to enroll participants, over 2,100 by 2005.
HERS, West was started at the University of Utah in 1979 for professional
women in intermountain states, again with funding from the Ford
Foundation.
In 1983, HERS, Mid-Atlantic relocated from the University of Pennsylvania
to the University of Denver and was renamed HERS, Mid-America.
In addition to the Summer Institute and Management Institute, HERS
has developed new programs. In the 1990s HERS and the National Associate
of Collegiate Women and Athletic Administrators (NACWAA) teamed
up to cosponsor the Institute for Administrative Advancement (IAA).
The IAA offers week long seminars for women coaches and athletic
administrators, including intensive training in athletic administration.
The HERS-South Africa Seminar also started in the late 1990s. It
was funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and allowed over seventy
South African women to travel to the United States and participate
in trainings for women in higher education administration. The HERS-South
Africa office is located in Cape Town and it continues to offer
workshops as well as a week-long HERS-South Africa Academy.
Dr. Cynthia Secor has been the Director of the HERS Network since
1975 and is the founding Director of the Summer Institute and HERS,
Mid-America. She has also been the Director of the Management Institute
since 1984 and is the founder of the NACWAA/HERS IAA, for which
she also serves as a Curriculum Director. HERS, Mid-America continues
to be housed at the University of Denver and recently moved to the
University’s new Merle C. Chambers Center for Women building.
Written by Nancy Diamond and Stacey Farnum
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