Women still tapping on glass ceiling

A pressure group for senior women in higher education celebrates its tenth anniversary next week.

Through the Glass Ceiling, a networking and lobbying group, was set up by Christine King, now vice-chancellor of Staffordshire University, and Diana Green, now vice-chancellor of Sheffield Hallam University.

Its aim was to support the few women in posts of dean or above.

Since then, half a dozen women have reached the level of vice-chancellor, although they still make up only a handful of the 115 members of the Committee of Vice-Chancellors and Principals.

Janet Finch at the University of Keele is the only female vice-chancellor of an old university.

Angela Crum Ewing, retired registrar at the University of Reading and a former chair of the pressure group, said new universities had, on the whole, been more supportive of the organisation.

The Through the Glass Ceiling anniversary conference takes place on Thursday in York.