Sponsorship Workshop – Developing Future Women Leaders in The UT System
Description and Rationale
The challenges of today and the future require novel approaches and solutions that depend on having diverse leaders. Such diversity has been widely shown to be critical to creating initiatives and solving complex problems such as those facing academic medicine and science. Despite increases in the percentages of women graduates and faculty over the past decade, women remain underrepresented in academia’s highest-level executive positions, known as the “C-suite.” A similar situation is found across The University of Texas System: small numbers of women in top leadership positions – both in the health and academic components.
The corporate world has initiated sponsorship programs designed to accelerate the careers of women as leaders. Although academia differs from the corporate world, the strong sponsorship programs that have advanced women into corporations’ upper levels of leadership can serve as models for sponsorship programs to launch new leaders in academia as well.
The Workshop targets women faculty and administrators/executives who have the desire and potential to become senior leaders across The UT System (protégées). Matched with senior leaders from their institutions (sponsors), the protégées (associate professors and equivalent level administrators/executives) will leave the workshop with new knowledge, skills and a career plan to accelerate their path to executive leadership. Sponsors will leave with a complementary plan for sponsoring their protégées into top positions at their institutions.
The expected outcome is a cohort of diverse women faculty and administrators with the knowledge, skills, plan - and support - to accelerate their entry into the academic “C-suite” across The UT System.
Registration Details
Workshop attendees are nominated by each UT System Institution. Invitations to attend and registration forms will be sent to the nominees with the meeting materials. 1 breakfast, 2 lunches, 1 reception, 1 dinner (tentative) and refreshment breaks will be included. There is no cost to individual participants for registration. Participants and/or their institutions are expected to cover hotel and transportation costs. Registration forms will be sent to nominated individuals on Sept. 1, 2014 and due on Oct. 1, 2014.
If you have any questions about registration, please email womenscareers@utsouthwestern.edu.
