ATN conference on women executives
Australia’s five leading technology universities, including the University of South Australia, will host an event in Sydney next month aimed at examining and promoting the role of women in senior management positions.
Women are currently greatly underrepresented in senior management positions across Australia and while the higher education sector fares somewhat better the proportion of women above a senior lecturer level in Australian universities is still only 19 per cent.
The Equal Opportunity for Women in the Workplace Agency (EOWA) 2003 Australian Census of Women in Leadership showed that only 8.8 per cent of executive managers in Australia were women. Additionally, 49.1 per cent of Australian companies have no women managers whatsoever.
Some universities are taking steps to rectify this disparity, such as the Australian Technology Network’s Women’s Executive Development Program (ATN WEXDEV). As a result of programs such as WEXDEV and other initiatives, ATN universities now comprise almost a quarter of female academics above a senior lecturer level.
The Senior Women Executives and the Cultures of Management conference will be held in Sydney on November 29 and 30, 2004. Speakers include women in senior leadership positions in the private and public sector as well as higher education.
ATN director, Vicki Thomson said the conference was an important opportunity to make further progress in understanding the experience and cultures that sustain and support women in senior positions.
“Through our WEXDEV program we have had great success in changing the culture within the ATN to support senior women,” she said. “This conference is an opportunity for us to help promote that same attitude across other Australian organisations.
“This conference will not be about academics talking to one another. It draws on real-life case studies, and pulls together both Australian and international speakers. This will be an inspirational conference on the changes that have occurred in Australian organisations.”
For further information go to http://www.uts.edu.au/oth/wexdev/ or phone Colleen Chesterman on (02) 9514 2931.