Women and girls around the world face challenges due to lack of access to health, education, rights and security. The George Washington University aims to direct resources toward enhancing the roles of women and girls worldwide by creating a Global Women’s Institute (GWI), and is currently seeking a director for the institute.
In December 2009, President Steven Knapp formed a university-wide task force that spent several months investigating GW’s strengths and drafting a mission for the new institute. In 2011, a search committee was formed to conduct an international search for the institute’s first director.
The director search is being conducted by Isaacson, Miller, an executive search firm
“The director will synthesize an extraordinary teaching, research, service and civic engagement agenda from all corners of the university,” said Timothy McFeeley, vice president and director of Isaacson, Miller. “The Global Women’s Institute is worthy of a world-class director, and we are privileged to be working with a talented and energetic committee in conducting a search for such a leader.”
Barbara Miller, professor of anthropology and international affairs and associate dean for faculty affairs in the Elliott School of International Affairs, led the GWI task force and is chairing the search committee for the new director. “Our agenda is HERS—health, education, rights and security. And we’re not just focusing on developing countries. Things like glass ceiling issues can affect women anywhere.”
The institute will focus on research, teaching, and service and policy engagement. A cross-cutting issue, Dr. Miller explained, is leadership and training programs for women and girls at GW and beyond.
The idea for the Global Women’s Institute originated in 2009, when President Knapp visited Saudi Arabia and witnessed firsthand how women were not allowed to drive cars or go out in public alone. Coupled with observations about how improving outcomes for girls in developing countries has a waterfall effect made by faculty members and Vice President Leo Chalupa during a leadership retreat, President Knapp proposed that GW investigate “the possibility of launching an institute that would provide a coordinated focus for the activities in this area that are occurring in various ways across the university.”
The task force worked from January to April 2010 to develop an agenda for the proposed institute. The task force, which included faculty, students and administrators, also explored options for funding and investigated the challenges of involving the entire university, including both undergraduate and graduate students. In April 2010, the task force presented to President Knapp a strategic plan outlining the steps required to make the institute a reality.
Currently, the search for a director is the main priority, Dr. Miller said. Once a director is located and hired—hopefully by summer or fall 2012, if all goes well, she said—the institute can go through the process of being formally chartered by the university.
“The ideal new director will have academic or professional experience—or both—in more than one area of the HERS agenda areas,” Dr. Miller said. “We’re looking for a broad thinker to bring GW’s schools together.” She hopes that each of GW’s schools will develop a “pillar” in support of the Global Women’s Institute. For example, the Elliott School’s Global Gender Initiative, which focuses on research and teaching on issues relevant to women and girls in developing countries, is an example of how an individual school’s project might be incorporated as a pillar of the GWI’s work.
GW alumna Sally Nuamah, B.A. ’11, served as a student member of the task force when she was a junior and a senior at GW. She became involved after running into President Knapp outside the Multicultural Student Services Center in January 2010, after attending a vigil for Haitian earthquake victims. She told Dr. Knapp about her recent experience interviewing women about their educational experience in Ghana while studying abroad, and he invited her to become a member of the task force.
Ms. Nuamah received a small grant to pay for editing of her film footage about women and education in Ghana from a start-up fund in the Elliott School, through its support of the GWI. This sort of project is exactly the type of thing that the GWI will help coordinate university wide, she said. Ms. Nuamah is now a doctoral student in comparative public policy at Northwestern University—a decision she credits to the research experience she gained in Ghana and the support from GW during her B.A. studies.
“Being on the task force allowed me to see how the institute will benefit students,” she said. “Women around the world are unfortunately not on equal footing, but the GWI is one more piece in helping improve outcomes for them.”