At its fifth annual meeting, the National Colloquium of Senior Women Executives in Australian Higher Education indicated a strong desire to forge links with, and participate in collaborative initiatives with, women in higher education across the Commonwealth.

The Colloquium was formed in October 1995 with the full support of the vice-chancellors of all universities in the Australian Unified National System of Higher Education. The Colloquium consists of all women in Australian universities who are vice-chancellors, deputy vice-chancellors or pro-vice-chancellors, or who have status equivalent to these levels. The formation of the group was the joint initiative of Professor Margaret Gardner, Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Business, Equity) at Griffith University, and Professor Eleanor Ramsay, Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Equity and Development) at the University of South Australia, who have remained the co-conveners of the Colloquium.

The role of the Colloquium is:

The fifth annual meeting of the Colloquium was held on 7 and 8 November at the Fairmont Resort, Leura in the Blue Mountains. The meeting was attended by 22 of its 49 members and chaired by its co-conveners, Professor Gardner and Professor Ramsay. Dr Jasbir Singh, Consultant to ACU's Women's Programme, was invited to present an account of the ACU's programme and to discuss concrete ways in which the Colloquium, through the ACU, could enhance its international links and collaborative activities.

Discussion on links with the ACU's Women's Programme led to the following suggestions:

The Colloquium members suggested that the ACU consider the appointment of a steering/advisory committee that would facilitate communication and effective collaboration between the Australian and Commonwealth programmes for women, as well as providing a mechanism to support the work of its Women's Programme. It was suggested that this could comprise senior women managers from selected countries. Such a group would not only serve as an advisory body to the programme, but also identify committed university women leaders in these countries who could be relied upon to liaise, link, advocate and bring leverage on behalf of the Programme with their own national-level higher education bodies. The mode of communication could be electronic rather than expensive face-to-face meetings, with members of the proposed body meeting if and where this might become feasible.

The Colloquium wished to establish links with the ACU's Women's pan-Commonwealth network as well as the number of national and regional networks in the Commonwealth which have emerged as a result of the ACU's work. Contact names and addresses were requested to enable contact to be made as a precursor to establishing these links.

The Colloquium undertook to explore with the Australian Vice Chancellors' Committee (AVCC) the potential to develop a women's shadowing program for women administrators in the ACU, using the Colloquium's members as the major resource base. The proposed programme would operate in parallel to the existing senior university administrators' Shadowing Programme and in so doing provide an effective means for women in some developing countries to participate in the scheme and benefit from the wide range of experience and skills present amongst the members of the Colloquium. It is envisaged that this parallel scheme would enable women from developing countries to shadow, for instance, the AVCC's Women in Leadership (WIL) programme. It would also establish communication and networking relationships between participants from developing countries and the senior women in Australian universities which would provide an ongoing basis for mutually beneficial communication and collaboration.

In addition, there was discussion of the potential for individual universities to consider ways of establishing mutually beneficial exchanges and links with parallel programmes in other Commonwealth countries. Exchanges were envisaged in both directions - for developing country women to be attached to a leadership programme in an Australian university, and for Australian university women who have successfully instituted such a programme in Australia to be attached to newly established women's staff development units/programmes in developing Commonwealth countries.

The Colloquium would explore potential funding sources to facilitate the development of the proposed institutional link programmes. The other items on the agenda reflected the principal concerns and areas of activity of the Colloquium:

The AVCC Action Plan for Women: The Colloquium continues to be engaged at all levels of the development and implementation of the Plan. The Colloquium is: assisting with the formulation of the policy statement; watching the type of statistics and data collected; providing advice on the formulation of research briefs for the priority areas of research proposed; and making plans for the Conference about the merit principle in the context of gender equity, productivity, efficiency and technological developments in 2001.

AVCC Standing Committees: The Colloquium keeps a careful watch on the composition of AVCC Committees. It looks out for vacancies and alerts suitable women of opportunities to be nominated to these sector-wide national committees which together formulate the policy and programme directions of Australian higher education.

Expanding Networks: The Colloquium is engaged in a number of initiatives to network with agencies such as the national and state-level offices for the Status of Women and businesswomen's peak organisations such as the Australian Council of Businesswomen Ltd.

The Meeting of the Colloquium represents a group of committed Australian senior university women who review the current and emerging issues of concern to women in their sector, and consider concrete ways of changing the situation, enabling women to play a more prominent and productive role in the higher education sector in Australia.

Colloquium contact: Professor Eleanor Ramsay, Eleanor.Ramsay@unisa.edu.au

In a report to the Affirmative Action Agency (Australia), which ensures that employers remain within the guidelines set down by the legislation, the University of Queensland revealed that there have been some very positive outcomes since 1997. These include:

The data, however, also revealed that the representation of women still needs improvement at all academic levels above and including Senior Lecturer, and in senior decision making bodies. Perhaps this outcome is not surprising since, according to figures released early in 1999 by the Affirmative Action agency, the rate of improvement for women in management across Australia has Òslowed dramaticallyÓ.

At these rates, one commentator has computed, organisations will take 177 years to reach equal representation in management. In commenting on this trend the retiring director of the Agency, Catherine Harris, has underlined the importance of supporting the momentum for cultural change:

It is vital that organisations continue to address the issues of women's progress in the work place - innovative solutions need to be found to overcome and solve problems such as balancing work and life demands.

Source: Access The University of Queensland Office of Gender Equity Newsletter, Vol. 11, No 1, 1999.

To improve the representation of women in policy and decision-making positions, in 1995 the AVCC established a Register of Senior University Women whose experience and expertise could be more widely utilised within the university, government and business sectors. The development of the AVCC Register of Senior University Women is an illustration of the serious intent on the part of universities to address the issue of under-representation of women in higher education, government and business sectors. The public release of this information facilitates the utilisation of the enormous wealth of expert knowledge and experience of senior university women in making appointments to committees, advisory panels and other influential positions in all sectors. The current version of the Register contains contact details, current duties classification, position, areas of special expertise/interest and committee membership of over 2, 900 senior university women. The scope of the Register covers academic staff at the level of Senior Lecturer Grade C and above and senior administrative staff at the level of Higher Education Worker Level 10 and above. However, inclusion in the Register is only with the agreement of individuals, and therefore not necessarily comprehensive of all senior university women.

Use of the Register is encouraged as a resource for identifying senior university women who could be utilised for appointment or nomination to senior positions or portfolio pertinent to their expertise, or called upon to provide expert advice on a wide range of issues. The Register is updated annually.