Share career good practices - role models for women

To enhance visibility of female role models for academic and administrative staff.

To inspire and encourage women to pursue university careers.

We (the MU Plotina team) identified good practices of presenting female role models but we do not consider any of them appropriate in our context. Role models are often presented publicly through websites or posters (for example at the University of Cambridge they ask students to present their candidates and they give a price to the best one), and they are often celebrities from outside the university. We thought that in our case it would be better to present women from our own faculties and that a private format would be better, like a meeting of young women with women with a long experience. To make sure that this was a good idea we talked to two women that could be role models about organizing a meeting with young women researchers and young administration women to share their experiences and doubts. They agreed that it would be a good idea and they expressed their preference to be organized as an internal faculty event, not a public one.. We had a second meeting with five women from the General Coordination and the Governing Board as role models, to specify the number and profile of the attendees and the content to discuss in the meeting. It was agreed that a group of 20 people would be adequate to encourage an intimate discussion. They said they did not experience any barriers to achieve their positions so we had to think about challenges and coping strategies. We decided to work farther on the content of the presentations and ask them some general questions about how they decided about their studies and careers and which work and personal life integration difficulties they had.

The challenge of how to choose role models without offending colleagues inside the organisation. The challenge of choosing the best format to present role models.

Organizing a meeting or focus group, asking them which would be their preference.

Recruitment, career progression and retention

Awareness raising/Communication

Mondragon Unibertsitatea (MU)
Higher education institution

Staff and students