What affects career mobility for chief business officers?(In Her Own Words:)

White males usually hold the job of college or university business officer. The stereotype that women don't do well in math may help explain why women continue to be underrepresented in upper level business positions on campus as well as in corporations. Fortunately, women aren't allowing this attitude to keep them from seeking and obtaining these positions in gradually increasing numbers.

As an African American female college business officer (CBO) for one of the five academic colleges at a predominantly white institution, I realized its significance while attending a National Association of College and University Business Officers (NACUBO) conference. While women are making strides, women of color are not making nearly as much progress in becoming CBOs.

Perceptions are powerful and may affect reality. Women who see themselves as successful act in ways that bring them success, but demographics also help predict one's career success, mobility and satisfaction. Women tend to be more concerned about what others think of them, and they may unintentionally help create or reinforce preconceptions that hinder their own success.

Often when women enter male-dominated fields, they may perceive that others see them as tokens and treat them differently as women. The same perceptions apply to people of color who enter career fields with little or no ethnic diversity. Many perceive too many roadblocks to even consider applying for some positions at some schools.

My position was previously held by a white male. Although I was prepared and qualified for it, I don't believe I'd have been promoted to it had not the hiring official also been an African American, who was the first African American to hold his position.

Gender is deeply connected with social hierarchy and leadership, but how women of color experience gender depends on its intersection with other inequities. Many women of color working at predominantly white schools attribute their being in a chilly climate more to their race than to their gender.

Sandler (1987) defines an institutional climate as "chilly" when women are treated differently because of their gender, but it also happens when a workplace subtly devalues people of color, working class people, and those whose primary language is not English.