How to move from lab bench to administration.

Women dominate the field of clinical laboratory science as 80% of the workforce. But only 4.2% of them work in academe. An even smaller percentage moves from the lab or classroom into academic administration. Why?

Suzanne Campbell, medical laboratory technician coordinator at Seward County Community College in Kansas, studied the career paths of several of these women to identify what factors helped or hindered their progress. Viewing their path as a journey and employing traffic metaphors for the key points, she spoke about her research at the University of Nebraska's Women in Educational Leadership conference in Lincoln in October.

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Visibility led to variety

A trained medical laboratory scientist, Campbell was interested in identifying the skills, opportunities, obstacles and experiences necessary to move women scientists into top administrative positions. She conducted seven face-to-face semi-formal interviews and one via phone of women administrators at the dean's level or the equivalent. All participants had backgrounds in clinical laboratory science and now worked in university administration.

The eight women were originally trained as clinicians with no background in either education or administration. Five were age 50 to 59; one was younger and two were older. Five had doctorates, one was ABD and the remaining two had master's degrees. Faculty experience ranged from 10 to 39 years. Five held the rank of full professor. All eight had career stops along the way to their current positions.

Campbell discovered that during their careers the eight women were active in institution-wide committees. "Because they were visible, they were tapped on the shoulder to do other things," she explained. They went out and sought opportunity. They didn't wait for it to knock.