Images from The Chronicle reflect women as leaders.(The Chronicle of Higher Education)

When students at Kent State University OH are asked to picture a leader, they come up with the words competitive, strong, tough, decision maker, broad shoulders. The picture changes when the question is about a women leader.

That's not just because students at Kent are young and naive. Similar gendered images of leadership are usual in The Chronicle of Higher Education, according to a study by:

* Dr. Suzanne Gordon, professor and director of the physical therapy program at Husson College in Bangor ME

* Dr. Susan Iverson, assistant professor of higher education administration and student personnel at Kent State University OH

* Dr. Elizabeth Allan, associate professor of higher education leadership at the University of Maine in Orono ME

Their collaboration began when Iverson and Gordon were graduate students at the University of Maine, where Allan is on faculty. First they analyzed descriptions of leaders in U.S. post-secondary education that appeared in a year's worth of articles and opinion pieces in The Chronicle of Higher Education (November 1, 2005, through October 31, 2006). Leaders in general came across as strong, athletic, autonomous and in control.

Later they looked more deeply at portrayals of women leaders, finding very different results. Gordon presented their findings at the American Educational Research Association (AERA) in Chicago in April.