Paper dolls and jacks: women presidents look back.(Interview)

College presidents of today grew up in long-lost era of unstructured time and imaginative outdoor play. With no electronic games, indoors they turned to books, jacks or dolls. Children in groups tried on roles by playing house, school or cops-and-robbers.

Regina Toman, dean of students at Nebraska Methodist College in Omaha, is writing her dissertation at the University of Nebraska about the formative experiences of five women presidents (identified by pseudonyms). Stressing that her findings are preliminary and her dissertation a work in progress, she spoke at the University of Nebraska's Women in Higher Education conference in Lincoln in October.

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All five presidents contrasted their girlhoods with the structured, technology-driven lives of girls today. They grew up in stable, two-parent families with stay-at-home moms and siblings. All were confident and/or ambitious, while influenced by that era's social norms for girls.

Toman described her qualitative approach as both a collective case study and interpretive biography. Most studies of women presidents focus on career paths. Toman is exploring roots: What do presidents see when they look back? "It really is about perception and memory," she said.

Shy bookworm

Dr. Claire Evans, president of a private liberal arts university in the Midwest, grew up in a small town in the South. The elder of two children, she loved to read and excelled in school.