Empowered Women, Stronger Institutions: The Impact of Female Leadership
“On the contrary, here at CSH, it's significantly different. Here at CSH, all the academic department chairs are women, and we also have a powerful woman, Iris Alder, filling the role of principal of our school. This is radical when compared with other academic institutions in America.”
As Comp Sci High has developed, naturally leaders have had to chosen to lead each academic department, whether ELA, Math, Computer Science, History, Science, or more. For this month's article we have decided to write about these leaders in our community — not only because they are a significant part of the CSH community, but because we’ve had the privilege of having these seats filled with strong, exemplary women.
After interacting with these exemplary women, our understanding of them has grown. We have felt more connected to them, and overall, we have a better comprehension of what it's like being them. We have learned from them, and they have given a lot of themselves.
According to a 2020 report by the American Association of Medical Colleges, “Department Chairs by Department, Gender, and Race/Ethnicity,” it's fairly evident that most department chairs in academic institutions are men. That report lists, among medical colleges, 613 male department chairs, and 216 female ones. On the contrary, here at CSH, it's significantly different. Here at CSH, all the academic department chairs are women, and we also have a powerful woman, Iris Alder, filling the role of principal of our school. This is radical when compared with other academic institutions in America.
You may ask yourself, why are the Comp Sci High Department Chairs so important? Well, they not only provide such coaching and structure to the education system, they are also perfect living examples of empowered women in leadership. They bring this experience and perspective to many things, and we sought to find out all the ways our CSH department chairs are inspiring and changing others.
When someone is a new, incoming member of the CSH community, they often have no idea what to expect, and the same happens with most of our current Department Chairs. Ms. Parcells, our History Department Chair, explained “When I first came to Comp Sci High, I was really excited just to continue showing my love for global history. That's where a lot of my background is. Now in my fifth year here, it just kind of seemed like the next appropriate challenge for me to take on a leadership role. It was never my original ambition to be the head of a department, but it's really exciting and it's a huge challenge.” Her initial thought of a role at CSH was being a global history teacher due to her high knowledge of the topic, and she had no actual thought of taking on a leadership role in her community. Although many of these leaders had no plan to be in these positions, they have successfully adjusted to be in this space of leadership.
The role of becoming a Department Chair brings many responsibilities as well as tasks to be completed. Ms. Golden, the English Department Chair, described this: "We essentially serve as coaches for teachers. Our role is to ensure that teachers are continuously improving, that instruction is both aligned and rigorous, and that it meets the needs of our students while also preparing them for exams. We support the school’s mission, ensuring that it is reflected in everything we do. It’s a lot—it really is. We work to ensure that we’re meeting the school’s goals, the students' goals, and that we’re setting, defining, and achieving those goals, while consistently sharing our progress and outcomes." Overall, the Department Chairs typically handle these great amounts of commitments and objectives to complete, which shows how significant they are to what goes on at CSH. They have a hand in basically everything.
Although from plain sight these resilient women might seem like authoritative figures among their own departments, this might not be how it actually is. These women take the role of leadership very seriously, and aren’t just authoritarians, or people who use power recklessly. Ms. Agrawal, the Computer Science Department Chair, said: “I view my team as very collaborative, and my role on the team is to make sure that we are really successful in our classes, we feel successful in our curriculum, we feel successful in our implementation. I don't manage anyone on my team. My job is to coach the people on my team. Ultimately my job is to build up my team, so it's not really so much a place of authority, it's more like building strong relationships, building trust, and helping my team just be the best it can be.” Though there is a great amount of power that these positions have, their role is not about a rigid amount of authority among each department: it's about creating a community and building relationships to take the academic framework to its highest potential for the best learning outcomes for our students.
So in turn, we decided to ask the department chairs their experience and thoughts on how they feel about being women who dominate a field where men are often found. We wanted not just a new perspective but also an acknowledgement of the experience these women face.
When interviewing the department chairs, we asked, “How do you feel being a woman in a leadership role, knowing it is so rare?” This question set off a domino effect. With each woman we spoke to, the conversation deepened, revealing a shared perspective. They all echoed a common thought: women are often perceived as too emotional, reinforcing a double standard. Ms. Liani said the following: “We often attribute characteristics as either male or female, which I think is just so silly. I see myself as having much more masculine energy—y’all have seen me in the classroom, right? I’m strict, I’m loud. Most people would probably describe my qualities as more masculine than feminine.” Society tends to categorize certain emotions and, whether intentionally or not, assigns them to a specific gender, further enforcing outdated stereotypes.
We wanted to dive deeper and ensure we truly understood how the department chairs work together as a team. This led to a more positive response. They described it as a kind of teamwork, knowing that if one teacher missed a day, another would always step in to keep things running. Not only is this efficient, but it also creates a strong sense of community among the department chairs, which ultimately impacts not just them, but us as students.
The department chairs also coach teachers by helping them analyze lessons and provide meaningful feedback. Ms. Ytuarte shared: “[Coaching] just means to develop. Like, what is this thing that you want to work on? What are some problems you're having in your class? Is it that students aren’t behaving and you want to figure out how to make lessons more engaging? Or are they behaving, but struggling to master the concepts? If your exam scores are really rough, we can’t just move on—we have to figure out why it wasn’t clear to the kids. We do a lot of that.”
She believes this kind of coaching should happen more often, as it benefits teachers and helps them grow in ways that they can pass on to their students. In the long run, this creates a welcoming and productive atmosphere for both teachers and learners!
It is clear to see how meaningful these women are not only to CSH but also to the rest of society: they have proved wrong every stereotypical statement against women in power, and they are living examples of the possibility of carrying a level of responsibility, while also providing an immeasurable amount of support so that others can be their best.