Women have been flocking to Canadian universities in volume since the 1990s. While only 15 per cent of women aged 25 to 64 held a university certificate or diploma in 1991, Statistics Canada shows that this number more than doubled to 35 per cent by 2015. And it's still growing: by 2021, 41 per cent of women held a degree, 59 per cent of university graduates were women and the majority of students registered in public universities and CEGEPs were women. Yet this trend is not reflected in university leadership. During the 2018-19 academic year, only 29 per cent of tenured professors in Ontario were women.
To better understand the challenges facing women pursuing leadership roles, University Affairs asked five female leaders from francophone universities about their experiences: Sophie Bouffard, president of Université de Saint-Boniface; Maud Cohen, president of Polytechnique Montréal; Sophie D'Amours, rector of Université Laval; Murielle Laberge, president of Université du Québec en Outaouais; and Lucie Laflamme, general manager of Université TÉLUQ. They discussed systemic barriers, how far universities have come and how to improve gender equity in university administrations.
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