Microsoft Word doctoral thesis final[1]. doc

 
6/(5) 
Principal of Engineering faculty* 
Currently principal of faculty with ten engineering 
departments – Ten HoD’s…NIKKI 
2/(2) 
Informatics 
 Director of school of Pharmacy ; dept chair of Pharmacy 
Practice ; HoD Dept of Informatics; chair of School of Art  
 
18/(6) 
Physiotherapy unit 
Previously head of a teaching programme commissioned 
by the department of health(BSc. accelerated  2 year 
programme); 
worked with registration body and other professional 
bodies; 
responsible for research, employing people and managing 
people. 
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*  
Nikki took part in both survey and interview and is currently principal of 
Engineering faculty with several years experience in Industry. She had “quite a 
number of senior management positions before this one”. 
*  
Brooke was Dean of faculty and about to retire at the time of the interview. 
** 
Cheryl has extensive experience in positions of responsibility but unfortunately 
some of the information was lost due to video recording problems during the 
opening part of the interview (she was interviewed alone as she could not be 

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accommodated in previous focus groups). Subsequent follow-ups to obtain the 
missing information were not successful.  
 
As Table 5.30 indicates, just over 50 per cent of the participants in the study are heads of 
traditionally male dominated departments such as science, engineering and law. Taken 
together, this seems a reasonably impressive number. But viewed as individual cases, 
these women represent only a minority of female HoDs available at each institution 
involved in the study. At some universities, particularly in the UK, there were no women 
HoDs at all. 
 
Whereas all survey participants indicated only number of years in previous positions, 
some interview participants indicated both number of years in previous positions and 
number of years as HoD. In the Table this is indicated as 6/5 for example. As already 
discussed in 5.2 (presentation of quantitative findings), the majority of participants had 
between 1-6 years experience as HoD which is the same as the interview participants. 
The data also indicates that many of the women have extensive prior experience in 
positions of responsibility as well as in their current HoD position. They are also 
involved in several activities at their institutions.  One woman, Nikki, has vast experience 
in industry as well. She is one of two women in the sample who held a rank above that of 
HoD at the time of the study. This only came to light during the interview. However, 
because of the paucity of female HoDs at the selected institutions, they were sanctioned 
to participate and share their extensive managerial experience.