Is there a “glass ceiling?”

To the Editor:

While the issue of the “Glass Ceiling” (Jan 24) is vital to Fairfield University and contemporary society, the article’s narrow scope fails to represent contemporary feminist thought. Kate Rickard egregiously errs in her attempt to portray the Fairfield University community as a male dominated fraternity.

Rickard quotes authoritative female faculty to seemingly disprove her point. While she recognizes that the vice presidential positions should be filled with competent and experienced people, she does not give statistics as to when the acting vice presidents were hired. The acting vice presidents could have been hired prior to the presence of women in the academic circuits.

Rickard asserts, “But there is one thing that hasn’t changed with the times; the overwhelming dominance of males in decision making roles on campus.” The ‘times’ that Rickard has so simply referred to; what are they? According to the preceding paragraph, they would be applied to the last year. In this ‘time,’ the university hired Dr. Jeanne Novotny as the dean of the School of Nursing. The subsequent lines or her article go on to sight the change in procedure with regards to the position of the presidency being opened across gender lines. The times have changed and are continuing to change.

The article asserts that there is no female student representation. Can university administration be accused of suppressing female political participation? Rickard identifies the student body as being comprised of 55 precent female, and yet, fails to recognize the political power of such a group, as if there is some sort of conspiracy against females at Fairfield University.

Certainly, no one in the Fairfield community can disregard the issues that Rickard raises, however, one can take issue with the insinuating and callous tone of her article. The individual quotations of four students does not represent the majority of Fairfield students and their collective opinion.

Sincerely,

Kevin Sullivan ’04