Women, BIPOC Professionals to Lead Top U.S. Colleges Come Fall 2023

Steps are gradually being taken to close the gender and racial gaps when it comes to university presidency.

Out of the 20 top-ranked colleges in the United States, eleven will reportedly be led by women or professionals from the BIPOC community in the fall 2023 semester.

According to Forbes, the new leadership marks a milestone for diversity amongst some of the nation’s most elite institutions.

Reportedly, the diverse change within the higher educational presidencies follows the numerous resignations, retirements, and replacements several institutions faced within the past 18 months.

Ivy Leagues ranked in Forbes’ top 20 will see six women leading its institutions out of the eight holding a ranking.

Reportedly, Harvard, Brown, The University of Pennsylvania, and the University of California, San Diego are the only schools in the ranking that have appointed such leadership that includes women or professionals from the BIPOC community just ten years ago.

Heading into fall 2023, colleges that will enter the semester led by a person of color include Harvard University, which named Claudine Gay as its university’s first Black president. Gay will be the second woman to hold the presidency at the institution.

Reginald DesRoches was hired in 2022 to lead Rice University. He will continue into the fall 2023 semester as the institution’s first Black man to be appointed to the presidency.

Indian-American Chancellor Pradeep Khosla will also continue his leadership at the University of California, San Diego, where he was appointed back in 2012.

The Women’s Power Gap at Elite Universities: Scaling the Ivory Tower, a 2022 report by the Eos Foundation in partnership with the American Association of University Women, found that the gap for women of color regarding university presidencies remained wide, as only 5% of the institutions appointed a woman of color in the leadership spot.

The statistics still remain low for women of color, even though one in every five people to obtain a PhD are women of color.