In May, Princeton picked Harvard law professor Anne-Marie Slaughter to run the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. She joins Princeton president Shirley Tilghman, a molecular biologist who took over last year along with provost Amy Gutmann. The dean of the college is a woman, as is the dean of undergraduate students–among many others. And the Princeton sisterhood extends beyond the campus. Nancy Cantor, chancellor of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, is a former Princeton faculty member. So is Brown University president Ruth Simmons, the first African-American to run an Ivy League school.

When these women and their female colleagues around the country entered college in the 1960s and early 1970s, few dreamed of someday occupying the president’s chair. Until 1975, women’s schools still had men in the top jobs. Even tenure was an elusive goal for female academics (just as a corner office was for their counterparts in the business world). Their prime child-rearing years were also the time when they were supposed to be building a scholarly reputation. But these women were on the cusp of change, and it helped to have an empathetic boss.

At Princeton, that boss was Harold Shapiro, Tilghman’s predecessor. “From the day he arrived” in 1988, says Tilghman, who was then a professor there, “he made it clear that it was important to him that women participate.” As the father of four daughters and the husband of a professor, Shapiro had a deep commitment to promoting women and making sure their voices were heard. “I saw it as an important opportunity for women and for the university,” Shapiro says today. “I thought I was doing the university a favor by recognizing talent.” Tilghman and Gutmann say he was especially sympathetic to work-family conflicts. “Harold understood,” says Gutmann, the mother of a daughter, “that there were other demands on your life besides your career.”

As Shapiro worked to foster careers at Princeton, other universities began to catch up with the times as well. In 1986, most of the 9.5 percent of colleges run by women were community colleges or women’s schools, according to a survey by the American Council of Education (ACE). But in the mid-1990s, some of the nation’s most prestigious schools garnered national headlines for making women the boss. In 1993, Nannerl Keohane, the president of Wellesley College, headed to Duke University. A year later the University of Pennsylvania’s Judith Rodin became the first woman to run an Ivy League school.

During this past academic year–as Simmons, Tilghman and Cantor started their new jobs–ACE reported that 22 percent of college presidents were female, and they were running a wide range of institutions. A surprising number are scientists like Tilghman. Last week, at an ACE summit of women college presidents in Washington, Johnnetta Cole, the incoming president of Bennett College in Greensboro, N.C., looked around triumphantly at the dozens of women in the room and instructed everyone to “give yourself an enormous sisterly hug.” For three days the women exchanged war stories about fund-raising and firing football coaches, and even talked about their kids. Chemist Maryanne Fox, chancellor of North Carolina State University, remembers being surprised to hear one of her sons reject the notion that he might grow up to be a chemist, too. “He said, ‘No, that’s what girls do’,” she recalls. (That son is now majoring in biochemistry.)

Still, no one thought the battle was over. “I dream of the day when difference makes no difference,” Cole told the other women. “But we’re not there yet.” Only three women were on The Chronicle of Higher Education’s most recent annual list of the 50 highest-paid presidents. They’re still underrepresented on corporate boards–a common appointment for male presidents. And some women worry that their successors may be men because their schools will feel that they’ve already had a woman leader.

One way to keep the ranks growing is through the kinds of connections forged at the summit and through other academic networks. Tilghman says she regularly talks to Simmons, Rodin, Cantor and Keohane about issues confronting presidents of research universities. Women presidents also say they feel a special responsibility to nurture the next generation. At the summit, Shirley Ann Jackson, an African-American theoretical physicist who runs Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, says she hopes to encourage more minority girls to pursue math and science careers.

But having a woman in charge doesn’t guarantee a feminist agenda. The highly respected Keohane was recently under attack for chairing a new committee to study women’s status on campus. An editorial in the Duke paper criticized her for not tackling the issue sooner. “I thought I needed to learn about the things I had never been responsible for first,” she says, like the medical school, varsity athletics and the business school. But, she adds, women’s issues will be at top of her list for the rest of her tenure–“and I don’t plan to leave soon.” Now, at least, she’s not alone.

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