Goals of the HERS Bryn Mawr Summer Institute

The Summer Institute began as a joint project of HERS and Bryn Mawr College in 1976, with initial funding from the William H. Donner Foundation. The goal of the founders was to improve the status of women in the middle and executive levels of higher education administration, an area in which women traditionally had been under-represented. Today the HERS Bryn Mawr Summer Institute continues with the twin goals of preparing and advancing women for leadership in higher education administration.

The program accepts women who are actively seeking increased administrative responsibilities and provides

  • knowledge and skills in management and governance of institutions of higher education, with special attention to accounting and budgeting, long range planning, information technology, decision making processes, and policy implementation;
  • institutional perspective on the pressing issues and problems in higher education today, giving special attention to the growing diversity of the student body and the workforce;
  • strategies for professional development with special emphasis on leadership, self-presentation, institutional change, and career planning; and
  • continuing supportive network of peers and mentors.

In the past thirty years, over 2,000 women administrators and faculty leaders from throughout the United States, and from Canada, South Africa, Saudi Arabia, the Virgin Islands, Bermuda, Nigeria, Sweden, Wales, Iran, Singapore and the Netherlands have graduated from the HERS Bryn Mawr Summer Institute.