Women Professors Well Represented at Kogod

When Barbara Bird was earning her three degrees, she only had two female professors teaching her. Years later Bird now presides as chair of the Management Department— the first female full Professor to rise through the ranks at the Kogod School of Business.

Bird began her career at Kogod in 199 when she became a full Professor and department chair in 2012.

“I’ve seen so much change over the years, both in Kogod and in business in general,” Bird said. “Notably, [there’s been] an increase in the number of female students in my classes and so it only makes sense that our faculty should reflect our student base. AU and Kogod have a great commitment to diversity and that’s commendable.”

In fact, 32 percent of Kogod’s tenure and tenure-track faculty members at female— nearly double the percentage of female faculty at the top ten MBA programs in the country according to Bloomberg Businessweek.

According to Bloomberg, the top MBA program in the country, the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business, has approximately 15 percent female tenure and tenure-track faculty.

This spring, Kogod promoted three of those female tenure-track faculty members: Wendy Boland and Cristel Russell of the Marketing Department and Valentina Bruno of the Finance and Real Estate Department, rose from Assistant Professor to Associate Professor.

“It felt like winning the Champions League,” she said. “I guess [Kogod’s women faculty show] that Cher got it right in her latest song, ‘Tell the truth, this is a woman’s world!'”

regions: Washington, DC

About the Author