Bridging the gender gap in Zambian university administration

The work in this book provides a way of understanding some of the issues about gender and how they especially affect women representation in senior leadership and managerial roles in Zambia's public universities. Moreover, the work reveals that the women's experiences herein present differently, positively to the common narratives on assumptions and explanations for the underrepresentation of women in senior ranks which is mostly negative. Through personal agency of self-confidence, determination, faith,family and education the women created a threshold for career and professional advancement in the highly gendered academic institutions. As such, these principles would help guide especially individual decisions, action, and behavior that lead to high rank academic attainment and also an increase in the number of women in high ranking positions in academia. Most importantly, the experiences of Zambia's female professors in universities indicate that creativity is central in performing and re-inventing prevailing gender norms. The development and successful attainment of high status careers and management ranks by women leads to significant diversity and effective administration.