10-23-2022 W2W - Flipbook - Page 38
SMASHING
THE GLASS
CEILING
Meet three women who broke new ground
By Mike Klingaman
I
n Baltimore, a university president, a college
athletic director and an Orioles’ broadcaster
are pioneers in breaching the gender barrier
in high-profile roles. Here’s how they did it.
Valerie Sheares Ashby
President of the University of Maryland,
Baltimore County
The University of Maryland, Baltimore County turned
56 last month; so did its new president. Valerie Sheares
Ashby was born Sept. 6, 1966. Thirteen days later, the
college opened with three buildings and 750 students.
How they’ve grown. Enrollment now tops 13,000 as
Ashby becomes UMBC’s first female president, intent
on continuing the work of her predecessor, Freeman
Hrabowski, who retired after 30 years at the helm of the
research-driven school.
“He [Hrabowski] left me a great gift,” Ashby said. “I
came here thinking, ‘Who possibly follows Freeman, and
how much more can we do?’ What I don’t want to do is
to undershoot; I want to leverage every bit of what he
38 | 2022 | WOMEN TO WATCH
has put in place.”
She didn’t seek the job; it found her. A Ph.D. chemist with eight patents to her name, Ashby was a dean at
Duke University when UMBC beckoned. It wasn’t the
first time on the Catonsville campus for the Clayton,
North Carolina. native. Fourteen years ago, as a professor at North Carolina-Chapel Hill (her alma mater), she
sat in Hrabowski’s office as they hammered out details
of a collaborative science program between the schools.
Then, out of the blue, he said:
“You’re going to make a great college president some
day.”
Ashby was dumbstruck.
“How do you respond to that?” she said. “I don’t think
that I did.”
A professed science geek in high school, she said that
her chemistry major primed her for this role. Routinely,
at various stops in her professional career, she has forged
trails for other women in a largely male-dominated field.
“There aren’t many women teaching organic chemistry,” she said. “I’ve also been the only Black in every
department in which I’ve taught.”
And while Ashby once fit the stereotype of a lab rat
fussing over test tubes and Bunsen burners in a quest
for eureka! moments, that, too, helped set the stage for
her new post.
“Yes, I wore goggles and worked in those ‘dungeons’,
but it was a very vibrant atmosphere with a whole group
of us,” she said. “As team leader, your communicative
skills help you put the right people in the right jobs to find
the right formulas.”
Science also prepared her for being president, she said,
because “explaining complex ideas in relatable ways is
what I was trained to do.” Moreover, there are eureka!
moments in running a university:
“I love recruiting talent and I’m driven to find it, to
launch peoples’ careers while adding to the chemistry
of the school.”