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Spotlight Gender Lens Simmons School of Management Simmons College Boston, Massachusetts Through a and Leadership" conference has attracted heavy hitters such as HP CEO Carly Fiorina, who spoke at this year's event. "Her story says to women, 'You can get there if that's where you want to be,'" says Patricia O'Brien, who served as dean of Simmons' business school for the last seven years before accepting a new position with Harvard College last month. "It's inspirational, and it's a way of building the network." Simmons' Center for Gender in in business education, including its undergraduate program, which serves 180 students; its MBA pro- gram, which serves 250 students; and its executive education pro- grams, which attract 800 women annually. It also offers its annual "Women and Leadership" confer- ence and its Center for Gender in Organizations. Each program is designed not only to provide an education in management and lead- ership, but also to focus on the par- ticular roles, challenges, and man- agement styles of women in the workplace. For 20 years, Simmons' "Women Organizations promotes research on gender roles and differences in busi- 64 BizEd SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2004 Simmons School of Management may be the only business school in the world whose student population is 100 percent women. The school's mission is to provide business education "taught through a gender lens." Simmons offers five product lines Left: Former dean Patricia O'Brien with Simmons MBA students and Boston Stock Exchange VP Bruce Newell ringing the opening bell. Below: Fulbright scholarship recipients Buhle Ngobo and Deborah May with Sherene Aram, recipient of a scholarship from C200, an organization of women business leaders. Bottom: Gail Deegan, retired CFO of Houghton Mifflin Company and 2002 Simmons executive in residence. ness environments. A recent CGO study by Deborah Merrill-Sands, who will be taking over as interim dean, explored whether women truly wanted to pursue top corporate posi- tions. It surveyed 571 Simmons graduates and found that more than half of women 34 and younger want- ed to achieve the highest leadership positions in their organizations. At the same time, only 27 percent said that being "in charge of others" was important. This distinction makes it important that business curricula take into account women's unique approach to leadership, says O'Brien. It has become incredibly impor- tant that business schools provide O'Brien says. "We view our pro- grams as sabbaticals where women can hone their skills. Then, they can return to the real world with a new voice, a new presence, a new confi- dence, and new skills." Simmons School of Manage- ment is a member of AACSB International. s z years ago, women were 5 percent of middle management. Now, it's 50 percent," said O'Brien. "Today, women hold only 5 percent of sen- ior management positions. Our goal now is to get that up to 50 per- cent." Still, some women who attend Simmons' business school wonder whether a women-only business program truly reflects real- world business. On that issue, O'Brien is perfectly clear: It doesn't. "This isn't the real world," also offers an entrepreneurship pro- gram that focuses on women, addressing the difficulties women still face in getting venture funding or selling their business plans to banks. Through such efforts, O'Brien hopes more women will be encouraged to pursue business careers—and that gender will be less of an issue in the workplace. "When we were founded 30 women and men with strong role models, says O'Brien. To that end, Simmons writes many of its own case studies on women leaders to supplement the existing, often sparse, supply of cases featuring women pro- tagonists. Simmons