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University Daily Kansan, January 20, 1982
Networks help women get positions in business
By SUSAN MARUSCO Staff Reporter
Dressed in a mauve-colored tweed suit, Laura, an administrator at the University of Kansas, went to visit the university's museum her of a job opening in San Francisco.
After hearing the job description, Sally decided she wasn't interested. So the two friends began talking. During the conversation Sally remembered an old friend who would be perfect for the job. Reaching for the phone, she called her friend, who applied for the job, got it, and is now living in San Francisco.
The names in the scenario are pseudonymys. But this informal exchange of information is part of a network between from one country to become a strategy for women to help each other succeed in their careers.
Offer referred to as the "new-girl network"," this process of doing favors for friends isn't new. But in the past it has been dominated by men-at least in the business and academic worlds—because men have been privy to information about career opportunities, potential clients and business contacts.
But now that women compose 42 percent of the job force, they need career information men have possessed for years. A faculty of the book "Networking" says, "Women need networks because they are still not getting a fair share of the employment pie: 80 percent of all women are still concentrated in low-paying, low-status jobs in service industries, clerical fields and retail sales."
Lawrence doesn't seem to lack women in responsible positions. For example, consider Marci Francisce, mayor, Bonnie Wells, vice president at the University of Lawrence and Jane Eldridge, a local attorney and state representative.
But women in Lawrence are not as
equally distributed in the professional job market as men are. Flip through the local phone book and compare the number of women lawyers, doctors and architects to the number of men in those same professions.
In response to disparities in the job market, many women in Lawrence are networking to secure vocational power.
Barbara Ballard, director of the Emily Taylor Women's Resource Center, said, "Networking is women learning how to help each other in their respective careers and be already there, such as friendships. Networking is not using each other in the sense of exploiting, it's a reciprocal process."
Favors such as introducing a friend or business associate to someone in their profession or answering a letter from a former colleague about career opportunities in your geographical area are all part of networking.
Ballard said that as people move up the executive ladder, candidates don't get hired by answering classified ads or on the basis of resumes. Instead, it's nominations, recommendations and word-of-mouth that gets you hired.
"So it's vital to have professional contacts," Ballard said. "Networking needs exposure. You have to sell yourself to people."
Ballard had her exposure to business contacts by attending job-related conferences. She recently went to one in Miami, Ms. Miriam (age 10) 11 women from an eight-state region.
"I could probably write these women and get information, and if any of them were thinking of moving to Kansas, I could provide information about housing and jobs for them," Ballard said.
Consequently, "I have a friend who ..." becomes a ringing phrase in the machinery of networking. Knowing friends and business contacts makes moving to a new place and moving up the corporate ladder easier.
Women's Studies at KU, said the old boy network helped her get her job at KU.
"Someone knew someone and he recommended me," McDermott said. "But this kind of hiring has been curtailed by affirmative action."
And McDermott is quick to say that networking gives information about clients. And networking helps make clients feel more
In Kansas City, Mo., a women's group has formed for the purpose of both formal and informal networking. The Central Exchange, on the first floor of the Crown Center, 2400 Grand Ave., contains a restaurant, bar and library.
Toni Watson, director of the Exchange, said that what made this network unique and formal was that it had a building in which to make business deals. She said it was a place where women could find moral support from like-minded professionals who were minorities in the business world.
Diane McDermott, director of
A women's resource library at the
'Networking is developing contacts with people who can help you professionally.'
Caryl Smith, dean of student life
Exchange contains literature for developmental and recreational reading. The Central Exchange also exchanges student programs with schools on time and conflict management.
Although no Lawrence women belong to Central Europe, a non-resident woman is also permitted.
Beyond the local level, Kansas has a branch of a formal networking organization based in Washington, D.C. Project Identification, started by the Office of Women in Higher Education of the American Council on Education, helps promote women to administrative positions in higher
education: vice presidents and president of universities. This centralized body provides business confidential information to qualified women.
Caryl Smith, KU dean of student life, is coordinator of Project Identification in Kansas. She got involved with this seven-year-old "ultimate" network through Emily Taylor, who runs Project Identification in Washington.
Taylor, dean of women at KU from 1966 to 1974, organized the first University Commission on the Status of Women.
On a state level, Smith arranges workshops to train women who wish to move into the executive structure or who are in entry-level administrative roles.
On the state level, Project Identification supports itself. Participants pay for workshop materials, and volunteers are recruited to teach classes. On the national level, the 1,650 academic institutions that fund the Council on Education provide revenue for Project Identification.
"Networking is developing contacts with people who can help you professionally," Smith said. "You don't have to like them. Often you do become friends, but that isn't the primary purpose of networking.
"The idea of making contacts should be always in the back of one's mind while attending social functions. The best way to build love and it is often a conscious network."
Smith said she met most of her business contacts through professional networks.
"Knowing Dawber Amiel for 20 years helped me get my job, he said. I didn't know what to do, but part of my career, he's been a mentor." David Amiel is vice chancellor for
Bonnie Wells, one of five vice presidents at First National Bank of Lawrence, also takes stock in the power
of belonging to trade and professional organizations.
"I've made contacts in banking all over the country," Wells said. "This bank belongs to the American Banking Association and I volunteer to go (to conferences). I recommend women who want to get ahead in their careers to keep busy with volunteer work, volunteered at night in Junior Achievement, Lawrence Arts Council or the Lawrence Chamber of Commerce."
But Wells doesn't belong to networks that are limited up for the sake of security, but job content
"Women who do join these organizations cut themselves off from important business contacts because they live life that man have power." Wells said.
Like Caryl Smith, Wells believes a mentor can be an alternative to networking. He or she can help you succeed by teaching valuable skills and by helping you establish communication with other professionals, Wells said.
Perhaps Wells' success as vice president has convinced her she doesn't need to band with women to move up the career ladder. Having graduated from KU with a degree in elementary education in 1971 and now working on her masters in business administration at KU, Wells said that she would benefit business fields because it was easier for women to get promoted.
Although Wells conceded that a lot of business decisions were made on the golf course, informally and without women, she said, "I don't think there's anything I know. I don't feel excluded from where decisions are made, especially in banking."
But Jane Eldredge, a 37-year-old local attorney and a state representative, said women of all ages needed networks.
"I don't think affirmative action is effective," Eldredge said. "Drawing from my own experience, I've seen employers make sure they interview the right number of women, but when they are serious about interviews, they tend to make a big mistake. Call old graduate school buddies and members of their professional associations and say can you recommend some for his job?"
In the '80s, Eldridge said, she thought less emphasis would be placed on women's and men's differences. She believed that girls would compete competence in both men and women.
Lynn Ossen, a 21-year-old student sales assistant at IBM, 2363 Ridge Court, said the women she saw at work carried as much responsibility as men.
And in the traditionally male-dominated jobs, where 10-hour days and mandatory sales quotas create a lot of pressure, Osmess sees women blending in well with men. And many of them are skilled at using their differences advantageously.
She said that this helped get them into offices to sell, where men were often shrugged off as pushy salesmen.
"And I don't see IBM excluding women," she said. "Women are always asked to go to business lunches or meetings, and men to sell as much as men in my office."
So, whether a woman joins trade groups or a women's network to establish business contacts, the end result is often a lack of women work together, Osness said.
Making an analogy to John Anderson's unsuccessful bid for president in 1890, Eldridge said that like Anderson, who broke away from his party, if women break away from the male-dominated power base, they won't make it in society, no matter how good they are.
Director defends prison plan
The special joint committee on prison construction began its second day of two weeks of hearings with testimony from Corrections Secretary Patrick McManus and intense questioning on the first day that added a new medium-security facility.
By United Press International
TOPEKA-The director of the state's prison system yesterday defended his plan for a new medium-security prison against what many lawmakers accused as politically motivated situations during a tense three-hour hearing.
WHITAKER SAID the subpoena would give him and State Sen. Edward Reilly Jr. of Leavenworth the authority to conduct a study of the study with their committee members.
In other prison-related developments, two Republican lawmakers announced they would subpoena a confidential report on the trouble-ridden Kansas State Pentagon from the Justice Department. Rep. Neal Whitaker of Wichita.
And Rep. Joseph Hoagland, R-Overland Park, said during the day's
hearings that McManus was wrong for not advising legislators of a federal court lawsuit by a handful of KSP inmates in the 1970s alleging gross wrongdoing. But he out of court, with the state agreeing to make several major renovations.
MeMansu told members of the special prison committee that the state's prison population had increased by 500 inmates in the past 18 months, which Hoagland asked the prison to document with written statistics.
Haagland also asked McManus for documentation on numerous aspects of prison demographics in the state, prompting McManus at one point to question the need for the mountains of information.
"THEY HAVEN'T got time for this laxity. Manus said at the close of the session."
The prison plan currently touted by Democratic Gov. John Carlin's administration would attach a $25 million medium-security facility onto KSP, with space for up to 500 new beds, McManus said.
Lawmakers on the special committee offered alternatives to that plan, in-
cuasing a proposal to build a handful of inexpensive minimum-security facilities around the state. That, said State Rep. William Dunten, R-Topeka, would allow the state to move more than 200 minimum-security inmates from KSP, thus alleviating part of the overcrowding.
State Sen. Paul Feliciano, D-Wichita, demanded to know why the committee was continuing its work to study current construction plans despite Senate President Ross Doyne's move Monday to override those plans.
On Monday, Doyen introduced a measure that would quash construction plans that have been in the works since November, when the state finance council approved money for the planning process she shuffled back to the two houses, but if it is successful, Carlin undoubtedly will use it, a spokesman for his office said.
Bumpy roads pave way to gas savings
TONIGHT IS PITCHER NIGHT at THE HAWK
By COLEEN CAUx Staff Reporter
Energy conscious drivers trying to cut back on gasoline may find that their efforts to conserve sight in less money are hurting businesses and bumper roads in Lawrence.
the Kansas Senate Ways and Means Committee issued a study yesterday predicting that because of the drop in gasoline and diesel fuel consumption, from fuel taxes would drop by $7,100,000 in fiscal 1984, or about 7 percent.
According to Joan Finney, state treasurer, 30 percent of the gasoline tax revenues and 27.5 percent of the diesel tax revenues are used for highway improvements. She said that when the revenue decreased, the amount each county received dropped proportionately.
Mike Wilden, assistant city manager, said the motor fuel tax money Lawrence received was used for maintenance and upgrading of roads.
"It's been decreasing for the past few years," Wildgen said. "We're having as much more difficult time."
He said the city had to cut back on the purchase of materials such as asphalt and road oil used to maintain highways.
"The gas tax is a pergallon tax instead of a sales tax," he said. "Even though the price of gas goes up, the amount of the tax stays the same."
He said fuel consumption was decreasing because people were buying more fuel-efficient cars and driving less.
"If they can get the same mileage for less gas, they'll do it," he said.
In past years the city has received "pothole money" from the Kansas
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Wildgerd said inflation of the prices of materials needed to maintain roads had also contributed to the city's financial difficulties. In the past, he said, they were partly due to the finance road improvements, but there were no immediate plans for bonding.
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