Scholar Leaders’ Commitment to Women
Our Standard
Scholar Leaders is committed to advancing women in theological education and leadership, and we express this commitment across our organization. We celebrate that women are increasingly present in all areas of theology. As a ministry without denominational affiliation, we respect that it is the prerogative of denominations to discern how women exercise leadership in their communities. At the same time, Scholar Leaders seeks to foster women’s participation within the entire body of Christ, particularly in institutions of theological education. To this end, we invest in supporting the teaching, leadership, and prophetic voices of the women in our fellowship, so that these spiritual descendants of Priscilla, Deborah, and Huldah can bless all members of the Church and strengthen its witness in the world.
Why a Standard?
We seek to uplift women in every aspect of our ministry and to ensure that they have places at every table we convene. Thus, this commitment serves as a standard against which we measure our programs and priorities.
Our approach to designing inclusive programs relies on the following:
- We recognize that women are the foundation of churches in the Majority World, but they are not equally represented in leadership, and they face disproportionate barriers to education. Therefore, we prioritize qualified women’s applications for staff positions and within our Leader Studies program in order to hire or scholarship women. Thanks to this effort, over 30% of Leader Studies scholarship recipients are women.
- We recognize that women’s careers in the Majority World are often delayed by family responsibilities. So rather than capping the age for our Leader Studies program at 40 years (as other organizations do), we have no age limit for women.
- We recognize that theological institutions have often brushed gender parity aside as an inconvenience. Therefore, our Vital Sustainability Initiative makes inclusion of women a separate category of evaluation so that male executives cannot ignore it.
- We recognize that women executives and faculty at seminaries are often expected to behave with a nurturing leadership style. So our Women’s Peer Leader Forum convenes 8-12 top women leaders to explore their unique visions and theological gifts. These women hold PhDs and executive positions in their organizations, whether as Presidents, Provosts, Deans, or regional accreditors. We seek to help strengthen these women as leaders, as well as giving them opportunities to gather for peer counseling and to strategize about confronting ongoing challenges.
- Overall, we avoid a one-size-fits-all approach. Instead, we begin from the recognition that each woman leader’s situation is unique, and we seek to serve her in her own context. Moreover, we seek to keep clear of any token representation or objectification. For example, within our No More project, we required that 66% of the participants be women; however, within the Network of Centers for Christian-Muslim Relations, we respected the request of women members that the steering committee not include a minimum proportion of women, as the desire for gender representation often overburdens the few women in our space with disproportionate administrative responsibilities.
What does this standard look like in practice?
- Although we acknowledge the disparities between the proportions of women and men active in global theology, we aspire to equalize this ratio within Scholar Leaders as we continue to hire new staff and to invite new individuals to our board.
- Staff and Board: Seven of our 19 staff members, including one of our four executives, and seven of our 35 board members are women.
- As we pursue this aspiration, we plan to charge the Nominating Committee of our board to seek gender parity on the board over the next five years.