First Posted: 2/10/2015
ADA — Pregnant with her first child, Charlene Gilbert was simultaneously teaching and working for tenure.
“I just don’t know how you’re going to get tenure now,” an older, male senior faculty member told her.
She was horrified. Having a family is a sign of strength, not weakness.
Needless to say, she was awarded tenure early.
“I think more and more women have moved into the leadership post in the last few decades,” Gilbert said. “Women have made progress in the workplace and in education and have continued to advance through the ranks.”
Today, Gilbert is an academic leader after accepting the role as dean and director at The Ohio State University-Lima in August. She’s the second woman and first African-American woman to take the post.
Previously, she was a professor and chair of the Department of Women’s and Gender Studies at the University of Toledo, where she was founder and director of Interdisciplinary Studies, College of Languages, Literature and Social Sciences. She was also the director of the Catharine S. Eberly Center for Women after teaching at the School of Communication at American University.
Gilbert has also produced multiple documentaries, two of which aired on PBS. She participated in Harvard’s Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study Fellowship and has earned a bachelor’s degree in economics and political science from Yale University and a master’s in fine arts in film and media arts from Temple University.
“At the end of the day it’s really about challenges,” Gilbert said. “It’s about how you can excel in the job you’ve been hired to do.”
Gilbert, for example, has remained focused on students and offering a high quality education that includes travel, professional experience and classroom work. Her efforts include the extension of Lima’s engineering program and outreach for women interested in STEM degrees.
It’s about opening doors, she said.
“It’s much more competitive for women and men because now people get to compete for the same jobs and opportunities,” she said. “It’s an open playing field.”
At such an exciting time for education and the workforce, there’s nowhere else Gilbert would rather be.
“I always tell people that even though we have lots of challenges, there is no other time in history that I would want to be alive,” she said. “Right now, we have a long ways to go but we have come a long way and I’m so excited about the possibilities for the future.”
