Reviewed by Rene Townsend,
Lecturer, California State University, San Marcos, Calif
Sacred Dreams: Women and the Superintendency contributes important knowledge about the superintendency, particularly since existing research is based primarily on men superintendents.
Cryss Brunner, an assistant professor of educational administration at University of Wisconsin-Madison, provides a rich portrait of the current status of women filling the superintendency. The backgrounds of the women and the descriptions of their paths to the top and their professional lives as superintendents are as fascinating as they are instructive.
Brunner first establishes the need for taking a new look at the people, particularly the underrepresented, who hold the critical position of superintendent. She and her colleagues describe the process of how women begin to think about becoming a superintendent to pursuing and finally experiencing the position. The final chapter attempts to link research with practice. It is easy to read the chapters in any order.
The 10 points, "If Only We Had Known …," contained in the chapter on "The First Year," should be required reading for anyone, male or female, who aspires to the superintendency.
Through statistics, research and stories, authors address several assumptions and hypotheses. For example, they found it is true that mentoring and networking are extremely valuable to gaining and succeeding in the position and that white males have been very influential mentors for women. While there are instances of limitations, it is not true generally that access to the superintendency is denied by women board members or hampered by search consultants.
In addition, men and women define power differently and, as a result, lead differently. This point is significant because women’s ways of leading are becoming increasingly valued. That is, collaboration, involvement, and working with and through people is proving to be more powerful than asserting one’s will over them.
(Sacred Dreams: Women and the Superintendency, edited by C. Cryss Brunner, State University of New York Press, Albany, N.Y., 1999, 231 pp. with index, softcover.)