“I was born and raised in Madison, Wisconsin, where native Madisonians loves the Badgers almost as much as Columbians love the Tigers.   I have been a journalist and an academic most of my adult life because both professions require you to learn something new every day.   I am the proud mom of four children — Drew, Amelia, Nick and Annie — and the happy owner of two cats and three dogs (including Murphy, our new Irish Wolfhound puppy).”

What do you think are the biggest challenges for professional women today? The most pressing and pervasive challenge I see among my friends and colleagues is the struggle to achieve work-life balance.

Women have finally reached the point of equal opportunity in most professions (though not yet salary parity: women in 2010 still make 77 cents for every dollar a man makes), but research shows that we remain in most cases the primary caregiver to our children (and elderly parents) and the primary homemaker in our households.    Despite the fact that women are either breadwinners or co-breadwinners in 63 percent of American families, we haven’t yet figured out how to shift our gender assumptions, and to provide the support, the services and the cultural understanding that would allow women to balance their responsibilities in the workplace and the home.

In other words, the key question for professional women today is about having it all:   Can we be both powerhouse professionals and engaged, attentive parents and partners? And the answer is no, we cannot have it all, at least not all at the same time.  There aren’t enough hours in the day, and we can’t be in two (or three or six) places at once.

In many households — like mine — couples have swapped or share responsibilities.  My husband is a writer and he works at home; he is our primary caregiver and homemaker.  But when we were both working outside the house, and one of the kids got sick at school, the school always called me first.  Why?  I once asked the school nurse whether she had called my husband before calling me, and she said no, of course not: kids want to be with their mommies when they are sick.   It was one of those moments when I felt like I wasn’t doing anything well — and it made me feel both guilty and angry.  Every working mother I know has had a similar moment — in fact, lots of them.

I used to have a bumper sticker in my office that said that Ginger Rogers did everything Fred Astaire did — but backwards, and in high heels.   Even in 2010, there’s something about that idea that still rings true.  Women are super, but they’re not superwomen.  It’s taking us some time to figure that one out.

What is something you wish you could change about your self?  I wish I could accomplish more in less time.

Name one thing not many people know about you. I’m a twin.

What is the best business advice you’ve ever received? Good enough is never good enough.

How would you describe your leadership style? Collaborative, collegial and informal.  But  people who know me well understand that there’s a “method to my madness,” that there is always a reason for what I say and do.

Has your career path held surprises along the way? I intentionally take chances, follow opportunities and keep my options open — so yes, my career path has been full of surprises.  Lovely and exciting and challenging surprises.

What do you do to relax? I spend time with my family.

What is one personal goal you haven’t yet achieved? I would like to live in New Zealand.

What is your workplace pet peeve? People who settle for ‘good enough.’

Who do you consider a career mentor and why? I have several mentors, most of them amazing women who have accomplished great work and who understand the challenges of leading a small college.   I recently asked Charles McClain, longtime president of Truman State, to be one of my professional mentors; he is such a thoughtful, brilliant and insightful person, and I have so much to learn from him.

What is your dream job? This may sound trite, but it’s the absolute truth: Being the president of Stephens College is my dream job.  And unlike most dreams that come true, this one is turning out to be even more fun than I could have imagined it would be.

What do you hope to be doing in 10 years – personally and professionally? I hope to be retiring as the president of a vibrant and successful women’s college.

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