Breaking through the glass ceiling

People wonder how on earth Pat Barker could have stayed in her job so long. She's been at DCU since the start - for more than 20 years. It hasn't been the one job, though. She's moved from being a lecturer and a senior lecturer in accounting to dean of the business school. Last April, she was appointed registrar - the first female in the history of DCU to get the job.

"There's always been growth, movement and development at DCU," she says. "The job hasn't been the same in any given year." Back in 1980, when she started working at what was then the NIHE, the college consisted of three temporary cabins and a portable loo - the old Albert College building had been gutted.

At that time, there were only three lecturers in the business school. "I was 30 and I was the oldest," Barker recalls. "It was hugely exciting. We were starting everything from scratch. We took in tiny numbers in that first year. We did everything on a shoestring. There were no rules, no precedents and no history to limit us. Any ideas we had, we could try. We had great freedom to get on with the job."

It was important to her that she was allowed great flexibility. "I often worked late into the night, but had to go home early to look after my children. As long as I produced the goods, I was trusted to do the job." Growing up in the Dublin suburb of Clontarf, Pat Barker never dreamed of becoming an academic. All she wanted to do was work as a sailing instructor. Her father, though, had other ideas. He thought she should train as an accountant. Working in an accountancy practice, she was bound to meet a more suitable type of young man, he reasoned.

Barker gave up her sailing career and started training with Stokes Brothers and Pym (now KPMG) in the late 1960s. "At that time all you had to do to get in was be Protestant and have a dad who was a client," she recalls. "There was no interview and when I started I was told that I wouldn't be able to qualify because "ladies don't do accounting"." But qualify, she did - the 20th women in the whole of Ireland to do so - and promptly took herself off to London. Here, she worked in the quaintly named "counting house" in Harrod's department store. She'd met her husband Robert on an accountancy cramming course in Wales. He was from Manchester. They set up home there in the mid-1970s. Barker established and ran her own accountancy practice and started lecturing in accountancy at the University of Manchester. Their return to Dublin in 1980 coincided with the establishment of the NIHE.

There are few women at the top in DCU. Barker's appointment to registrar has been seen as mould-breaking. None of the universities can boast a good record on equality. For many years, DCU could not point to a single female professor among its academic staff. Slowly, things are changing. The dean of the business school and the professor of nursing are both female. In a recent promotion round, half of the promotions to senior lectureship grades were women. "We are," says Barker, "beginning to create an environment where women feel they can apply for promotion." Sadly, though, the recent appointees to the academic council's standing committee, which conducts most of the university's business, are all male. The positions are elected. "With hindsight," comments Barker, "we realise that we should have had gender screening." However, getting men to take on board the equality issue can be problematic. "They blame the women. They say: Why don't women apply? It's difficult to get them to regard discrimination as a university issue, which should be tackled by affirmative action," she argues.

Traditionally, DCU's registrar chairs the standing committee. Hence, Barker finds herself the only woman on the committee. "A gender-balanced board is much less stressful and a more natural place for a women to be," she says. "The decision-making is much better. By taking in both male and female views you get a much more broad-based approach." Men, she says, are oriented to the decision and what action they will take. Women, on the other hand, take a more consultative approach. Their concern is the impact the decision will have on people. At meetings, "women are more supportive, less competitive and less likely to score points off each other. Men like to show how smart they are.

As the only woman on a committee you find yourself behaving like the men do." The university sector is no different to other areas - law, accounting and banking, for example. Women, Barker says, are going into these professions but are remaining at middle-management level. Research, she notes, shows that many are choosing to do so. "They look through the glass ceiling and see a world populated by men. Men define work in terms of career for which they are prepared to work ridiculous hours. Very often, they're supported at home by spouses. Women, on the other hand, want a balanced life."

The DCU registry has introduced flexible working hours, an arrangement which allows people to work flexi-hours, job share and work from home. "We want to accommodate people's changing lifestyles," Barker says. "It's working well, but it's being done by consultation. People work in teams in the registry. Within the teams, people agree who will be working at a particular time. It's done by agreement and gives people a sense of control over their lives. Organisations that succeed in keeping their best people are organisations that match job structures to people's lifestyles."

Last year, Barker was appointed chair of the Irish Blood Transfusion Service. A tough assignment certainly, but she sees a need for women to take on difficult and high profile tasks. "I feel very strongly about the need for a voluntary blood service in this country," she says. "Many people's lives have been saved by this service." The job, she says, is interesting, but bearing in mind the Lindsay tribunal, difficult. Barker, however, relishes the service's gender-balanced board. It makes for a far less stressful life, she says.