KU, United WE partnership to release gender parity data for Kansas municipal boards and commissions

LAWRENCE — Researchers Mary Banwart and Emily Vietti from the University of Kansas Institute for Leadership Studies will release a white paper this week outlining the gender makeup of municipal boards and commissions across the state of Kansas. The report was commissioned by United WE through the Appointments Project and Ready to Run Kansas Women’s Leadership Series partnership.  

The report shows that Kansas women are underrepresented on civic boards and commissions, especially on “power boards” that have direct influence on policymaking and financial resource allocation such as planning and zoning boards. Of the six most common civic boards and commissions, Kansas women have achieved gender parity on only two: library boards and housing boards, regardless of community size. While women hold more than two-thirds of the seats on library boards across Kansas, they hold only about one-quarter of the seats on planning and zoning boards.

“This report is a first look at representation on Kansas municipal boards and commissions,” said Emily Vietti, co-author and partnership director for the Appointments Project and Ready to Run Kansas Women’s Leadership Series. “While Kansas women are well represented in some instances, we see that Kansas communities have some work to do. Increased transparency and accessibility of information about the appointments process will be necessary to move our state toward gender parity on municipal boards and commissions.”

The findings of the report, which will be available March 23 at Women Lead, will be discussed during the Research and Representation program at noon March 23. The program will include a research presentation and a follow-up panel discussion about municipal board/commission appointments with Jade Piros de Carvalho, mayor of Hutchinson, and Erik Sartorius, executive director at the Kansas League of Municipalities. The program will be on Zoom, and anyone can register to attend.  

“To achieve gender parity on boards and commissions, women need access to information about how to be appointed to these positions,” said Banwart, director of the Institute for Leadership Studies at KU. “Too often we found unnecessary barriers such as incomplete or hard-to-find information on websites or opaque appointment processes. If we hope to kick open these glass doors and then hold them open for other women to come through, civic leaders need to understand the ways in which they can make their boards and commissions more accessible. Gathering and sharing this data opens that conversation and provides an opportunity for Kansas municipalities to examine how their appointments processes could get more equitable.”