Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, April 25, 1993                   TAG: 9304230028
SECTION: BUSINESS                    PAGE: D-1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: JOHN LEVIN
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

FOR SUCCESS IN A CHALLENGING CAREER, BEGIN AT AGE 9

What's actually become a weeklong event of flowers, candy, greeting cards and expensive lunches was never meant to be quite so commercial. Nor was it really intended as a statement about the role of women in the workplace.

Professional Secretaries International, a Kansas City, Mo., trade group, started the observance in 1952 to raise career aspirations of office clerks; 40 years later it's raised questions about political correctness.

Especially this year, when Secretaries Week will be followed so soon by Take Our Daughters to Work day. Wednesday, the New York-based Ms. Foundation for Women is encouraging men and women to take girls - relatives, friends, neighbors - to the nation's offices, factories and other job sites. The idea is to build self-esteem and career goals among girls.

Though perhaps simply a coincidence, juxtaposition of the two events is too pointed to ignore.

Women still account for about 95 percent of the nation's 3.8 million secretaries, said Linda Gauldin, spokeswoman for Professional Secretaries International.

"While males increasingly are doing similar work, their job titles often reflect knowledge and skill with computers and other technology that's now common in offices."

Because of downsizing in many organizations, the lines between secretary and manager are blurring.

"It's no longer `make my coffee,' it's `make a decision on this important issue,' " said Angela Carr, president of PSI's New River Valley chapter and secretary in the office that operates Virginia Tech's dormitories. "We're considered part of the management team."

For Carr, Professional Secretaries Day was less an affront than an opportunity to reflect on changes in her role and a chance to note that "the average manager is just beginning to understand the secretary's potential."

"This is my chosen career," Carr said. "It's not just because I'm a woman that I'm doing it. It has a lot to do with the support I receive, personal satisfaction and having a wider view of the organization."

For the record, PSI says 93 percent of secretaries today use personal computers, meaning they are often the most knowledgeable about software. Also, 49 percent are responsible for training other workers and 33 percent are supervisors. Average salary last year was $27,147, and raises have averaged 3.2 percent a year over the past decade.

For Evelyn Bradshaw, the issue is more a matter of conflict with traditionally women's jobs than of women who allow themselves to be limited by their jobs.

Bradshaw is director of the Career Resource Center at Hollins College, where 9- to 15-year-old girls will spend Wednesday observing and asking questions of the faculty and staff.

Take Our Daughters to Work day is based on the premise that boys and girls are similar in levels of confidence and self-esteem until age 9. After that, research argues, girls begin to lower their career horizons, have diminished interest in math and science, and and experience a rising incidence of eating disorders and suicide.

"Many end up in careers that don't match their full potential," Bradshaw said.

"What we're trying to do is to encourage them to value their own identities and ideas, to empower girls to become women who can live confidently, who can work in an exciting environment that supports women to be anything they want to be."

At First Union [Dominion] Mortgage Corp.'s mortgage servicing operations in Roanoke, where 90 percent of the employees are working mothers, an elaborate daylong program has been put together, said Assistant Director Maggie Norris.

Girls, from babies to high school seniors, will spend portions of Wednesday at the Valley Court offices. Teen-agers, asked to dress appropriately for a business office, will be given real work and then asked for their reactions.

"It's intended to give them a glimpse of what's out there," she said, "of why math and English are not just subjects on a school curriculum but applicable in the workplace . . . of what it takes in the business world to be successful."

John Levin is business editor of the Roanoke Times & World-News.