Small group discussion at a recent Women in Leadership Crucial Conversations session
March 8 marks International Women’s Day, a global day of celebrating the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women. Here on campus, the Women in Leadership (WiL) Initiative is fulfilling its mission to be a catalyst for the individual and collective advancement of women on campus since its founding in 2018. All community members are invited to participate in WiL programming.
Each spring and fall semester, the initiative offers unique experiences that help build strong leaders at all levels and in all areas of the University. Past programming has included panel discussions, workshops, peer mentoring, design thinking sessions, clinics on promotion and tenure, a shared reading experience, and virtual and in-person networking opportunities.
Recently, the initiative hosted A Conversation With Provost Ritter, an engaging and interactive discussion on leadership, resiliency and change between Provost and Chief Academic Officer Gretchen Ritter and Chief Marketing Officer Dara Royer. Later this month multiple cohorts will begin the Resilient Leadership and Change program, with sessions on Cultivating Positive Mindset Practices; Strengthening Emotional Intelligence and Resiliency; Communicating With Agility; and Creating Your Change Journey.
“At the core of our mission, we seek to inspire, uplift and amplify the experiences of women on our campus, and come together in an authentic way to discuss opportunities and challenges they face, collectively and individually,” says Senior Vice President and Chief of Staff to the Chancellor Candace Campbell Jackson, founder and chair of the initiative. “Our programs range from hosting empowering speakers from across academia to workshops that help build skills related to having difficult conversations and managing conflict. It is the hope of our Steering Committee that everyone can benefit from these offerings.”
Last year, WiL underwent a strategic planning process to refine its vision and mission and ensure its work continues to align with the hopes and expectations of women on campus. While programming is centered on topics and issues that primarily impact women, faculty, staff and graduate students of any gender identity are welcome.
Associate Provost for Faculty Affairs Jamie Winders, a member of the WiL Steering Committee, says she was eager to get involved with the initiative because she has benefited immensely from peer mentoring groups during her academic career.
“I’ve seen the power of bringing people together from different parts of campus, from different schools and colleges and in different kinds of roles,” she says. “That kind of mix can be difficult to replicate in our everyday lives, where we tend to work within our departments, school or college. Finding ways to facilitate the creation of and support those networks is really important.”
As part of their strategic planning process, WiL adopted three core strategies: to increase awareness of personalized professional development opportunities, to inspire and better prepare women for their “next,” and capture and amplify the voices and experiences of women on campus. Their work is as much about inspiring and empowering the next generation of women as it is advancing women already in leadership positions.
“The aspiration of WiL is to really put forth on a collective scale a different model of leadership—one that is collaborative and less hierarchal,” says Winders. “We’re finding ways to communicate and work across the divides, with the hope that it produces a new way of thinking about leadership, collaboration and how all the different parts contribute to the University’s overall mission of centering academic excellence and making SU a place where everybody belongs.”
WiL programs help provide a bridge between various populations on campus and promote the sharing of ideas and experiences that are unique to—or perhaps common among—individuals from all backgrounds. They use a multi-track model to target programs for both academic and administrative professionals, while also providing more general programs that inspire and provoke dialogue across a broad range of constituents.
The initiative also welcomes conversations about the overarching and day-to-day issues that can impact women and their colleagues in both higher education and the more broadly defined workplace.
Steering Committee member Elisa Dekaney, associate dean of research, graduate studies and internationalization in the College of Visual and Performing Arts and professor of music education, points out that statistics on gender and faculty in higher education demonstrate that with each level of professorship, from assistant professor to associate professor to full professor, women comprise smaller and smaller numbers. This is certainly not a trend exclusive to academia—there are many professions where the closer you get to the top of an organization, the scarcer women leaders are.
Last semester, Dekaney helped bring this conversation to the larger campus audience. To cap off a WiL shared reading experience, Dekaney co-facilitated a discussion of the book “Women Leading Change in Academia: Breaking the Glass Ceiling, Cliff, and Slipper” with one of the book’s co-editors, Amy Bonomi, chair and professor of human development and family studies at Michigan State University. The book shares the perspectives of diverse women academic leaders who discuss their rise to key leadership positions.
“It’s crucial for us to come together and figure out ways to support each other, whether that is with a fun event that is emotionally uplifting or with a conversation that is quite challenging or serves to educate,” Dekaney says. “We are then able to leverage our knowledge of each other’s journeys to the betterment of who we are as individuals and as a community.”
Balance is another recurring theme—not only how to balance career progression with home and family commitments, but how to balance the “masculine” and “feminine” qualities women bring to leadership roles. The concept of the “double bind” in feminist theory refers to how expectations and stereotypes about the characteristics of a leader can conflict with other identities, including as a woman or as a mother.
“If you have the characteristics of a good leader, those are traditionally masculine characteristics,” Dekaney says. “You’re demanding, you’re commanding. But sometimes when women exhibit those characteristics, they are seen as being abrasive or ‘too much.’”
Building community among participants is another priority for WiL. Meghan Florkowski says that joining the WiL steering committee has brought her closer to various women-focused initiatives across campus and helped her build stronger relationships with other women leaders.
Florkowski is the director of the WISE (Women Igniting the Spirit of Entrepreneurship) Women’s Business Center in the Martin J. Whitman School of Management, which empowers women entrepreneurs in all stages of their business across a seven-county service area in Central New York. She draws energy and inspiration for her work from WiL’s formal offerings as well as informal conversations she has with fellow steering committee members.
“There’s something powerful that happens when we bring women together to engage in a trusted space and layer that with great programming,” she says. “We have so many different voices at the table, which leads to meaningful discussions about the many ways in which women lead—whether that’s in business, the workplace, their communities or in other avenues.”
To learn more about Women in Leadership or get involved in upcoming programs, visit the initiative’s website.
