ORGL 600: Foundations of Leadership
As my first class after being away from the classroom for almost exactly 20 years, I began my coursework with a high level of fear and self-doubt. Would I be able to read, think, and discuss ideas and topics at the level expected? Would I be able to successfully balance my job, schoolwork, home-life, and role as caretaker for my aging mother without letting any balls drop? Would I find people with whom I could develop meaningful relationships with and start building a professional network of resources and support? Did I truly have anything to offer considering I had been away from the white-color professional world for nearly ten years?
Just thinking back now on what I learned from this class honestly makes me tear up. I’ve said in previous reflections that I felt like I was getting smaller and smaller during the years between walking away from the school my husband and I founded for at-risk students in order to take care of my parents, and my finding belonging in the ORGL program – this was the class that put a stop to my shrinking. The texts we interacted with from Freire, Palmer, and Adichie made such an impression on my heart that I have found myself referring back to them both throughout my program and in my “regular life.” I can draw a direct line from Adichie’s TED talk about the dangers of a single story, Palmer’s belief that humans are exceptional, and reality is a web of communal relationships, and Freire’s differentiation between banking and problem-posing education to the leadership philosophy that I have developed.
Our professor, Sam Armstrong, challenged me to work on focusing in on drilling down into the true core of my beliefs – and that is a tool I am absolutely carrying forward with me. In her comments on our final assignment, the Ignatian Journal, she said:
"I value your voice and the connections you made throughout - your thread of focus on vulnerability and connections with others - powerful stuff. How you connected to course materials in these reflections was solid. What struck me most is how you are focusing on challenging yourself. It is clear to me that you recognized that the heavy lifting of applying the material, reflecting, adapting is yours and you are pushing yourself to meet these challenges. There is theory and there is practice - you are working on the bridge between the two!"
Reading that, I felt like all of those questions I had entered the course with were answered. I belonged.
ORGL 605: Imagine, Create, Lead
This was the first class in my program with an immersion component, and I deliberately delayed taking it hoping for an in-person opportunity. Unfortunately, CoVID had other plans, and Gonzaga decided to do one more semester of virtual immersions. I was extremely doubtful that three days of Zoom meetings would provide the promised orientation to the Gonzaga experience, or truly allow us to meet the course objective of “engage[ment] with peers, staff, faculty advisors, and other resources to establish relationships that support their success throughout the program and beyond graduation.” Luckily, I was wrong. While the course may not have taught me my way around campus, it definitely encouraged us to co-create a space that facilitated true community building. Students I met during this class became my first Gonzaga friends - people I connected with outside of class. Because of our interactions in 605, one of them decided to enroll in 522 with me, which led to an even deeper and more meaningful experience for both of us.
When the time came to complete a final project, I struggled with how I was defining the act of creating, until I reread a note I had written during our first immersion session, “Place…is where identities are created, tested, and reshaped over time.” It was like a small lightning strike – and I realized that all of these things that I have created or wished I could create, in the end, what I am actually creating and recreating is my own identity, my story. Each immersion session asked us how what we learned affected us, and how we would incorporate it into our lives as humans and leaders. One thing that has become more and more clear as I travel through this program is that the heart of who I am, the heart of my leadership philosophy and style is storytelling. When I think back to each session, what I remember are the stories.
The stories that Randall and Peg told that gave insight into their relationship, Susan Cain’s summer camp story with her suitcase of books, the story of the blind monks and the elephant, the stories we shared with each other about our names as well as about the images and songs we chose to represent ourselves. Adaptive leadership starts with questions – what’s going on? Who are the involved factions? What values are in conflict? The first need is to hear and understand the story. Transformative leadership believes that all behavior is communication, and that conscious co-creation for mutual benefit is the goal – and co-creation requires trust and belonging, which involves the inclusive and acceptance of every participant’s story without othering. Julia Child said, “the more you know, the more you can create.” Each time we embrace and internalize new information and experiences we experience metanoia, we become anew. We incorporate our newness into our story, and we share that story with others hoping that they learn from us, and that we learn from them. In the end my final project is a sharing of my story – a sharing of some of the stories that made me who I was and who I am, as well as how I am incorporating the lessons I learned from all of you into the stories I will tell next. It represents me, my core leadership practice, and how it has been informed by this course, and hopefully it inspires you to incorporate this practice into your organizations.
ORGL 610: Communication & Leadership Ethics
I took an ethics course as an undergraduate, and again as a graduate student twenty years ago. I remember loving them both, as I take deep enjoyment in the analysis of myself and others. As Gonzaga has taken a leading role in the Countering Hate movement, I was especially excited to dive into Hoover’s text. During this course my husband Chris and I had a small vacation planned to celebrate my January birthday at one of our favorite places, the Outer Banks of North Carolina. I have an incredibly clear memory of sitting at the desk in our cottage, headphones on, cup of coffee in hand, watching the Go Back to Where you Came From videos and vacillating between horrified and furious.
This class led me to some definite self-reflection. If you’re familiar with the musical Avenue Q, you have heard the song, Everybody’s a Little Bit Racist. Within the lyrics, all of the characters come to the realization that they are all “a little bit racist,” and that their racism informs their decisions, their reactions to jokes, even how they picture Jesus in their heads. Wisconsin is not known for its diversity, and neither were the areas in New Hampshire and Massachusetts where I attended school and lived until I was in my early 30s. The high school I attended in Madison, WI was, of the four core high schools, the one with the lowest average family income and highest percentage of minority students. When I attended school, tracking was the norm, and I spent the majority of my time there in courses labeled “Academically Motivated” or “Talented and Gifted.” The students (and teachers) of color I interacted with were few and far between. Of course, as they hired a black, former NFL player as a principal, they were seen as being very progressive.
Until I was a teacher and school administrator in Colorado I truly did not understand the political land mine that is undocumented immigrants. There, working for the first time in a school in which I, as a white person, was the minority, I began to grasp the complexities and the insidiousness that is systemic racism because my students taught me. We fought to ensure our undocumented students would be able to take college courses through our dual enrollment program, knowing all the time that once they graduated from our high school, their college enrollment in this country would also come to an end.
This class, and the discussion board around the Go Back videos, was the first time in the program that I experienced true differences in opinion with members of a class – and it was an amazing experience. Because of the safe space created for and by us we were able to share our thoughts, disagree, discuss, and learn from one another. This concept of the importance of psychological safety was one I carried with me.
ORGL 610: Organizational Behavior & Theory
This is the class the ORGL students whisper about and fear. I had originally planned to take the course in the late Fall of 2022, but after a few students who were ahead of me in the program told me how much work it was and how much time it required I decided that taking it during the holiday season (which is my busiest time at work) was not the best plan. I adjusted my course map and enrolled during the summer instead. Looking back this may have been the smartest decision I made during my whole program.
Perhaps my education certification in biology and my time teaching seventh grade life science predisposed me to get the vast interconnection at the heart of systems thinking. The key concept that interventions and solutions so often fail because they are focused on only one issue rather than recognizing and taking into account all of the influences and related concerns just makes sense. From a social justice perspective, how can we solve homelessness without also addressing systemic racism, LGBTQIA+ and gender-related disparities, Veteran PTSD, the quality of education, and access to health care. We can’t.
People are put-off by the word “systemic.” In some cases that’s due to a lack of understanding of the terminology – systemic, institutionalized, interdependence, and causation, not to mention correlation, variables, and reinforcing and balancing feedback loops. It sounds like science and *gasp* math. To me there is a natural link between storytelling and systems thinking. When we, as leaders (or just as humans) can utilize systems thinking to better understand our world, that’s a great step, but when we can then use storytelling to make that knowledge accessible to a wider community, that’s when we increase the possibility of positive change.
I mentioned that taking this class when I did was a great move on my part – one reason was that Dr. Marquis taught it. His passion and depth of understanding for his subject matter as well as his high expectations and availability to his students encouraged all of us to push ourselves. The other reason was my Everest group – the women that made up my team brought vulnerability, intelligence, and dedication to everything they did. We texted, we emailed, we Zoomed…and we built a group that is still in touch today.