BRIDGES 2009: The Personal and Professional Journey of Transformational Leadership

September 11–November 14, 2009

Application Deadline May 1, 2009

BRIDGES is an intensive professional development program for women in higher education who seek to gain or strengthen their academic leadership capabilities. It is designed to help women identify, understand, and move into leadership roles in the academy. Through the program, participants will

develop insights into leadership, with a particular focus on the special skills and attributes women bring to their leadership roles
acquire an understanding of the many facets of colleges and universities
refine and improve their cross-cultural communication skills
create a program of personal and professional development to benefit themselves and their institutions.

Who should participate? Women from four-year institutions of higher education, both public and private, who want to position themselves for advancement in the academy, including

faculty interested in developing their leadership skills
faculty looking to move into academic administration
administrators with managerial and supervisory responsibilities
administrators seeking a greater range of responsibilities.

“BRIDGES provided me with a time for reflection, self-assessment, and affirmation. I have gained greater insight regarding my role as a leader and my abilities. I am certain that this experience will have an impact on others. I will use the knowledge and experiences from BRIDGES to support, inspire, encourage, and empower women to make a difference in higher education and in their communities.”

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BRIDGES Theme: The Personal and Professional Journey of Transformational Leadership

The BRIDGES Advisory Board has selected “transformational leadership” as the theme for BRIDGES. Transformational leadership, sometimes called “visionary leadership,” is a concept with a rich literature of theory and implementation studies. Four specific concepts have been selected by the Board as most important for women developing their capacities as academic leaders today:

Transformational leadership theory affirms that leaders have values, not just titles. BRIDGES has not changed its commitment to preparing and encouraging women to seek the highest positions of leadership. However, regardless of our positions, we intend to be leaders in bringing equity and excellence to our campuses.
Transformational leadership assumes that leaders do not collect followers; they facilitate the development of leadership in those around them and rally community members to tackle difficult problems together.
Transformational leadership requires that leaders recognize that doing “more and better” is not always enough. Transformational leaders know when it is time to transform a situation and develop something new and different.
Transformational leaders must understand themselves well enough to stay firmly grounded in their values while being open to broad perspectives and even to conflicting views. They must be prepared to take action and precipitate change rather than give in to “easy answers.”

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Program Overview

In the four weekends of BRIDGES, you will look at what is necessary for your own development as a leader, what you need to do to create new relationships with colleagues and allies, and what actions you may want to undertake to create innovative changes at your institution. This year our program also emphasizes some new aspects of what we want to accomplish in helping North Carolina women in higher education claim, strengthen, and exercise their leadership capacities:

We will explore how exercising our leadership capacities to their fullest transforms the way we lead our lives and do our work.
We will encourage the use of women's leadership capacities to transform our institutions and fields of expertise.
We will reflect on how exercising our leadership as women —individually and collectively—can provide models for transforming how we understand leadership in higher education.

BRIDGES will give you a chance to learn key management skills from outstanding administrators and practitioners from a variety of fields. By interacting with academic leaders from public and private higher education, you will learn about financial and legal issues facing higher education today, as well as some of the special human resources and risk management challenges we face in academia. You will also hear perspectives on the crucial role fundraising plays on all of our campuses. You will hear personal stories from women academic leaders and have the opportunity to talk about your leadership challenges. You will evaluate your strengths and weaknesses as a leader, and chart a course for moving to where you want to be in your professional future.

“BRIDGES represents the best of insightful, problem-based, and experiential learning! The program offers women in academic leadership positions the opportunity to learn from one another, and the reassurance that the challenges across our campuses are more similar than different. A wonderful learning and networking opportunity!”

The BRIDGES Advisory Board, most of whom are BRIDGES alumnae, has chosen some of this year's faculty because of their special abilities to model the kind of transformational leadership that is important to the future of higher education in our state and in the nation. Other faculty are experts with skills necessary for addressing complex problems in today's academic context. All of the presenters and facilitators will be sharing information and insights that will strengthen your capacities to make a transformational difference on your campus and in your career.

During the course of the program, you will have opportunities to practice a number of skills necessary to implementing transformational change:

developing a transformational perspective
creating transformational relationships
using management skills to facilitate transformational solutions
connecting with other leaders who are transforming higher education in North Carolina and the nation.

You will also spend considerable time focusing on your own professional development. You will review your resume or curriculum vitae as a resource for evaluating your strengths and challenges; you will have assistance in understanding the feedback from a leadership skills assessment survey; and you will have an opportunity to think about your career path both in terms of your goals for advancement and your goals for contributing to your institution.

“I was glad to have the opportunity to meet so many interesting and powerful women.… No other program gives us the opportunity to see what our female colleagues across campus are accomplishing. That insight is, in itself, empowering…. Opportunities like this, rare as they are, make a real difference.”