Leadership Development Program to Expand at UA

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. – A national fellowship awarded to the dean of The University of Alabama Capstone College of Nursing to implement a leadership development program for women across the UA campus will soon expand to include campus faculty and professional staff of both genders.

Nine female faculty and professional staff members will graduate Friday from the two-year leadership program, made possible by a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Executive Nurse Fellowship awarded to Dr. Sara Barger, dean of the UA Capstone College of Nursing. The quality of the training, positive feedback from the participants and an interest in expanding the leadership development to others led UA President Robert E. Witt to extend the program.

“With the exceptional implementation of the Women’s Leadership Institute training by Dean Barger and her core-resource team, combined with the high-level of interest among faculty and professional staff, it was evident that continuing to develop our campus leadership through this program would be a plus for the University,” said Witt. “I’m pleased John Dew, director of our Office of Continuous Quality Improvement, has agreed to lead this expanded effort.”

More details on the expanded leadership development opportunities will soon be shared with those on campus. Barger said the ripple effect from the initial grant is gratifying.

“The Foundation wants to see that the seeds they have sown have flourished and will continue in some form after this initial training ends,” she said. Barger expressed appreciation to Steve Miller, former faculty senate president, for his interest and support of the program’s expansion and for Dew’s talents in extending the program. “Obviously, there is a relationship between improving the quality of your institution and improving the quality of the leadership that you have,” she said.

Men and women often bring different strengths to a leadership role, Barger said. “One of the positive things that will come out of doing leadership training with both genders is that we will learn one from another,” she said.

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation initially awarded Barger $45,000, some $30,000 of which was used to fund the Women’s Leadership Institute, along with matching funds from UA. While the fellowship was originally designed as a leadership development program for nurses, Barger won approval to expand outside of nursing.

“One of the problems with the nursing profession is that we tend to stay in our own little box,” Barger said at the time the grant was first announced. “I felt that we would be much better off doing the program with exposure to a broader group of women.”

The Women’s Leadership Institute involved 10 seminars and workshops over two years. In addition, participants mentored 11 female students during the second year. All UA tenured faculty and professional staff women with at least seven years’ professional experience were eligible to apply for the program.

The nine women who will graduate Friday from the training are: Dr. Marsha Adams, associate professor of nursing; Catherine Andreen, director of media relations; Dr. Nancy Campbell, clinical director, Brewer-Porch Children’s Center; Margaret Garner, assistant professor and director of nutrition education and services, family medicine; Dr. Ida Johnson, professor of criminal justice; Dr. Jacqueline Morgan, manager of the McNair Scholars Program; Lisa Rhiney, director of financial affairs, College of Engineering; Dr. Joyce Stallworth, associate professor and chair of the secondary curriculum, teaching and learning department; and Dr. Carmen Taylor, associate dean, College of Arts and Sciences.
Taylor, who moved from a faculty position to her role as an associate dean in January 2001, said an opportunity to hone her leadership skills was welcomed, particularly as she was relatively new in her position.

“The Women’s Leadership Institute, in my mind, was not about providing me with something that I lacked because I was a female or providing me with a support system because I didn’t have one – I did – I think its purpose was to teach me, in a very non-threatening environment, how to be a better leader.”

Working in the historically male-dominated field of engineering, Lisa Rhiney said the program broadened her perspective of campus leaders and enabled her, through the mentoring program, to spend more time with students than her duties as a financial officer allow.

“I rarely get the opportunity to interact with women who are at similar places in their careers,” Rhiney said. “I think a lot of people would benefit from it.”

Adams said her career goal was to become a dean of nursing and the training gave her a broad look at everything from fundraising to networking to budgeting. “It also provided me with a mechanism of examining my own leadership and management approaches and helped me to recognize areas that I needed to improve or expand.”

The institute utilized the expertise of a resource team of key women leaders at UA. In addition to Barger, the team included Elva Bradley, director of the Center for Teaching and Learning; Dr. Cheree Causey, assistant dean of students; Dr. Priscilla Hancock, associate vice president for information services; Charlotte Harris, associate vice president for human resources; Dr. Diane Johnson, assistant professor of management; Pam Parsons, assistant vice president for development; Dr. Cathy Randall, director of the Computer-Based Honors Program, and Dr. Jane Stanfield, executive director of the Capstone International Center.

Barger was one of 15 nursing administrators and executives nationwide named as RWJ Executive Nurse Fellows for 2000. The Fellows program provides three-year fellowships for nurses in executive roles in health services, public health and nursing education. Fellows are required to undertake a comprehensive leadership project at their home institution.

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, based in Princeton, N.J., is the nation’s largest philanthropy devoted exclusively to health and health care. It concentrates its grant-making in three goal areas: to assure that all Americans have access to basic health care at reasonable cost; to improve care and support for people with chronic health conditions; and to reduce the personal, social and economic harm caused by substance abuse.