May 2013 • Volume 11, Number 5

FROM THE DEPARTMENT CHAIR

Robson Marinho, PhD

The Impact of Women in Leadership

Former British Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher passed away on April 8, 2013 at 87. She was laid to rest on April 17, with full military honors. Her funeral was the biggest of a former prime minister since Winston Churchill's on January 30, 1965. World leaders and dignitaries from 170 countries, including Queen Elizabeth II and her husband Prince Philip attended the funeral at St. Paul's Cathedral in London.

Thatcher's tenure of 11 years and 209 days as Prime Minister was the longest since Lord Salisbury (13 years starting in 1885), and the longest continuous period in office since Lord Liverpool (14 years starting in 1812). Despite political controversies, the leadership legacy of the so called “Iron Lady” is known for transforming Britain and promoting the resurgence of political and economic liberty around the world. Along with Ronald Reagan and Pope John Paul II, her relationship with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev opened up the way to end the cold war and  Soviet communism. In the domestic agenda, her privatization policies dismantled state socialism and promoted the neoliberal revival of the 1980s that has been regarded as the Reagan-Thatcher revolution.

Considered one of Britain's most divisive politicians of modern times, Margaret Thatcher has been equally admired and hated at the same time. However, whatever the opinion of historians and politicians, her political influence does remind us of the relevant leadership role women have played in the world history. As a reflection on the influential role of women's leadership, I have listed a sample of women leaders who have influenced change and impacted society on a large scale:

1. Mother Theresa – Peace Nobel Prize winner Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu established the Missionaries of Charity in 1950 with just 13 members, which grew to become a staff of 4,500 sisters operating 600 missions, orphanages, schools, shelters, AIDS hospices, and charity centers in around 130 countries worldwide.
   
   
2. Marie Curie – Polish physicist and chemist, who pioneered research on radioactivity and became the first woman to win a Nobel Prize, and the only woman to win it twice and in multiple sciences. She was the first female head of Laboratory at the Sorbonne University in Paris.
   
   
3. Florence Nightingale – English social reformer and statistician, who practically founded the profession of nursing, and also brought sanitary conditions to soldiers in wars -- at a time when more soldiers typically died of disease than of injuries in battle.
   
   
4. Alexandrina Victoria – The daughter of George III’s son Prince Edward, who reigned for 63 years (from 1837 to 1901), and oversaw an Empire that stretched from India to the Americas, and from Africa to the Far East. So vast was the Empire, that it is said that the sun was always overhead on some part of the empire at any time. Besides political reforms, her monarchy placed a strong emphasis on morality and family values and she became known as a benevolent matriarchal figure.
   
   
5. Indira Gandhi – Prime Minister who ruled India for almost twenty years until her death at the hands of Sikh extremists in 1984 (making her the only sitting female head of state ever assassinated). She was the most influential political figure who made India the powerful nation of today.
   
   
6. Eleanor Roosevelt – One of the first women elected to the US Senate in 1911 and well known for her involvement with many charitable organizations prior to becoming first lady of the United States as the wife of Franklin D. Roosevelt. Named a delegate to the United Nations in 1947, she became the first chairman of the Commission on Human Rights and coordinated the editing of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
   
   
7. Rosa Parks – African-American civil rights activist, called "the first lady of civil rights" and "the mother of the freedom movement” by the U.S. Congress. She is best known for her refusal to move to the back of a bus in Montgomery, Alabama, and her subsequent arrest, which resulted in a bus boycott and accelerated the civil rights movement.

July 21-22, 2013

The countdown for the Leadership Conference 2013 has started and we now have 63 days left!  As you plan your participation, here are some highlights of the conference this year:

1. Soledad’s Book: The conference registration includes a free copy of the book The Next Big Story: My Journey Through the Land of Possibilities, by Soledad O’Brien.
2. The conference will approach different professional areas, in partnership with Whirlpool Corporation and Lakeland Healthcare, who will join the event with their audiences.
3. Here is a summary of the program:

• Sunday at 7:00 pm – Onstage Interview with Soledad O’Brien – Leadership and Diversity
• Monday at 8:30 am – Keynote Speech: “Diversity: On TV, Behind the Scenes and in Our Lives"
• Soledad O’Brien
• 10:00 – Q&A and Book Signing
• 12:00 – Lunch
• 1:00 – Plenary Sessions addressing Diversity in business corporations and healthcare
• 3:30 – Diversity Action Plan by participants and Group Sharing

The conference registration also includes free participation in the pre-conference workshops on the topic of Steward Leadership, beginning on Friday evening, July 19, and continuing Saturday and Sunday with keynote address by R. Scott Rodin, author of The Steward Leader, under the coordination of the Christian Leadership Center of Andrews University.

LEAD Department celebrates Administrative Assistant Day

In a show appreciation, the Department of Leadership took a moment to recognize the various contributions of the department’s administrative assistants by hosting a celebratory lunch in their honor. The faculty members aslo used the occasion to personally commend and express gratitude to their respective Graduate Assistants.

LEADERSHIP PROGRAM GRADUATION

HIGHER EDUCATION PROGRAM GRADUATION

On April 23, Leandro Rodor successfully presented his portfolio via Skype from Brazil. His committee members were Robson Marinho and Subir Dass.

K-12 Leadership Program Receives National Recognition

By Jim Jeffery, Dean of the School of Education

I'm very, very pleased to announce that the Andrews University K-12 Education Leadership program has just received full ELCC "National Recognition" approval.

The Educational Leadership Constituent Council (ELCC) is a constituency group comprising the American Association of School Administrators (AASA), the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD), the National Association of Elementary School Principals (NAESP), and the National Association of Secondary School Principals (NASSP).

The purpose of this council is to review university-based educational administration programs that seek NCATE (National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education) accreditation using national standards developed by the National Policy Board for Educational Administration (NPBEA). The ELCC confers “national recognition” to those programs that meet these very high standards.

The review process consists of a team of reviewers who meet in Washington, D.C., twice a year.   Each review team member represents a different level of the
educational leadership community such as superintendents, principals, central-office administrators, and professors teaching in educational administration.  The teams assess each program to determine its relative strengths and weaknesses against standards recognized by both the NPBEA and NCATE. The ELCC teams write-up their findings and make recommendations about whether to approve, deny, or defer recognition of a program. 

And so we are thrilled to receive this designation as "Nationally Recognized".  The real story behind receiving this "National Recognition" designation is just plain hard work and determined effort.  Many hundreds and hundreds of hours were spent compiling data and writing a very lengthy report.   Very special thanks goes to Dr. Janet Ledesma (Program Coordinator) and faculty members, Dr. Duane Covrig and Dr. Sylvia Gonzalez who all provided exceptional effort in preparing this application to ELCC.  Without their persistence this recognition would never have been achieved.  So, my heartfelt thanks to the K-12 Education Leadership faculty and their desire to achieve this much sought after "National recognition".

Online Tutorial for IRB Applicants

Beginning January 1, 2013, applications for approval by the Andrews University Institutional Review Board (IRB) will require the inclusion of certificates of completion for the National Institutes of Health Online Training Tutorial, http://phrp.nihtraining.com/, for all principal and co-investigators listed on the IRB application. For applications submitted by student researchers, a certificate of completion for the faculty research advisor should also be included.

The tutorial will take an average of about two hours to complete and covers the basic ethical principles of respect for persons, beneficence, and justice that guide all research involving human subjects.

• Respect for persons indicates “first, that individuals should be treated as autonomous agents, and second, that persons with diminished autonomy are entitled to protection.” Thus, respect for persons includes “the requirement to acknowledge autonomy and the requirement to protect those with diminished autonomy.”
• Beneficence means to protect individuals from harm. Specifically, beneficence is the obligation to “(1) do not harm and (2) maximize possible benefits and minimize possible harms.”
• Justice means there should be “fairness in distribution” both of the risks and the benefits of the research.

Upon completion of the tutorial, a Certificate of Completion is provided that will be valid for three years. More information is available on the Andrews University IRB Webpage, http://www.andrews.edu/services/research/institutional_review/.

Summer 2013 Stats Course