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SOM News Updates - July 21, 2005

Filed under SOM News and Events
Posted by , July 20, 2005
View all posts for July 2005

On Friday, July 15th, Marcela Aldaz-Osorio received the Innovation Award at the 5th Annual National Girl Scout Latina Conference for all her hard work with the Latina community in the Greater Boston area and for her successful approach to expanding community awareness of the program and contributing to the personal growth and development of current and new members. Marcela’s program has been so successful that Girl Scouts of the USA has opted to use it as a model and plans on implementing it nationwide.

Simmons College is proud to be a sponsor of the National Girl Scout Latina Conference and of Marcela and all the great things she is doing with the local community members of Girl Scouts, Patriots’ Trail Council. For more information on the organization’s local chapter please visit www.ptgirlscouts.org or www.girlscouts.org for Girl Scouts of USA.

Patricia Deyton, SOM Assistant Professor and Interim Faculty Director of the Center for Gender in Organizations (CGO) was the commencement speaker at the Harvard Extension School ceremonies on June 9, 2005 where 200 graduate certificates were awarded. Patricia’s address focused on the importance of knowing the ethical bedrock upon which our personal and collective values rest and from that knowledge, identifying and making a positive difference in society and one’s personal life through the development of a personal mission statement.

Dr. Stacy Blake-Beard, CGO Faculty Affiliate and SOM Associate Professor, spoke at a session entitled “Creating a Career Action Plan” at Working Mother Media’s third annual Best Companies for Women of Color Multicultural Conference, held in New York City July 20-21, 2005.

CGO Faculty Affiliates Dr. Joyce Fletcher and Dr. Stacy Blake-Beard, along with Dr. Lotte Bailyn of MIT Sloan School of Management, had a paper accepted for presentation at the 2005 Critical Management Studies conference in Cambridge, England, held July 4-6. The title of their paper is “Practical Pushing: Creating Discursive Space in Organizational Narratives.” Drs. Fletcher and Bailyn presented the paper at the conference.

Dr. Deborah Merrill-Sands, CGO Faculty Affiliate and Simmons School of Management Dean, spoke to employees of Hewlett-Packard on June 2, 2005 in San Diego, CA. The title of her talk was “Gender Dynamics in the Workplace: Implications for Women and Leadership.”

Dr. Evangelina Holvino, Senior Research Faculty at the Center for Gender in Organizations (CGO), and Ms. Tara Hudson, CGO Administrative Assistant, recently traveled to Nigeria June 3-17 to conduct two workshops as part of the Carnegie Corporation funded project, “Capacity Building in African Universities.” They took place at Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU) in Ile-Ife.

The workshops furthered the mission of CGO’s “Capacity Building in African Universities” project, the objectives of which are to:
• Increase competencies in the use of organizational change models for gender equity, and
• Develop knowledge and identify best practices on institutional change for gender equity in African universities.

The first workshop, held June 7-9, convened approximately 30 high-level staff and faculty Institutional Gender Focal Points from OAU and was co-facilitated with Dr. Olabisi Aina, Dr. Stella Williams, and Mrs. Busayo Ige of the Centre for Gender and Social Policy Studies at OAU. Focal Points are charged with the task of promoting, and ensuring implementation of the OAU’s gender equity plans within their own departments and units. At the end of the workshop participants were able to:

  1. Increase their understanding of general models of institutional change and specific tools for promoting gender equity in the university and respective units.
  2. Strengthen their internal network and support group as agents of change with responsibility for gender equity and institutional transformation at the university; and
  3. Assess and adjust gender change strategies in their individual faculty’s and unit’s and develop follow up plans for applying learnings after the workshop.

The second workshop, held June 13-15, brought together two representatives from each of six African universities currently receiving Gender Equity Project funding from the Carnegie Corporation: OAU, University of Dar es Salaam (Tanzania), University of Jos (Nigeria), University of Education, Winneba (Ghana), Ahmadu Bello University (Nigeria), and Makerere University (Uganda). Dr. Joy Kwesiga, formerly Head of the Gender Mainstreaming Division at Makerere University and currently the Vice Chancellor of Kabale University in Uganda, served as co-facilitator. This workshop provided participants, all of whom are leading the gender equity initiatives at their universities, with support for and feedback to improve their approaches and strategies for implementing their institutions’ gender equity plans. It also gave participants the opportunity to share learnings and best practices with each other, and to organize themselves into a network of support for their work going forward.