Women
as Leaders
Fall 2005
PPS 140S
Wednesdays and Fridays, 1:15-2:30
Room 102, Sanford Institute
Duke University
Betsy Alden, Visiting Lecturer
Hart Leadership Program
alden@duke.edu
Office Hours: Wednesdays, Room 209 at Sanford, 12-1:00 p.m.
and by appointment at the Kenan Institute for Ethics, 102 West
Duke
660-3199 (o) or 490-0083 (h)
Each Life converges
to some Center
Expressed—or Still—
Exists in every Human Nature
A Goal—
Emily Dickinson
Becoming a leader is more than mastering a set of techniques or
following a recipe. The art of leadership involves embarking on
a personal journey in and through which you will discover the
qualities, passions, interests, goals, and vision which will best
serve you and those whom you serve. This class will offer you
the opportunity to engage in conceptual growth, imaginative exercises,
and Research Service-Learning in order to develop personal insight
and social responsibility toward your role as a woman in leadership.
Course Outline
August 31 Learning the Language: Challenges
and Opportunities for Women’s Leadership
September 2-9 Remedial Map Reading: Paths
Buried in the Underbrush
September 14-16 How To Use a Trail Guide:
Role Models and Mentors
September 21-23 Lessons Along the Way:
What Paths Are You Being Led To?
September 28-30 Welcoming Companions on
the Journey: Sisterhood, Mentors, Communities
October 5-7 Where in the World Are We?
Locating Ourselves and Others
October 12-14 Anticipating the Pitfalls:
Glass Ceilings, Sexual Harassment, the Mommy Track, Having It
All
October 19-21 Transforming Traditions and
Breaking Barriers
October 26-27 Gathering Info Along the
Way: The Dynamics of Leadership
November 2-4 Journeying Together: Coalitions,
Solidarity, and Inclusion
November 9-18 Inspiration, Intention, and
Practice: The Soul of Women’s Leadership
Nov. 30-Dec.9 Sharing Our Adventure: Integration
Projects
A master can tell you what s/he expects of you.
A teacher, though, awakens your own expectations.
Patricia Neal
Course Requirements
1. Attend all classes and participate actively
in discussion.
2. Come prepared, having completed and
reflected on all the required readings for the week, ready with
your comments and questions. Each student will also be expected
to lead one class discussion over assigned chapters or articles,
offering critical analysis and posing insightful questions for
the rest of the class to consider (which should be sent to the
class list by email on the Monday before each Wednesday/Friday
class). You may want to enlist others in your leadership, so this
will also require advance planning! These are opportunities to
really practice your public speaking and group leadership.
3. Submit at least 5 (out of 10) Reflection
Papers (500 words each), as assigned. These should be emailed
to me as Word attachments by 10 am on Wednesdays, so I can have
a sense of your responses before class. These should be distilled
(i.e., not composed at the last minute!) from your notes and journals
and should present a coherent perspective, which may include any
one of the following: your reaction to the concepts and ideas
presented in the assigned readings and why; what these concepts
tell you about how women define leadership, how women behave as
leaders, and how others accept women as leaders; how you react
to these particular issues of concern to women; your reactions
to class activities and discussions; relevant personal experiences;
and emerging insights, goals, thoughts, feelings, questions, concerns
regarding yourself as a leader and your personal leadership development.
In all cases, the purpose is to relate the readings to your own
development as a woman leader with analysis related to the readings,
not just observations.
Your writing style should be direct, with careful proofreading
for coherence and accuracy. I will respond to these papers by
email and in conferences. (Each paper will be worth 5 points,
and I WILL take off for careless errors/typos in spelling and
punctuation!)
4. Participate in the service-learning
experience at Chewning Middle School, contributing your own talents
to your small group’s project and paying attention to what
you are learning from it. This will include 2 hours per week mentoring
12-14 year olds and three Reflection Sessions.
The Chewning mentorship program is designed as a service-learning
program in which not only will you be providing service in the
form of guidance to Durham youth, but you will also be actively
applying what you learn from that service to your academic work
for the course. You and they should learn valuable lessons about
yourselves and your lives through both the service and reflection
aspects of the program. In participating in the Chewning mentorship,
you will not only help the girls learn about leadership but will
yourselves gain crucial leadership skills, improved organizational
abilities, and an understanding of the roles that civic duty and
teamwork play in successful leadership.
After EACH visit to Chewning, you will post brief responses (on
the class web Blackboard) linking your service-learning/leadership
practice with course concepts, responding to the questions of
What is relevant to my role as “leader”? So what?
Now what? Each week you should try to connect the service to aspects
of that week’s reading for class. (These postings are due
by 10 am each Wed.)
5. Complete your Integration Project/RSL
Proposal, in consultation with me, and prepare to present it to
the class on December 2, 7, or 9. The Integration Project will
be a focused inquiry of your own design, enabling you to explore
one aspect of the course in greater depth. In preparation for
choosing a topic, you will review topics in our texts and explore
selected internet sites of feminist activist organizations to
decide which issue you want to become involved with by Oct.6-7.
Your topic should be approved and your work on the project should
be underway by October 19. The final project will consist of a
professional 10 minute presentation to the class, with 8-10 pages
of supporting documentation and a 2 page RSL proposal, following
the guidelines on http://rslduke.mc.duke.edu.
Grading
Reflection Papers (5) 25%
Women Leaders Quiz 10%
Class Presentation 10%
Quality of Class Involvement 10%
Service-Learning Involvement 25%
Integration Project/RSL Proposal 20%
Resources
REQUIRED READINGS
Baumgardner, Jennifer and Amy Richards.
Manifesta: Young Women, Feminism, and
the Future. New York: Farrat,
Straus and Giroux, 2000. [ISBN 0-374-52622-2]
Bouvard, Marguerite G. Women Reshaping Human Rights: How Extraordinary
Activists
Are Changing the World. Wilmington:
Scholarly Resources, Inc, 1996.
[ISBN 0-8420-2563-4]
Greene, Christina. Our Separate Ways: Women and the Black
Freedom Movement in Durham, NC.
Chapel Hill: UNC Press, 2005 [ISBN0-8078-5600-2]
Morgan, Robin. Sisterhood is Forever: A Woman’s Anthology
for the New Millennium. New York:
Washington Square Press, 2003 [ISBN
0-7434-6627-6]
Sanderson, Nena. The Chewning Mentors’ Manual.
Duke, 2005.
Ms. Campus Pack (including a year’s
subscription)
Handouts will be distributed throughout the semester.
SUPPLEMENTAL READINGS
Addams, Jane. Twenty Years at Hull-House,
1910.
Astin, Helen S. and Carole Leland. Women of Influence, Women
of Vision: A Cross-
Generational Study of Leaders and
Social Change. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass
Publishers, 1991. [ISBN 0-7879-5221-4]
Baker, Christina Looper and Ahristina Baker Kline. The Conversation
Begins: Mothers and Daughters
Talk about Living Feminism.
Bantam, 1996.
Buchanan, Constance H. Choosing to Lead: Women and the Crisis
of American Values.
Boston: Beacon Press, 1996. [ISBN
0-8070-2003-6]
Burns, Ken. Not for Ourselves Alone: The Story of Elizabeth
Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony.
PBS/Knopf. 1999.
Flinders, Carol L. Rebalancing the World: Why Women Belong
and Men Compete and How to Restore
the Ancient Equilibrium. 2004.
Freedman, Estelle. No Turning Back: The History of Feminism
and the Future of Women.
Ballentine, 2002.
Gerber, Robin. Leadership the Eleanor Roosevelt Way: Timeless
Strategies from the First Lady of
Courage. Prentice Hall, 2002.
Helgesen, Sally. The Female Advantage: Women’s Ways
of Leadership. New York:
Doubleday, 1995. [0-385-41911-2]
Thriving in 24/7: Six Strategies for Taming the World of Work
Horwitz, Claudia. The Spiritual Activist: Practices to Transform
your Life, Your Work, and Your World.
Penguin, 2002.
Hunt, Helen LaKelly. Faith and Feminism: A Holy Alliance.
NY: Atria, 2004.
Jamieson, Kathleen H. Beyond the Double Bind: Women and Leadership.
New York: Oxford
University Press, 1995. [ISBN 0-19-511572-4]
Kellerman, Barbara. Reinventing Leadership: Making the Connection
Between Politics and
Business. Albany: State University
of New York Press, 1999. [ISBN 0-7914-4072-9]
Kerber, Linda K and. Jane de Hart, Women’s America:
Refocusing the Past. NY: Oxford, 2004.
Hartman, Mary S. Talking Leadership: Conversations With Powerful
Women. New Brunswick:
Rutgers University Press, 1999.
[ISBN 0-8135-2560-8]
Malveaux, Julianne and Deborah Perry. Unfinished Business:
The 10 Most Important Issues Women Face
Today. Perigee, 2002.
Miles, Rosalind. Who Cooked the Last Supper?: The Women’s
History of the World.
New York: Three Rivers Press, 2001.
[ISBN 0-609-80695-5]
Rhode, Deborah L. The Difference Difference Makes: Women and
Leadership.2003
Wilson, Marie. Closing the Leadership Gap: Why Women Can and
Must Help Rule the World. 2003
Wolf, Naomi. The Beauty Myth: How Images of Beauty Are Used
Against Women. Perennial, 2002.
Zichy, Shoya. Women and the Leadership Q: Revealing the Four
Paths to Leadership and Power.
[Shoya Zichy eBooks], 2004
KEY WEB SITES
Feminist Majority Foundation www.feministcampus.org
and www.feminist.org
Women Leaders Online http://wlo.org
Women’s Voting Guide http://womenvote.org
Women in Politics http://www.glue.umd.edu/~cliswp/
Women Organizing for Change http://www.links2go.com/more/wlo.org/
Catalyst Women http://www.catalystwomen.org/research.html
NOW http://www.now.org
Duke Univ. Women’s Center http://wc.stuaff.duke.edu/
Duke Univ. Women Studies http://www.duke.edu/womstud/
Center for Women’s Global Leadership
http://www.rci.rutgers.edu/~cwgl/humanrights/gc/gcindex.html
Business Women’s Network http://www.BWNi.com
Center for Reproductive Law and Policy http://www.crlp.org
Ms. Foundation for Women http://www.ms.foundation.org
Financial Women International http://www.fwifoundation.org
Feminist.Com http://www.feminist.com
Center for American Women and Politics http://www.newleadership.rutgers.edu
Choice USA http://www.choiceusa.org
and http://www.naral.org
Women Count (to mobilize women voters)
http://www.womencount.org
Mentors Peer Resources: http://www.mentors.ca/mentor.html
The National Mentoring Partnership: http://www.mentoring.org/
The Prudential Youth Leadership Institute: http://www.pyli.org/
For Women’s History, see http://www.women.eb.com,
http://www.feminist.org
(“The Feminist Chronicles”), http://www.nwhp.org,
http://www.nwhm.org
And MANY MORE (See Resource List at the end of Manifesta!)
Personal Notes/ Journal
Please take the time to sit at your computer or with a notebook/journal
regularly during the week to make notes about your observations,
insights, questions, and reflections on the topic of Women as
Leaders and yourself as both a woman and a leader. These will
be confidential, but will become the basis for your papers, presentations,
and integration project. You will submit written reflections throughout
the semester, but these papers should be a distillation of your
thinking, rather than the ramblings which characterize a stream-of-consciousness
journal entry.
Student-Teacher Conferences
Please schedule a personal Conference on October 6-7 to begin
to define your interests and process for the Integration Project.
We will refine this as you proceed, and another conference time
will be scheduled if needed.
The Work-Load!
You will notice that the first half of the semester contains lengthy
reading assignments, but these are not difficult, and most students
find them fascinating. These provide the background you need to
venture out on your own to choose your Leadership Projects, which
will be your focus for the last half ,
Weekly Assignments
(Note: A few Special Events featuring Women Leaders, not required
but highly encouraged(!), are listed with asterisks-- so put them
on your calendar NOW!)
August 31 Introduction
to the course and to each other: Syllabus, Structure, Strands,
Service-Learning; Read The Source!
September 2 Handout pp. 1-23, “Gender and the New Women’s
History” from Women’s America: Refocusing the Past;
“I Am a Feminist and…” from Ms. Magazine.
Guest: Liz Groeger ’06, former PPS 140 student and one of
your two LEAPers this semester
Reflection Topic: Discuss specific aspects of this information
which may contribute to your understanding of women as leaders.
What is your personal response to learning of this “lost”
history—and what difference does it make to you and your
peers (and society) that this is often omitted from educational
curriculum and also from public discourse?
Review Chewning Mentors’ Manual and hand in your completed
Participation Agreement Form (print this out from our class Blackboard
site and be sure to fill it out completely!).
September 7 All of class
goes to Chewning Middle School for Orientation, accompanied by
Lissett Babian and Kosha Tucker, mentors from last year’s
class. Carpools leave promptly at 1:15, return by 2:45.
September 9 Manifesta:
Young Women, Feminism and the Future, ix-125 and Appendix I, Timeline,
323-337.
“ Women Who Dared” hand-out to prepare for quiz on
October 7.
Class Leader:
September 12-13 Chewning Mentoring begins. Be in the
Media Room at Chewning promptly at 2:30 with your team.
September 14 Manifesta,
126-201 and Appendix II, 339-383.
Guest: Donna Lisker , Director of Duke’s Women’s Center
on “The Women’s Initiative”
Class Leader:
September 16 Manifesta,
235-321, and Bibliography, 403-410.
Class Leader:
September 21 Sisterhood
is Forever, Intro, xv-lv (“New World Woman”), and
Part I, “Some Basics,” 3-58.
Reflection 2: Morgan concludes her Intro with the comment, “
Not for nothing does the refrain,’ It’s up to us’
ring through these essays.” With regard to the issues presented
in Part I, where, how, and why do you feel challenged to begin
to exercise your leadership? Write a draft of your own Manifesta,
with at least five points!
Class Leader:
September 23 Sisterhood,
58-117.
Guest: Polly Weiss, Office of Institutional Equity
Class Leader:
September 28 Sisterhood, 128-268
Class Leaders:
September 29 Optional: Dinner Party at Betsy’s
(as in Manifesta and Judy Chicago’s model!)
September 30 Sisterhood,
269-446, and excerpts from Wolf’s The Beauty Myth 1-14 and
270-291.
Class Leaders:
**October 4- 12 1 pm:
Special Program at Mary Lou Williams Center, with Polly Weiss
on “White Privilege: Six Common Mistakes”
October 5 Quiz over Women Who Dared!
Video of Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton,
“Not For Ourselves Alone.”
**October 6-7 Schedule
personal conferences with Betsy to discuss your integration topic.
October 7 Read “Service
Learning and Leadership Development” (Timothy Stanton in
NSEE Journal, 1987), and write Reflection Paper (required) relating
your own experience at Chewning to Stanton’s concepts. Note
especially Stanton’s point that service-learning offers
one the chance to be “self-directed” in learning.
How have you experienced this, and how have you responded to this
“chance”—i.e., what have you discovered you
need to learn, and what are you learning about yourself and your
leadership issues? Give specific examples related to your service
at Chewning and your teamwork. In what other ways do you think
service-learning and leadership are related?
Class Leaders: LEAPS Reflection Session in class. Facilitators:
Sarah Gordon and Liz Groeger
October 12 Sisterhood,
447-567, 571-580 and Manifesta, 202-234.
Class Leader:
October 14 Required Reflection
on “Our Mothers, Our Selves” due (see Handout).
Guest Speaker and Tour of “Feminist Generations/Generating
Feminisms” Exhibit with Laura Micham, Director, Sallie Binglam
Center for Women’s History and Culture at Duke Library.
Meet at Rare Book Room at 1:15.
October 19 Read handout
from Faith and Feminism: A Holy Alliance, 119-142.
Guest Speaker: Helen LaKelly Hunt, Founder of The Sister Fund.
Class will meet in the new Pavilion of Perkins Library at 1:15.
October 21-26 Read Women
Reshaping Human Rights, Intro(ix-xxvi), Brantley (21-40), Bates
(89-106), Guttierez, (179-198) and all of Part IV (221-286). As
you read, be thinking of HOW this woman has “connected,”
what specific human rights problems she addresses, what “alternative
political styles” she has adopted, what strategies she has
employed, and how moral theory plays out in her life. Which women
and what specific leadership skills do you find yourself resonating
to? Why and How?
Guest: Duke Professor Catherine Admay will be speaking with us
on women’s international leadership issues.
Class Leaders:
**October 26, 4 pm-Eleanor
Smeal,, President of the Feminist Majority Alliance, speaking
in the Rare Book Room
**October 26, 7 pm- Judy Chicago, artist, speaking
in the Nasher Art Museum.
**October 27, 10-4- Symposium on “Feminist
Generations/Generating Feminisms,” Perkins Library
October 28 Read Gerda
Lerner’s essay (handout), “Neighborhood Women and
Grassroot Human Rights, 496-500, and Betty Friedan’s “Making
the Personal Political,” from Women’s America.
Guest Speaker from the Symposium
Class Leader:
November 2-4 Read Our
Separate Ways (entire book)
Guest Speaker: Karen Bethea-Shields, participant in the Black
Freedom Movement
Class Leaders:
November 9-11 Handouts:
“Coalition Politics: Turning the Century” (Bernice
Johnson Reagon in Home Girls: A Black Feminist Anthology); “Sisterhood:
Political Solidarity between Women” (bel hooks, Feminist
Theory, 1984); “The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle
the Master’s House” (Audre Lord, from Sister Outsider)
Helgeson, The Web of Inclusion” “Strong Women and
Feminists” by Jean O’Barr
(Nov. 11-Guest Speaker Alisa Nave, Duke, 2001)
Class Leaders:
November 16 “Leading from Within” (Parker
Palmer monograph, 1987); Thriving in 24/7;
from Being Real (1995), Rebecca Walker; “The Erotic: Heart
of Transformational Leadership” (1998), Virginia Pharr;
Gloria Steinem, “Revving Up for the Next Generation”
Reflection Topic: How is your own inner compass directing your
leadership interests and concerns? Illustrate the ideas from the
essays above to your personal sense of direction.
Guest speakers will be with us to present a “Dialogue on
Women’s Leadership” using personal stories for reflection.
November 18 LEAPS/RSL Reflection Session
November 21-25 Thanksgiving
Break. NO Classes or Chewning Mentoring!
November 30 RSL Proposals
Due!
December 2, 7, 9 Individual or Team Class Presentations
of Final Integration Projects
December 9 Final Integration
Papers Due by 3 pm (bring a printed copy to class and also send
as attachment!)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Your Integration Work/RSL Proposal will consist of three
parts:
1) an “activist” leadership
project which will address an issue of concern to women, which
you hope to continue to work on far beyond this class. This is
an opportunity for you to make a good start.
2) a 10 minute professional presentation
to our class on December 2, 7 or 9, in which you convey your passion
about this issue and engage the class in an interactive process
to help them understand more about it.
3) a paper of 8-10 pages, due on December
9, illustrating what you have learned about
women’s leadership, and your own in particular, from researching,
developing, and executing your project. Throughout the semester,
you should be identifying women leaders who have qualities and
traits you admire, so that you can also create a profile of the
kind of woman leader you feel you are attempting to become. (You
will refer to these women and leadership styles in your paper.)
In this paper you will also relate your leadership lessons to
your service-learning experience and to the assigned course readings
this semester.
