Syllabus

Women as Leaders

PPS 140S, Fall 2006
Wednesdays and Fridays, 1:15-2:20pm
102 Sanford Institute Building
Duke University

Betsy Alden, Visiting Lecturer
Hart Leadership Program
alden@duke.edu
Office Hours: Wednesdays, Room 148 Sanford Institute, 12-1:00pm
and by appointmenent at the Kenan Institute for Ethics, 102 West Duke
660-3199 office, or 490-0083 home

Kenzie Strong, T.A.
Candidate for Master of Public Policy, concentration in Global Policy, 2007
kenzie.strong@duke.edu, 919-451-2646

Each Life converges to some Center
Expressed—or Still—
Exists in every Human Nature
A Goal—
Emily Dickinson

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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.

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Course Outline

August 30 Learning the Language: Challenges and Opportunities for Women’s Leadership

September 1, 6-8 Remedial Map Reading: Paths Buried in the Underbrush

September 13-15 How to Use a Trail Guide: Role Models and Mentors

September 20-22 Anticipating the Pitfalls: Glass Ceilings, Sexual Harassment, the Mommy Track,       Having It All

September 27-29 Welcoming Companions on the Journey: Sisterhood, Mentors, Communities

October 4-6 Where in the World Are We? Locating Ourselves and Others

October 11-13 Lessons Along the Way: What Paths Are You Being Led To?

October 18-20 Transforming Traditions and Breaking Barriers

October 25-Nov. 3 Gathering Info Along the Way: The Dynamics of Leadership

November 8-10 Journeying Together: Coalitions, Solidarity, and Inclusion

November 15-17 Inspiration, Intention, and Practice: The Soul of Women’s Leadership

Nov. 29-Dec. 8 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

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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 for 30 minutes 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 Sunday before each Wednesday/Friday class). You may want to enlist others in your leadership, so this will also require advance planning! *Kenzie will meet/email with you as requested to discuss your plans for the class. These are opportunities to really practice your public speaking and group leadership. =10 points

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 midnight on Tuesdays, 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 and why 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!) =25 points

4. Participate in the service-learning experience at Brogden 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 Brogden 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 Brogden 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 Brogden, you will post brief (one paragraph) 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 midnight on Tuesdays and count as part of the 25 points of your grade for S-L.) =25 points

5. Complete your Leadership Integration Project/RSL Proposal, in consultation with me, and prepare to present it to the class on November 17, 29, or Dec. 1. 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.4-6. Your topic should be approved and your work on the project should be underway by October 18. The final project will consist of a professional 10 minute pr96esentation 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. =20 points

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Grading

Reflection Papers (5) 25%
Women Leaders Quiz 10%
Class Presentation 10%
Quality of Class Involvement 10%
Service-Learning Involvement 25%
Leadership Project/RSL Proposal 20%

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Resources

REQUIRED READINGS

o Baumgardner, Jennifer and Amy Richards. Manifesta: Young Women, Feminism, and  the Future. New York: Farrat, Straus and Giroux, 2000. [ISBN 0-374-52622-2]
o Bouvard, Marguerite G. Women Reshaping Human Rights: How Extraordinary Activists Are Changing the World. Wilmington: Scholarly Resources, Inc, 1996. [ISBN 0-8420-2563-4]
o Greene, Christina. Our Separate Ways: Women and the Black Freedom Movement in Durham, NC. Chapel Hill: UNC Press, 2005 [ISBN0-8078-5600-2]
o Morgan, Robin. Sisterhood is Forever: A Woman’s Anthology for the New Millennium. New York: Washington Square Press, 2003 [ISBN 0-7434-6627-6]
o Sanderson, Nena. The Mentors’ Manual. Duke, 2005.
o Ms. Campus Pack (including a year’s subscription)
o Handouts will be distributed throughout the semester.

SUPPLEMENTAL READINGS

o Addams, Jane. Twenty Years at Hull-House, 1910.
o 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]
o Baker, Christina Looper and Ahristina Baker Kline. The Conversation Begins: Mothers and Daughters Talk about Living Feminism. Bantam, 1996.
o Buchanan, Constance H. Choosing to Lead: Women and the Crisis of American Values. Boston: Beacon Press, 1996. [ISBN 0-8070-2003-6]
o Burns, Ken. Not for Ourselves Alone: The Story of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony. PBS/Knopf. 1999.
o Flinders, Carol L. Rebalancing the World: Why Women Belong and Men Compete and How to Restore the Ancient Equilibrium. 2004.
o Freedman, Estelle. No Turning Back: The History of Feminism and the Future of Women. Ballentine,  2002.
o Gerber, Robin. Leadership the Eleanor Roosevelt Way: Timeless Strategies from the First Lady of Courage. Prentice Hall, 2002.
o 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
o Horwitz, Claudia. The Spiritual Activist: Practices to Transform your Life, Your Work, and Your World. Penguin, 2002.
o Hunt, Helen LaKelly. Faith and Feminism: A Holy Alliance. NY: Atria, 2004.
o Jamieson, Kathleen H. Beyond the Double Bind: Women and Leadership. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995. [ISBN 0-19-511572-4]
o Kellerman, Barbara. Reinventing Leadership: Making the Connection Between Politics and  Business. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1999. [ISBN 0-7914-4072-9]
o Kerber, Linda K and. Jane de Hart, Women’s America: Refocusing the Past. NY: Oxford, 2004.
o Hartman, Mary S. Talking Leadership: Conversations With Powerful Women. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1999. [ISBN 0-8135-2560-8]
o Malveaux, Julianne and Deborah Perry. Unfinished Business: The 10 Most Important Issues Women Face Today. Perigee, 2002.
o 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]
o Rhode, Deborah L. The Difference Difference Makes: Women and Leadership. 2003
o Wilson, Marie. Closing the Leadership Gap: Why Women Can and Must Help Rule the World. 2003
o Wolf, Naomi. The Beauty Myth: How Images of Beauty Are Used Against Women. Perennial, 2002.
o 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 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!)

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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 4-6 to begin to define your interests and process for the Leadership 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.

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Weekly Assignments

Note: Please plan to attend presentations and programs featuring Women Leaders throughout the semester-- not required, but highly encouraged!

August 30 Introduction to the course and to each other: Syllabus, Structure, Strands, Service-Learning; Read The Source!

September 1 Handouts 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; Spring 2006 issue of Ms., (Identify issues which are new, provocative, or compelling to you, and be able to explain why.)
Reflection Topic: Discuss specific aspects of this information which contribute to your understanding of women as leaders. What is your personal response to learning of women’s “lost” history or of the global and political issues in Ms.—and what difference does it make to you and your peers (and society) that these are often omitted from educational curriculum and also from public discourse?
Submit your completed Service-Learning Participation Agreement Form and DPS Volunteer Form. Print this out from our class Blackboard site and be sure to fill them out completely! Sign up on Blackboard for your class leadership date by Sept. 5! (First come, first served)

September 6 Summer 2006 issue of Ms. (Same questions as above.)
Class Leader:

September 8 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 5.
Class Leader:

September 13 Read through the Mentoring Manual for Wed. Break into Brogden groups with LEAPs facilitators and plan for first day “recruiting”!
Orientation to Brogden Middle School and Mentoring Service-Learning. Guests Daniella Gabriel from DPS and Sarah Gordon, LEAPS facilitator

September 15 Read about research on adolescent girls in Manifesta, pp. 126-201 and Sisterhood, pp. 94-102. Reflection topic: How did your own adolescent experiences differ from/confirm these articles, and why? How /Did they contribute to your self-perception as a woman leader?
Class Leader:

September 18-19 Brogden Mentoring begins. Be in the Cafeteria at Brogden promptly at 2:30 with your team.

September 20 Manifesta, 201-234 and Appendix II, 339-383. Required Reflection on “Our Mothers, Our Selves” due (see Handout).
Class Leader:

September 22 Manifesta, 235-321, Appendix 3 and Bibliography, 385-410.
Class Leader:
Discussion with Kenzie Strong and Sarah Gordon on Third Wave zines (after a reading at the Regulator by contributors to Bitch on Sept. 16 at 7 pm)

September 27 Sisterhood is Forever, Intro, xv-lv (“New World Woman”), and Part I, “Some Basics,” 3-58.
Reflection : 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 29 Sisterhood, 58-117.
Guest: Alisa Nave, Duke ‘01

September 29 Optional: Dinner Party at Betsy’s (as in Manifesta and Judy Chicago’s model!)

October 4 Quiz over Women Who Dared!
Video of Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, “Not For Ourselves Alone.”

**October 5-6 Schedule personal conferences with Betsy to discuss your integration topic.
October 6 Sisterhood, 128-268
Class Leaders:

October 9-10 No Mentoring (Fall Break)

October 11 Read “Service Learning and Leadership Development” (Timothy Stanton in NSEE Journal, 1987), and write Reflection Paper (required) relating your own experience at Brogden 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 Brogden 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 Lindsay Bayham

October 13 Sisterhood, 269-446, and excerpts from Wolf’s The Beauty Myth 1-14 and 270-291.
Class Leaders:

October 18 Sisterhood, 447-567, 571-580.
Class Leaders:

October 20 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?
Class Leader:

October 25-27 Read
Guests: Kenzie Strong and Duke Professor Catherine Admay will be speaking with us on women’s international leadership issues.
Class Leader:

October 30 No school at Brogden, so Monday mentors can meet for planning session at Duke

November 1 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.
Class Leader:

November 3 Read selections from Our Separate Ways, other handouts on local activism
Guest Speaker: Karen Bethea-Shields, participant in the Black Freedom Movement
Class Leaders:

November 8-10 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
Guest Speaker Polly Weiss on Identity Politics
Class Leaders:

November 15 “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 17 LEAPS/RSL Reflection Session

NOTE: Mentors WILL go to Brogden on Nov. 20-21!!
November 22-24 Thanksgiving Break. NO Classes.

November 29 RSL Proposals Due! (See http://rslduke.mc.duke.edu for details.)

December 4-5 Final Days of Brogden Mentoring Program

November 29, Dec. 1, 6, 8 Individual or Team Class Presentations of Final Leadership Projects

December 13 Final Integration Papers Due by 1 pm (bring a printed copy to class and also send as attachment!)

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Your Leadership Integration Project/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. (You may choose to work with another class member on your project.)

2) a 10 minute professional presentation to our class on November 29, Dec, 1,6, or 8 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 13, 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.