Effective Leadership &
Creating Change
Nancy Amato, Texas A&M
CRA-W CAPP Workshop – November 2012
CRA-W
Computer Research Association Committee on the Status of
Women in Computing Research
Mission increase the participation and
success of women in computing research
www.cra-w.org
What does CRA-W do?
Individual & Group Research Mentoring
Undergrads: Undergraduate Research Experiences
Undergrads: Distinguished lecture role models
Grad Cohort: group mentoring of grad students
Grad Students: Discipline Specific Research
workshops
PhD Researchers: group mentoring of early & mid
career @ CMW, CAPP, Hopper & Tapia
600+ students and PhD researchers a year
Academic careers
Undergraduates
Graduate Students
Industry/government
www.cra-w.org
Leadership Opportunities
• Formal Leadership Roles
– Internal & external: e.g., department
head/chair, officer in professional society, …
• Leading New Initiatives
– non-permanent activities that may, but
don’t have to, become institutionalized
• Building New Programs
– permanent & institutionalized activities
Formal Leadership Roles
• University leadership positions
– Department head/chair, dean, provost,
president, etc.
• External leadership positions
– Rotator at NSF, professional society officer,
conference program/general chair, etc.
• Obtaining & Succeeding in these roles
– build up: do a good job on shorter term and
smaller projects (initiatives & programs)
– discover what fits you best & focus there
The Facilitators Share…
• One leadership opportunity I’m glad I
took.
• One thing related to a leadership
opportunity that I wish I had done
differently?
Leading New Initiatives
• Initiatives are non-permanent activities
that may, but don’t have to, become
institutionalized
– On-line departmental grad admissions,
Campus-wide alliance of bioinformatics
researchers, pilot program for peer teaching
evaluations, college ombudsperson
• Why would you want to lead one?
– To get something done you believe in
Leading New Initiatives:
Key Elements
• Your passion for it
– Won’t work well if you do it because others want it,
you have to care about it
• Clear statement of objective
– Get feedback and buy-in from others
• Determine & obtain needed resources
– Time, financial, staff, space & a supporter/champion
• Run with it, iterating on above steps as needed
• Understand when it’s time to move to next
stage
Initiatives Exercise
• Get in pairs
• Discuss/brainstorm about initiatives you
would like to lead
– Select one initiative each
– Identity resources needed for it and who
might be your supporter/champion
Initiatives Exercise Discussion
• Share your ideas and see who here
might have relevant experiences to
share with you
Building New Programs
• has political and technical aspects
• Requires leadership
– one or more committed advocates who are
willing to do the work
• The results may take much longer than
you think they should
Building New Programs:
Key Elements
• Have a convincing rationale for change
– preferably with data
• Build consensus as needed
– within department, college, university
• Understand what is required
– Know the approval process at your
university
– Insinuate yourself into key committees
Building New Programs:
Consensus Exercise
Choose a scenario
• Let’s start an honors
program!
• Let’s introduce a new
course in Robotic
Rabbits!
• Let’s start a new
degree program in
digital forensics!
Choose a role
• The proposer
• The only antagonistic
• The apathetic
• Nothing but negative
• A supporter (at most
one per group)
Building New Programs:
Consensus Building Debriefing
• What worked?
• What tips do you need?
Discussion Questions
• I see growth potential in our department.
How should I promote change? Strategies
to make it happen.
• Are there certain roles or positions that are
better/worse to take if I’m interested in
future advancement? E.g., chairing
undergraduate curriculum committee vs.
faculty search?
Come to our BOF:
We Need Your Input!
• BOF: Designing a Senior Faculty
Career Mentoring Workshop: Let’s
Brainstorm
– Friday October 4, 2013
– 3:45-4:45pm, MCC 200-D-G
– Description: The goal of this BOF is to learn what resources would help
academic women continue growing their careers after Full Professor.
CRA-W runs career-mentoring workshops for undergraduate, graduate,
early and mid career researchers. Building on these successful
workshops, CRA-W is considering developing senior academic
leadership materials. We want to learn from the community what
training would help women continue to climb the academic career
ladder.
CRA-W Wants Your Feedback
• Please give us your feedback about
this session and any other CRA-W
mentoring sessions you have
attended
– http://alturl.com/z4gp9