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NILD Leadership Development Programs to Continue

Dr. Carolyn Desjardins

Change is constant. Without it, a human or organization will stagnate or die. Change is usually difficult, often painful and frequently resisted. But in many situations, it’s the organism’s only hope for survival.

Such is the case with the National Institute for Leadership Development (NILD). Acknowledging the continued need for its long-respected programs, the NILD board has recently “re-engineered” the organization.

Although NILD will no longer exist as an entity, its programs will be dispersed to various community colleges and to the American Association of Women in Community Colleges (AAWCC).

According to a July 23 press release by the AAWCC, “The spirit of NILD will live on in all of the organizations that have now become channels to further the original mission and vision of the National Institute for Leadership Development.”

The goal is to preserve the intent of the NILD leadership development programs that have changed the lives of the more than 6,000 women who have participated in them.

NILD herstory

Created 28 years ago through a Department of Education FIPSE grant, NILD has been based at Phoenix College, one of the Maricopa Community Colleges in Arizona.

The FIPSE proposal, which sought two years of startup funding, was co-written by Dr. Mildred Bulpitt—who retired from the Maricopa Community College District as assistant to the chancellor—and Terry O’Banion, now president emeritus of the League for Innovation in the Community College.

The grant funded Bulpitt’s vision: Get more women into community college leadership. The idea came at a 1979 board meeting of the American Association of Women in the Community College (AAWCC). Members learned that within a few years several hundred male community college presidents would be retiring.

A significant opportunity for more women presidents would come, but Bulpitt and others realized that few women were ready for it. Despite AAWCC encouraging women to seek administrative jobs, there still wasn’t enough depth in the pool of candidates.

The grant funded the program Leaders for the Eighties, which was the start of NILD. “Maricopa was extremely supportive and allowed me to administer it,” said Bulpitt. She hired its first executive director, the late Dr. Carolyn Desjardins, who was also at Maricopa. If Bulpitt’s strengths were in administration, Desjardins was the program’s heart and soul. And spirit.

More than 400 women applied for some 30 spots in the first Leaders for the Eighties workshop.

There were nuts-and-bolts sessions on budgeting, fundraising and strategic planning as well as a softer track. Desjardins, who studied at Harvard University with Carol Gilligan, made sure to include sessions on women’s ways of leading, research on the characteristics of women, soul-searching, spirituality, mentoring and networking.

“She was a powerful figure in our lives and a huge inspiration,” said Dr. Priscilla Bell, president of North Idaho College. “She was very intellectual and a personal force for us.”

From the first workshop on, all participants were required to commit to a project they would complete on their campus, with help from a mentor. This was intended to push them out of their comfort zone, gain them recognition at their home school and prime them for more responsibility.

Word soon got out that this was something special. Leaders for the Eighties evolved into the week-long Leaders Institute, which eventually trained 50 women at six locations across the country each year.

How it works

A community college presidency was not necessarily every participant’s goal. Admission required only a master’s degree and a desire to explore one’s own leadership potential.

Community college presidents could nominate one or two women annually. Many of the presidents had actually been participants in the initial years of the program and recognized how it had transformed their lives and careers.

Some participants would return to their schools enthused and driven to reach for the first or the next rung of the administrative ladder. Others, although glad for the experience, chose to lead from the classroom or at their current level. All were grateful to have connected with the group of like-minded women with whom they could share their hopes, dreams and challenges.

The pool of talented women was beginning to grow. And the pipeline was producing solid women candidates for all types of administrative positions. As Dr. Patricia Donohue, president of Mercer County Community College in New Jersey and a 1986 participant in Leaders for the Eighties, said, “We knew we would never bridge to more women presidents until we have an adequate pool of vice presidents below.”

Donohue noted that before the creation of NILD and Leaders for the Eighties, most women assumed that if they did their jobs well, they would be recognized and promoted. But leadership meant a broadening of one’s skill set, not just doing more or better of the same work, so NILD set out to correct that assumption.

Then NILD created The Next Step, a program for women ready to take the “next step” to the presidency.

Economic pressures

After 28 years of being based and supported extensively by the Maricopa district and its chancellor, NILD leaders recognized that Maricopa had given very generously and it was time for them to find other resources.

Other factors were the early retirement of executive NILD director Dr. Carrole Wolin due to health problems, an interim director and program director whose roles ended in June of this year and increased competition in providing leadership development specifically to women.

NILD had struggled with its identity for some time and a natural transformation was underway. Could the transformation be managed or would it destroy not only the group but its programs?

The NILD board met to determine its fate. It conducted a survey of Leaders Institute and CEO Forum participants to determine if the programs were still needed.

It found that the need remained and discussion moved to how to serve that need. “We found that women did not want to give up some of the important activities that NILD was involved in, but felt they could be better served in other ways,” said Dr. Marsi Liddell, chair of the NILD board and president of Aims Community College CO. The board decided to retain the programs’ intent but change the administration and delivery, and reassign the programs to be based at various colleges.

• The Leaders Institute programs will move to the Community College of Baltimore County. Dr. Barbara Tower, assistant to the VP of enrollment and student services in the school of health professions, is the new Leaders Institute administrator.

• The CEO Forum will move to Harrisburg Area Community College PA and then elsewhere around the country. Next it will travel to either Dr. Liddell at Aims Community College or to Dr. Mary Spilde, president of Lane Community College OR.

• Kaleidoscope, a leadership development program for women of color, will remain at Coastline Community College CA and continue to be led by Dr. Ding-Jo Currie.

• Other professional development programs will return to the AAWCC, which has been a strong supporter of NILD programming.

The NILD Foundation was dissolved and remaining funds were distributed to support programs. Board members have agreed to serve in an advisory capacity.

Alumnae praise NILD programs

Not surprisingly, the NILD decision has resulted in some pain. “When you talk about relocating something, there are a lot of emotions involved,” said Tower. Women who’ve gone through the Leaders Institute still speak of themselves as “sisters” and sing its praises.

“Mildred Bulpitt and Carolyn Desjardins made you believe you could do things you didn’t think you could do,” said Spilde. “They were wonderful mentors. I wouldn’t be in this job as president if it weren’t for NILD.”

For Carolyn Hershberger, who retired in 2007 as VP of information services at Green River Community College WA, NILD was “a shining light.” “It was the most incredible experience of my life,” she said of her Leaders Institute participation in 1991. “It put me on my path toward a wonderful career.”

Hershberger attended because she wanted to become a VP, not a president. “There was this incredible network of women doing the same things you were doing all over the country,” she said. “You had connections. It made life a whole lot easier.”

Dr. M. Valeriana Moeller, president of Columbus State Community College OH, attended Leaders for the Eighties and various professional development workshops, and has been a Leaders Institute faculty member. “I felt affirmed and safe to pursue training in areas that I needed to develop,” she said. “Women need a safe place to discuss and learn from the experience of others, whether it is about developing a budget or knowing how to handle emotionally charged situations.”

As she gained self-confidence, Moeller took more risks, improved her skills and finally “began to see myself capable of being a college president.”

North Idaho College’s President Priscilla Bell considers the NILD experience “irreplaceable,” saying, “I don’t think I would have seriously considered a presidency without those experiences.”

After much cajoling, WIHE editor Mary Dee Wenniger attended a weeklong Leaders Institute in Nashville TN in March 1997, the last one Carolyn Desjardins was physically able to lead. “It literally changed my life, leading me to pay more attention to my spiritual side and enabling me to expand my thinking and feeling, and create new relationships,” she said. “Since Carolyn and I shared the same birthday of June 6, the term Leader Sisters had a whole new meaning for me.”

Dr. Sandra Kurtinitis, president of the CBCC that will continue the Leaders Institutes, looked back at her experience with NILD: “It was a galvanizing experience for me moving from faculty status to focusing my efforts at the administrative level. In some ways I feel honored in continuing a tradition that was so formative for me.”

What to expect

At CBCC, 25 professional women including Tower have attended the Leaders Institute. The school intends to keep the program there for three years while developing a template that will allow it to move around the country and remain financially solvent.

“We have revised the curriculum for the Leaders Institute and based it on the AACC competencies for community college leaders,” said Tower. “There will be much more of a focus on content, data-driven decision-making, managing change. But we’re keeping the piece that keeps women leaders more self-aware.”

A new curriculum created last year is the result of collaboration between interim director Dr. Martha Romero and interim program director Dr. Ethel Rogers, both of the Claremont Graduate School in California.

Letters are scheduled to go out this month inviting community college presidents to nominate women for the Leaders Institute on June 7-11, 2010. Bulpitt plans to attend.

Dr. Constance Carroll, chancellor of San Diego Community College District and a board member, is optimistic about the programs’ future. “Given its past success and its ability to adapt to changes, contexts and situations, the future of NILD programming is a bright one. It will continue to focus on women, since this population still faces discriminatory practices and still can benefit t from a program that is precisely tailored to their needs and prospects for advancement.”

Contact Tower at
btower@ccbcmd.edu  or 443.840.1018

Santovec, Mary Lou. (2009, October). NILD leadership development programs to continue. Women in Higher Education, 18(10), 1-3.

Copyright 2009, Women in Higher Education