Program Updates
Host Family Member and Seminar Speaker Janet Ferone Takes Fellows to Massachusetts Conference for Women
On December 6th and 7th, Janet Ferone, a former administrator of the Boston Public Schools and Boston-area chapter president of the National Organization for Women, arranged for two BU Humphrey Fellows—Alena Vachnová of Slovakia and Milena Vučinić of Montenegro, to join the 2017 Massachusetts Conference for Women.
The event has been sold out since long before the Fellows arrived in August, and it was amazing that Janet was able to make this happen. She, Alena and Milena had a fabulous time together, which included attending presentations such as these:
Viola Davis
An actress who rose out of "the absolute epitome of poverty" to become the first African American actress to win a Tony, Oscar and Emmy Award in addition to being the most Academy Award nominated black actress in history.
Meryl Streep
One of the most critically acclaimed actresses in the U.S. of the past forty years and co-founder of Mothers and Others, a consumer advocacy group that promotes sustainable agriculture. Streep is also actively involved in Women for Women International, the Committee to Protect Journalists, Donor Direct Action, Women in the World Foundation and Partners in Health.
Meryl Streep speaking during a lunch event
Gloria Steinem
A journalist and social political activist who became nationally recognized as a leader and a spokeswoman for the American feminist movement in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Steinem was a columnist for New York magazine and a co-founder of Ms. She is also a co-founder of the Women's Media Center, an organization that strives "to make women visible and powerful in the media."
Janet also brought four students from Boston Public Schools to attend the young women's program at the conference, and one was a young woman who had just moved to Boston from Bosnia two years ago. As Janet notes, "she was delighted to meet women from her part of the world and even have conversations in her native language. A lot of great connections all around."
Fall Semester Closes with Leadership Seminar and Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum Tour
On December 4th, we concluded the Fall Seminar program and leadership development series with a reflective final session over lunch, during which HHHP Director and Associate Professor of Organizational Behavior Jack McCarthy led the Fellows through a review of the semester's lessons and a series of related, reflective activities.
The centerpiece of this session was an exercise called Life Lines, in which the Fellows charted and then discussed with one another their professional, personal and family lives since the beginning of their careers, including projected their future goals for each of those three Life Lines.
Professor McCarthy also described in more detail the main leadership development activity of the spring term, a survey-based individual coaching session with our August Orientation Retreat Facilitator, Dr. Chris Roland. The Program will send a short survey to a list of about fifteen people that each Fellow believes can provide constructive, anonymous feedback on their leadership behaviors. The data will then be processed into a report, which will form the basis of each Fellow's discussion with Dr. Roland.
Following this session, we enjoyed a brisk walk over to the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum for a docent-led tour. The Gardner Museum houses an art collection of global importance. Taking it all in was a wonderful way to close our fall semester and look forward to the second half of our Fellowship Year together.
Professor Tom Anastasi and HHHP Director Jack McCarthy Lead Session on Conflict Resolution
On November 27th, Adjunct Assistant Professor Tom Anastasi joined BU HHHP Director and Associate Professor of Organizational Behavior Jack McCarthy in leading the Fellows through an engaging introduction to conflict resolution.
Dr. Anastasi has taught courses in the departments of Organizational Behavior, Marketing and Operations at the Questrom School of Business for over twenty years. He previously served as Interim Dean of Graduate and Continuing Studies at Daniel Webster College and managed the MBA Program as well as a number of other programs. He has completed research and authored books on negotiation and conflict resolution, interpersonal dynamics, international relations, and entrepreneurship.
Dr. Anastasi first provided an introduction to some basic models for thinking about conflict resolution. He explained, for example, that all conflicts result in one of five outcomes:
- win-lose
- lose-win
- lose-lose
- compromise
- win-win
Also, he explained that there are five styles of conflict management:
- Collaborating
- Competing
- Avoiding
- Accommodating
- Compromising
Dr. Anastasi emphasized that none of these strategies is superior in and of itself—that how effective they are depends on the context in which they are used.
Following Dr. Anastasi's brief lecture, the Fellows completed the Conflict Management Styles Assessment, and then Dr. Anastazi facilitated a discussion of the results. During the discussion, he noted the influence of sociocultural bias and explained that the U.S. is considered to have a culture that emphasizes compromising and avoiding styles of conflict management.
In closing remarks, BU HHHP Director Jack McCarthy underscored the critical value of this activity to the Fellows' leadership development.
Dr. Chris Roland and HHHP Director Jack McCarthy Lead Reflective Seminar Session
On Monday, December 20th, Dr. Chris Roland, a BU SED graduate and the facilitator of the BU HHHP's Orientation Retreat in New Hampshire last August, joined HHHP Director and Associate Professor of Organizational Behavior Jack McCarthy in leading the Fellows' group reflections on their experience since the beginning of the Fellowship year.
With Professor McCarthy's assistance, Dr. Roland led a number of exercises that engaged the Fellows in thinking about and discussing their successes and challenges of the past four months.
During the spring term, Dr. Roland will join us again as the program's series on leadership development continues. First the Fellows will obtain 360-degree feedback from their peers and colleagues both back home and in the U.S., and then they will individually meet with Dr. Roland to discuss the data.
Fellows, Coordinators and Host Families Visit Old Sturbridge Village
On November 18th, the Fellows, members of their families, and Coordinators gathered with a few host family members for a daylong excursion to Old Sturbridge Village, a living museum that re-creates life in rural New England from the 1790s to the 1830s. It is the largest living museum in New England, covering more than 200 acres (80 hectares). The property includes 59 antique buildings, three water-powered mills, and a working farm. It is a popular tourist and educational field trip destination. Costumed interpreters speaking in modern language help visitors understand 19th-century life.
Following a guided tour, we enjoyed a festive Thanksgiving feast on the premises, which included hard-carved turkey, mashed potatoes, butternut squash, vegetables, salad, cranberry sauce, rice pudding, and apple pie. Everyone then broke into small groups to stroll around the village, ride on a horse-drawn carriage, and observe various activities taking place inside the buildings.
Fellows Cheer On BU Women’s and Men’s Basketball Teams
On the evening of Friday, November 10th, team spirit was in the air as Fellows, host families, and staff got together to cheer on the the women's and men's basketball teams at the opening home games of the 2017–2018 season. We thank Al Petras—a BU alumnus, former SVP of Bank of America, and HHHP seminar speaker and host family member—for arranging this vibrant and exciting evening for us on an otherwise very cold Friday night in Boston.
The doubleheader against Northeastern University started off with the women's team winning a 74 - 73 nail-biter. The men's team followed and fought hard, but they ended up losing 59-65.
Win or lose, it was a great evening for the Fellows and the Program. With the BU dance team, cheerleaders, marching band, and energetic fans, everyone got swept up in the excitement of Division I basketball. Al even arranged a visit by BU mascot Rhett at our seats!
Humphrey Fellows Kick Off International Education Week at Pine Manor College
On the evening of Monday, November 13th, BU Humphrey Fellows dined with students and faculty at Pine Manor College in what was Pine Manor's kickoff event of International Education Week.
International Education Week is a joint initiative of the U.S. Departments of State and Education during which schools, colleges and universities, embassies, businesses, and other organizations throughout the country celebrate the benefits of international education and exchange.
The event began with remarks by President Tom O'Reilly, an experienced business leader, teacher, former President of the Boston School Committee, and a big fan of Hubert Humphrey's. With Fellows flanking him on both sides, O'Reilly spoke about the significance of Hubert Humphrey's legacy and the spirit of international education at Pine Manor. Then each Fellow, accompanied by a student assistant, joined tables where other students were already seated and enjoyed conversations well into the evening.
Pine Manor has one of the most diverse student populations in the United States. As the Fellows and students dined on international cuisine specially prepared for the event, they enjoyed wide ranging conversations about their respective backgrounds, future goals, and the world at large. Many of Pine Manor's first-year students enrolled in the seminar Living in a Multicultural World were present, and this topic was also broadly discussed.
It was inspiring to see everyone bond so well with one another!
We thank William Stargard, Professor of Art History and Assistant Dean of Faculty Development and Teaching Excellence, and Michele Ramirez, Professor of Psychology, for organizing this wonderful event in the spirit of international exchange.
We were also delighted that Josiane Sylvie Mbakop Noukeu of Cameroon, a member of the 2016–2017 cohort at BU who is still in Boston completing an extension of her Fellowship, was able to join us for this event. Josy connected with the new cohort and had a great time speaking with Pine Manor students.
We were further delighted to realize that President Tom O'Reilly and HHHP Director Jack McCarthy were high school classmates at the Boston Latin School, the oldest and first public school in the United States. It is a small world indeed!
BU and MIT Fellows Meet with Barbara Kellerman at Harvard Kennedy School
On November 8th, Dr. Barbara Kellerman, James MacGregor Burns Lecturer in Public Leadership at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government, met with BU and MIT Fellows and coordinators to discuss how leadership is conceptualized and taught in the 21st century.
Kellerman began by summarizing her last seven books as a way of conveying how her thinking about leadership has developed since she joined the faculty at Harvard eighteen years ago:
- Bad Leadership stresses the importance of understanding inefficient, corrupt, and evil leadership—topics about which the "leadership industry" (as she calls it) offers little insight.
- Followership grew out of Bad Leadership. As Kellerman explained, "you cannot have a bad leader without at least one bad follower." Kellerman broadly defines followers as "subordinates who have less power, authority and influence than do their superiors and who therefore, usually but not invariably, fall into line." In this book, she describes the increasing power of followers and why followership should be studied no less rigorously than leadership.
- Women in Leadership is a volume that Kellerman edited. She did not describe her views on this topic, as she said it would derail our discussion given the limited time we had.
- Leadership: Essential Selections on Power, Authority, and Influence is an edited volume that grew out of a course Kellerman developed for the Kennedy School—an anthology of what she considers truly great writings on leadership by Confucius, Plato, Marx, Paolo Freire, Hannah Arendt, and others. Kellerman lamented that most books and courses on leadership treat the subject in an embarrassingly superficial way, jumping straight to the "how to" without first building a broad intellectual understanding of power, authority and influence.
- The End of Leadership describes how changes in culture and technology have rendered followers more enlightened and emboldened than ever before in human history.
- Hard Times: Leadership in America, reveals Kellerman's current thinking and the focus of her Kennedy School course, The Leadership System. Kellerman no longer contemplates leadership on its own, but rather within a systemic relationship involving the leader, the followers, and the context—three elements that exert equal influence over one another. She underscores the importance of context in particular and stresses that there is no cookie-cutter approach to great leadership, as is claimed by many popular books, workshops and courses.
- Professionalizing Leadership (forthcoming 2017) addresses questions of how one actually should learn how to lead, calling for a much more serious approach to leadership development education than is currently practiced.
Following Kellerman's remarks, representative BU and MIT Fellows summarized the slide presentations that they delivered at the Humphrey Fellowship Program's Global Leadership Forum (GLF) last week in Washington, DC. The BU Fellows had presented on "Investing in an Inclusive Global Society," and the MIT Fellows had presented on "Re-imagining Globalization."
Kellerman asked what action plans the Fellows had following the GLF, and the Fellows expressed that they hoped they could help consolidate and mobilize the Humphrey Program's global network of 5,600 alumni to collectively bring about positive global change. Kellerman urged the two cohorts to get together more than just occasionally over the course of the Fellowship year, and to see if they could come up with a concrete agenda. She heartily endorsed the idea of forming a study group to build an intellectual understanding about leadership using readings such as those included in book #4 above.
Kellerman also praised Hubert Humphrey and said that it is a credit to Humphrey Fellows that their program has been named after such a great leader.
HHHP Director McCarthy Leads Seminar Session on Leadership
On November 6th, Associate Professor of Organizational Behavior and Director of the BU HHHP Dr. Jack McCarthy led a seminar session entitled "Perspectives on Leadership."
McCarthy's lecture began with a video clip of an iconic dance performance by Fred Astaire and Eleanor Powell from the 1940 Hollywood film, Broadway Melody set to the song, "Begin the Beguine." McCarthy explained that, even though that dance is widely considered the greatest tandem dance performance in Hollywood history, Eleanor Powell was not a professional dancer. She had been a competitive tap dancer in high school, but as McCarthy described, that had been the extent of her experience. Fred Astaire had been assigned to work with Powell because his usual partner, Ginger Rogers, had a conflicting commitment with another movie at that time. McCarthy invited the Fellows to consider how Astaire, the most talented dancer in Hollywood at the time, succeeded in working with a relative novice to achieve such incredible results, and what leadership lessons could be learned from his example.
This discussion led to McCarthy's description of the Johari Window, a technique that helps people to better understand their relationship with themselves and others. 
McCarthy explained that, through feedback and disclosure, we can reduce the "blind" and "unknown" areas—the information about ourselves that we do not know, and the information about ourselves that others do not know. Fred Astaire and Eleanor Powell had a contentious relationship, but they communicated well and built a shared vision of the performance they sought to achieve.
In addition to their effective collaboration, there were a number of innovative support mechanisms involving the stage and orchestra setup that were also instrumental in their success.
The seminar then continued with discussions about how trust and respect are required in order for feedback and disclosure to happen, and that leadership begins with values. McCarthy invoked the DWYSYWD principle—"Do What You Say You Will Do"—and emphasized that "the leader holds the brush that paints the picture of where we are going."
The Fellows then engaged in a number of exercises designed to promote self-awareness and dialogue. They shared stories of when their leadership was tested, and then McCarthy described the case of CVS and its decision to discontinue cigarette sales—one of the most widely reported corporate social responsibility stories in recent memory—as an example of values-based decision making. He concluded by urging Fellows to be clear on their values and vision, and to articulate them in ways that will inspire others to want to join them. That, he emphasized, is the leadership challenge of today.
2017–2018 Fellows Meet with 2017 Echidna Global Scholars at the Brookings Institution
On November 3rd, our cohort met with Echidna Global Scholars at the Brookings Institution in Washington, DC.
The Echidna Global Scholars Program is a visiting fellowship hosted by the Center for Universal Education (CUE) at the Brookings Institution. The program aims to build the research and analytical skills of NGO leaders and academics who have substantial experience and ties to developing countries. Echidna Scholars spend four to six months at Brookings pursuing research on global education issues, with a specific focus on improving learning opportunities and outcomes for girls in the developing world.
Last year, the Brookings Institution hosted our cohort to meet with 2016 Echidna Global Scholars including Mr. Ganga Gautam of Nepal, a 2010–2011 BU Humphgrey Fellow.
This year, the Fellows enjoyed a vibrant discussion with Brookings' four new Echidna Global Scholars:
Dasmine Kennedy | Jamaica
Assistant Chief Education Officer, Educational Planning Unit in the Ministry of Education
Dasmine’s work spans approximately 22 years in the field of education, both at the classroom and policy levels. She has been instrumental in several research undertakings to ensure system-wide improvement in educational quality, including an analysis of the multigrade system in Jamaica. While at Brookings, Ms. Kennedy has been assessing the effectiveness of the Jamaican Policy for the Reintegration of School-Aged Mothers.
Armene Modi | India
Founder, Ashta No Kai
Armene founded Ashta No Kai (ANK), a non-profit organization to educate and empower rural women and girls in 10 villages near Pune, India, in 1998. Ms. Modi’s research at Brookings evaluates the impact of ANK’s interventions over the last fifteen years to empower and improve the educational outcomes of adolescent girls, while also preventing their early marriages. It also focuses on examining changing gender perceptions in the rural communities in which ANK works.
Maria Cristina Osorio Vázquez | Mexico
Professor, Universidad Anáhuac Mayab, School of Economics and Business
Professor of Public Administration, School of Economics at Universidad Autónoma de Yucatán in Mérida
Maria Cristina has led several projects in women’s economic empowerment, and is the author of several research papers focused on the advancement of women’s and indigenous people’s participation in education, business, and politics in Mexico as a way to create equal opportunity for all of Mexican society. Ms. Osorio’s research at Brookings aims to fill an important gap in girls’ education research by addressing the challenges and barriers to girls’ education in Mexico, particularly for Maya girls living in remote areas of the Yucatán peninsula.
Damaris Seleina Parsitau | Kenya
Associate Professor and Researcher and the Director of the Institute of Women, Gender, and Development Studies, Egerton University
Dr. Parsitau has over twenty years’ experience in teaching, research, leadership training, advocacy, affirmative action, and mentorship. Dr. Parsitau is the founder and convener of the Kenya Women Rising, and the Youth and Transformational Leadership Development Programs, both leadership and mentorship incubation programs that invest in women and youth. Her research at Brookings will contribute much-needed data on the status of girls’ education in Maasailand, as well as stakeholder perceptions on the value of girls’ education in the face of Maasai culture and change.
The Fellows and Echidna Global Scholars enjoyed a wide-ranging discussion that addressed broad, philosophical dimensions of gender equality as well as the specific research that the Echidna Global Scholars are pursuing at the Brookings Institution. The Fellows also reported on issues related to the education of girls and women in their respective countries as well as the relevance to economic development.
It was a fruitful discussion that left both Fellows and Scholars interested in each others' programs!