Illustration by J. Malmanger
Nationally known as well as locally known women give impressive interviews on leadership and how they got to where they are today.
MANKATO — Even just the idea had people excited.
When two women at Minnesota State University won a grant to post interviews with influential women as a series of podcasts, their goal of inspiring young women spread before the first megabyte went live.
"It was so exciting," says Deirdre Rosenfeld, director of MSU's Women's Center. "The publicity went out, and immediately people were saying, this is so exciting, I can't wait to take a look at it."
Rosenfeld, along with grant partner Kelly Meier, director of the Student Leadership Development and Service Learning office, conducted 12 interviews with both local and not-so-local women. All are available online at www.mnsu.edu/leadercast/.
The interviews offer a wideranging look at how the 12 women became leaders, what values they hold and what advice they have for young women who aspire to become leaders themselves.
The list includes nationally known women such as Kathy Najimy and Yolanda King. Local women include Sarah Person, Kelly Hughes Olson and Jean Haar. Others are Karen Borchert, Barbara Jo Davis, Catherine Reid Day, Monica Meyer, Rita Hookstead, Wanda Marie and Bernice Sandler.
The grant was part of an incentive program from the labor union that represents Meier, Rosenfeld and other administrative employees at public colleges and universities. The grant's goal was to come up with new ways to positively impact student learning. Having access to many influential women over the years, Meier and Rosenfeld decided to turn that access into something every woman — or man — could benefit from.
"We tried to think of what can we do, how can we reach students where they're at," Rosenfeld says. "This way, we can get words of wisdom directly to women students, and since it's Web based, it can go way beyond the campus community."
Adds Meier, "It's broader than our students, it's a community-wide women's resource. When we created the questions, we wanted topics like diversity, balance, risk-taking ... We tried to think about the pieces we would want to be taught and use those nuggets as a framework for discussions. When you have reflection connected to education, it's pretty powerful."
Each interview is broken down into chapters, so that listeners can take in the entire interview, or pick and choose the parts they want. Interviewees were chosen for their leadership qualities, and Meier and Rosenfeld tried to get a cross section of society.
Some run companies in corporate America, others have focused on nonprofits. Some have done ground-breaking research on a national level, others have defined civic engagement locally.
The pair are unsure whether they'll add to the list of podcasts. The original grant just covered the initial 12.
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