Leadership capability workshop 2005

The third ATN WEXDEV leadership capability building workshop for 12 women academics with potential to be heads of academic units was held from Monday February 2005 to Wednesday 9 February 2005 at RMIT. RMIT and Curtin both nominated and funded an additional woman, with 3 attendees; the three other institutions each nominating 2. As the first group had in 2003, the women then attended the ATN conference.

The workshop was again extremely worthwhile, for the women, for me, for Susan Flint from RMIT who had done much of the setting up, and for Jane Clifford who sat in on some sessions while doing much of the background organising.

When asked which parts of the workshop were most helpful or useful, participants agreed strongly. They particularly appreciated a session by Julie Wells, Director of Planning at RMIT, who gave a succinct yet detailed picture of the current issues facing higher education. Julie was honest in her assessments of many changes, but remains optimistic about some of the strategies that ATN universities can adopt. The women really appreciated this 'big picture'.

Also successful were leadership stories presented by senior women from RMIT. Professor Gail Hart, PVC, Teaching and Learning spoke about her career history and encouraged the women to seize opportunities to change direction, as she had done, from a practitioner to a straight academic career and on to senior administrative positions. She also praised the opportunities she had been given to act in senior roles. Professor Joyce Kirk, PVC Student Services, spoke about the pleasures of an academic career, the interaction with students and the contributions of colleagues. She advised the women to complete PhDs and to take every opportunity to build their academic credentials - and not to be resistant to change. Professor Daine Alcorn, PVC of Science, Engineering and Technology gave an 'inspirational' presentation, in which she described her move from a position as a senior scientist, with her own lab, at Melbourne University, to the role she now has in which she has built a Division from a number of different Faculties, and participated in the change associated with that for her staff.

The women presenting were praised for their openness and honesty and for showing women a range of options for career pathways. This was also apparent in the presentation I gave from the WEXDEV research project, which shows not only the way that senior women have forged careers, but also emphasises the strengths that both men and women see that women bring to leadership positions. It was very pleasing to have our findings support by Dr Sara Charlesworth, from RMIT, who has also researched women's position in the workforce.

In other sessions I initiated a discussion about values and leadership in higher education and Susan Flint ran a session on conflict management. We also worked on some scenarios I had developed, presenting common issues facing women in making career choices and in running a school with multiple problems and issues. We also had a session with a consultant Jacqui Chapin who worked on questions of management.

As well during breaks and lunches and dinners, the women talked and exchanged experiences and uncertainties. One of the best things about these WEXDEV initiatives is that sense of a network developing, a network encouraging women to consider broader possibilities in their work.

We then moved on to 2 days of the ATN conference, also held at RMIT and focusing in 2005 on 'Building Partnerships, Finding Solutions - The ATN Workforce in Profile.

The conference this year had a cohesive set of papers. There were 2 excellent keynotes, one by Graeme Hugo on The University Workforce, pointing to the demographic changes likely with an ageing workforce; and from Simon Marginson on What Universities Will Look Like in 10 years' Time' which was challenging and controversial. In addition the 5 Vice-Chancellors gave excellent presentations on major issues - internationalisation, workforce planning, partnership, research and leadership, and there were presentations on future planning from the HR Directors and the Teaching and Learning Groups. For many of the workshop participants, the ATN conference was the first time they had understood the potential of this network, and most of them relished the opportunity to look at the 'big change issues'. In particular the major committee looking at University research may well produce significant changes.

A follow-up workshop was held for the women participants in the 2005 ATN WEXDEV leadership capability building workshop on 20-21 October at UTS.

Although 12 women had taken part in the original workshop, only 9 were able to attend the follow-up workshop. Ruth Marquis (Curtin) has been appointed Dean at the Curtin campus in Sarawak, Kathleen Gray (RMIT) had accepted a new position at University of Melbourne, and Dianne Bills (UniSA) had to have a minor operation.

The Program involved sessions that have consistently been successfully evaluated, such as presentations from senior women at UTS, reports from the participants and an opportunity to discuss in small groups a potential scenario. The participants were welcomed by the UTS Vice-Chancellor, Professor Ross Milbourne, which was greatly appreciated.

The major innovation was to introduce reports from peer projects in each university. These had been developed to encourage all 'graduates' of the Leadership Capability Workshops to meet in each institution, with 2 aims:

to allow individuals to explore practical management issues and report back to the group; and
to encourage the learning to take place with previous members of the Leadership Capability Workshops, so that each institution develops a group expertise and a network of women focusing on management issues.

Guidelines were adapted from those used by the University of Western Australia Leadership Development for Women program.

In February participants identified key issues for their institution, as follows:

Curtin: Prioritising issues and ensuring staff follow these. This was later adapted to a project Vision 2020 on planning for future participation of women in management.
QUT: Task management - delegation and responsibility.
RMIT: Change management - working with staff and students through restructuring of administrative and program structures.
UniSA: Developing mechanisms to influence institution's structural vision - influencing upwards.
UTS: Time management - how to structure time with the multiple hats involved in academic leadership positions.

During visits to each institution during the year, Colleen Chesterman met with the groups. Attendance reflected the demands on participants' time and the difficulty of attending sessions during brief windows of opportunity when Colleen was at the relevant institution. Nonetheless, groups were positive about making contact with others and the 2005 participants developed excellent presentations and discussion starters on their areas of interest. This exercise is also based on the assumption that women come to this workshop with considerable interests and skills. Most importantly, at both Curtin and UniSA groups developed research projects about the topics, one of which was submitted for funding to the Carrick Institute. The QUT project was impressively creative, the UTS one presented excellent practical suggestions and the RMIT project generated ideas for yet another research proposal, which is to be presented at the 2006 WEXDEV conference.

The evaluations suggest that we have successfully introduced suggestions from earlier workshops to include 'life-stories' from senior women, targeted to issues; to provide increased opportunities for participants to bring their own issues to the workshop and more time to discuss these; to develop useful 'case studies' in collaboration with participants, drawn from their own experiences and to work through problem solving of scenarios in groups. The 2005 evaluations have been our most positive responses and both workshop and follow-up were an absolute pleasure for participants.