Day 3, Saturday, June 18th

Our first session was on "building leadership capacity". This is especially interesting to me. Our speaker talked about "learning and leading together", and about co-learners, co-members and co-leaders instead of a hierarchical organization. It was all about having a shared vision, reciprocity, engaging each other, the process of inquiery, participation, knowledge construction and reflection.

•  "When we equate the powerful concept of leadership with one person, we limit ourselves and others' participation. Dependency on a single person is doomed to failure."
 
• "Everyone has the potential and right to work as a leader. We all have leadership capacities." 
• "Leaders recognize the redistribution of power and authority"

Constructivist leaders:

• seek and value others' POV
• construct meaning thru reflection and dialogue
• structure the life of the organization around the big picture, not a single event

How is this done?

• Modeling
• coaching
• scaffolding
• articulation
• reflection

(sounds like teaching principles, doesn't it?)

Day 2 continued (Friday, June 17th)

As promised, here's my email to Mayor Sam Adams. I'll let you know his response once I receive it.

Dear Mayor Adams,

I don’t know you well, but I support you. I’m currently in Washington DC for some leadership training thru my union, the Nat’l Education Assoc. I am part-time faculty for Clackamas Community College and soon-to-be president of my local, the CCC Part-time Faculty Assoc. While here in DC inside the actual NEA building (Come see us! We’re at M Street and 16^th), my cadre and I got a chance to see some campaign work in action. It turns out that the NEA finds resolutions 52 and 53 (EASA and last & first out), brought to the floor by Mayors Villaraigosa and Johnson, problematic. I got the phone number of the Baltimore Hilton, but I was too busy to call you.  Now I’m writing to see if resolutions 52 and 53 passed or not.

I look forward to hearing from you,

After that, the staff us more about what they do, like various research and TEF (Tax Structures, Economic Dev Policies and Financing for Schools). They have a "desk" in each state, who follows political developments in that state, then communicates with the NEA in order to get support. Cynthia Kane, who is the Oregon Desk Rep, intoduced herself to me.

Leadership Theory and Practice

We sat in small groups and again tried to define leadership. BTW, this is more difficult than it looks. Next we learned about Leadership Evolution, which was punctuated with small group tasks like assessing the readiness of our local union members. I got some great ideas about how to reach the vast majority of our local, who does not participate. This includes surveys, F2F meetings, offering mentors and an orientation for new hires (not nec in this order...:-). We also identified and talked about our own core values and the core values of a union.

The next section describes some of the NEA departments we learned about:

NEA Student Programs
The NEA department that hosted this training. It incluses retired members, higher ed (that's us!), urban/rural initiatives and student programs (pre-service teachers). The student programs are run by each state affiliate. They are on 1100 campuses and have 70,000 members. Pre-service teachers join for a variety of reasons: they love community service, they are politically aware (not so active) and, in order to get liability insurance for student teaching.  They receive all the same benefits as regular members.

NEA Lobbyists
This session was hosted by a lobbyist from Government Relations. The NEA employs 7 lobbyists. There is also an inter-govermental team (state and local) and the Legislative Action Center (LAC): http://www.nea.org/home/LegislativeActionCenter.html. There you can become a Cyber-Lobbyist!
Collective Bargaining and Member Advocacy
Also known as CBMA. Our speaker has written three fact sheets on adjunct bargaining. I'll have to find them. His dept also adresses health care, pensions, salary campains, salary schedules and various databases.
Minority Outreach
We learned that ethnic students make up 40% of all students (probably K-12). They are Hispanic, African-Americans, Native Americans, and from Asia and the Pacific Rim. It's a "diversifying student pipeline". Therefore, we need more teachers of color. This dept provides a wealth of materials: working with undocumented students, lesson plans and workshops, event materials, travel and scholarships. See: http://www.nea.org/home/MinorityCommunityOutreach.html
Education Policy and Practice
This department writes policy recommendations, issue briefs, talking points, presentations and webinars. They have an online database in the Education Policy Resource Center (PPRC): http://www.nea.org/home/36271.htm. 
Bus Tour of DC
15 of us took the 4 hour hop-off bus tour around DC. It was fantastic because it was a good way for busy people to see a little bit of all the monuments and such. The bus was a double-decker with a see-thru ceiling too. And the driver was funny and knowledgable- a great guy. Hopefully, I hope I can remember everything we saw, much of what was new for me. We stopped at the the Jefferson, Washington and Lincoln monuments. All three are very big and impressive. We also drove by or stopped at the WWII, Korean, Vietnam war memorials and the Iwo Jima Memoria. I've always wanted to see these. We went to the Capital building too, where some demonstrators were protesting the recent San Francisco proposal to ban circumcision. "A foreskin is not a birth defect" read one large sign.

Day 3, Friday, June 17th

Dear PTFA'ers and Friends. Please note, I tried to highlite anything that pertains directly to part-timers (adjuncts) in yellow. Jennifer

Opening Circle
We had breakfast at 8:00am. I'm in love with the scambled eggs. Then the "opening circle" at 8:30, where we reported on what "struck" us yesterday. Very interesting to listen to all the folks talk. I shared that "I may be wrong but I'm never in doubt" re: my insistance we take salt tablets on our pretend journey to the desert (actually - lost in the desert).

Next we described our definitions of "leadership", which yielded many wonderful definitions. Too bad they are not written down somewhere. I defined "leadership" as "walking the walk" (as opposed to "talking the talk" or "talking the walk") and the fact that staying the course (thru all kinds of weather) will eventually out-shine the louder, grand-standing of the "Glen Becks" of the world. How about "quiet authenticity versus showmanship" as a partial definition? Here's the only other two I had time to write about. Leadership is:

• ...when to push, when to pull, and when to stand aside (my new motto- it's sort of like the Serenity Prayer...."and the wisdom to know the difference...)
• ...committed to the greater good (i.e. not ME!)

We were even given a brand new book called Leadership by Peter Northouse. We'll be reading and discussing certain chapters in the  months between session one and two. (session two will be in October, I think).

Part of this training involves some personality indicators (e.g. myers-briggs, MMPI).  One indicator we took before coming to DC is called DiSC, which I described in yesterday's blog. Someone asked if we could order the DiSC for our local boards (good question). The answer is yes. The cost is $25.00 per online test. If we order enough tests, Phadra may be able to get us a discount. This could be verrry helpful as a team-building exercise with our board and committee leaders.

NCHE= Nat'l Council for Higher Education (part of NEA)
Presented by Catherine Boudreau, NCHE VP (I used to have an ex brother-in-law named "Goodreau- I haven't thought of him in years). The NCHE is a caucus of the NEA with the express purpose of monitoring the NEA Board to make sure higher ed (HE) doesn't fall thru the cracks. This caucus is different from the Office of HE, which is part of Constituant Relations (CR). They track inside (NEA) and outside issues, like sub-contracting adjunct faculty, states losing the right to collec bargain, the right to collect dues thru payroll, and for-profit schools. NCHE:

• is an advocate for services, programs and funding
• promotes inclusion of Higher Ed at NEA conferences
• has online prof dev
• protects the integrity of academic work
• increases benefits and improves working conditions for adjuncts
• increases full-time tenure track positions

http://nea.org/he
http://www.nea.org/nche 

The upshot: the NEA is the membership, not the institution itself. In other words, the state (OEA) and national level can't fix local problems. But they can provide us with experience, support and resources (which leads to our next topic)

Campaign / War Room Visit
What a great opportunity to see the NEA in action, right now, today. This was one of my favorite activities so far! I'm so glad they included us. We (all 25 or so of us) all came into the space and found seats. It was a little crowded. Then we listened in on the normally scheduled 10:00 briefing  (telephone conf for those not in DC). This office really is hopping with action. For example, the U.S. Council of Mayors was meeting in Baltimore at that moment. They were voting on various resolutions, two of which were problematic for the NEA (ESEA stuff). One staff member briefed everyone- he would be going to the conference himself- meanwhile, other staff had each state involved call their mayors and ask them to table the motions for now. The people provided us with a list of mayor attending so we could call them too. Portland Mayor Sam Adams is here, but I was so busy, I couldn't call him. It's too late now, but I'll send him an email and see how it went....

Day 2: Thurs, June 16th

Where to start? What a wonderful day. I'm tired in the best way possible (and not over-tired). I don't want my text to be too dense, so I'll try to use bullets. And I'll leave out some things, like how good breakfast was or how nice the hotel is or how friendly everyone is. There's 21 people in our "cadre", by the way, from all over the US.

1. Finished icebreaker activity from last night, where each person explains their drawing. Most drawings depicted the sun, diversity, smiley faces, people, community, self, the world, lifting people up and each 1: teach 1.
2. Series of welcome speeches. "The NEA building is a candy-bowl of resources."
3. Brainstormed, then wrote a list of behavioral norms to follow, e.g. acknowledge diversity and be willing to learn from it; keep a positive and flexible attitude; respect each others' styles.
4. Desert Survival Situation (rank 15 items to survive in the hot desert): excellent group activity which teaches that "group-think" is far better than one individual's brain. For example, I insisted upon salt tablets & other items (gun, book on wildlife) that would have killed my group. Thank God, I didn't argue and in the end, as a group, we won the assignment by choosing the best items (e.g. pocket knife, topcoat, mirror, water, flashlight, etcetera).
5. Tour of the building- about 550 employees, 8 stories high, 19 conference rooms, some with high-tech gadgets, big place! It's your building, PTFA members!
6. Emerging Leaders Academy (ELA) will continue over 9 months. Therefore, our leader, Phadra gave us an assignment. We need to pick a "front team" of 5 people (out of 21) to go with Phadra to a planning and contract-writing/signing in (probably) California this October. Once the "front team" works out the logistics, we will all go help the community college (or univ) organize and plan prof development activities. Phadra won't tell us exactly how the "front team" needs to plan the "field work"; we have to pick a team and advice them of their role as the "front team".
7. We used a little time to develop a list of the criteria needed for our "front team". It consisted of things such as; experience managing people, tech skills, able to delegate tasks.
8. Fantastic speaker: The Vanishing Latino Male in Higher Education by Luis Ponjuan Ph.D. (univ of Florida / college of edu) .
9. Thomas-Kilman Conflict Mode Instrument: there are five different ways to respond to conflict ranging from low-stakes to high-stakes, and along a continuum (each) of cooperativeness and assertiveness. The five modes are: accomodating, avoiding,m compromising, collaborating and competing. The trick is learning which mode to use; in other words, different situations call for different modes. For example, it's okay to avoid conflict in low-stakes situations.
10. DiSC Classic 2.0: a behavioral assessment to help you relate to and/or manage people. Sort of like the MMPI, the DiSC maps out 4 areas: dominance, influence, conscientious, and steadiness. Most of my cadre scored high in "influence". We are outgoing, motivational, optomistic and social. The best thing about this tool is that we learned what we need from others; what is missing in our own personality. For example, "dominance" people need others who weight pros & cons, calculate risks, use caution, research facts and deliberate before deciding.
11. Dinner at Dekum Ethiopian Resturant, located on the "U" Street Corridor, which reminds me of trendy NW 21st Avenue in Portland. Afterwards, a long walk back to hotel (~20 blocks), chatting and looking at the interesting architecture.

More news tomorrow. Jennifer

ELA training- day 1 (Wed, June 15)

I got up at 3:40am, and caught a 6:00am flight to DC. I was able to upgrade to "business plus", so I had 5 inches more leg room :-) on the way to Chicago. After that, I was back in coach :-(. I got to my hotel by about 5:00pm. Boy, was I tired. But I got ready and went to the 6:00pm reception at the NEA building. Met lots of nice, interesting people while eating "light refreshments". Those "light refreshments" consisted of wings, breaded shrimp, beef, spring rolls, cheese, veggies and more! Even wine and beer. It was so nice to get a good meal after traveling all day. After socializing (everyone was so friendly!), we retired to a work room to introduce ourselves by commenting on the picture we had drawn at the interview (an icebreaker activity). It was fun. We're meeting tomorrow for breakfast at 7:30am. The first of 4 long, but fun days. Many folks have signed up for the Friday night tour too.

Kudos for what we do at community colleges - the other 90%

The Other 90 Percent
May 27, 2011, 2:33 pm

By Julie White

Anne Kress, president of Monroe Community College, recently reflected on the ways that data can — and can’t — capture the work we do at two-year colleges. As she pointed out, quantifiable data shows just 10 percent of what we do — the proverbial tip of the iceberg. After all, our “business (is) changing lives, opening doorways, deepening experiences, and engaging learners. The whole story is often a hard fought, lengthy, and epic one involving if not a cast of thousands at least a cast of dozens.”

As important as educational outcomes are, what keeps me excited about my work day after day are those moments from the other 90 percent, when I get to have a small part in that cast of dozens. A few examples:

■A faculty member notifies the student-services office of a phone message received from a distraught student. The student is off campus and in crisis, and we are able to connect her with our city’s mental-health crisis unit. She gains access to services for herself and her family. College counselors will remain connected with the student to aid her in her transition back to college when she is able to return.

■The college’s LGBTQ student club sponsors Pride Week. Students who have never spoken publicly about their sexual or gender identity deliver powerful performances of poetry, drag, and song. The crowd adores them all, and those students walk a little taller the next week, no longer feeling the need to hide a part of themselves when they come to the campus. That confidence spills over into their academic work.

■At graduation, I congratulate a student whom I met on her first day on the campus. She had been teary-eyed that day, saying, “I never thought I’d go to college,” when I told her that her placement test score was high enough for her to be admitted. No doubt faculty members, staffers, and her family and peers helped her persevere to complete her degree.

■Our student leaders’ Facebook accounts are all abuzz the day of the student-awards banquet, with discussions of who’s attending and what to wear. Some will be honored for their academic achievement, others for community service, others for student leadership. The full diversity of our students is evident here: I meet the parents of one student who had been homeschooled, the spouse of another, and the grandchild of yet another.

I met one of these students first via an e-mail, when he wrote to complain about the lack of publicity for a student event. I encouraged him to get involved, to help make a difference. He took me up on it, founded a club, and then became a peer leader, a student-government coordinator, a senator, and, eventually, vice-president of student government. He’s off to a four-year institution in New York next year, and will no doubt be a leader there as well.

Now that’s what keeps me coming to work every day.