Women's Leadership for Inclusive Excellence
By Caryn McTighe Musil
Association of American Colleges & Universities

Multiculturalism and inclusion have always been at the heart of all of Campus Women Lead's (CWL) work, and the group of high-powered women who gathered in Seattle, Washington in June 2005 to launch CWL's new project, Women's Leadership for Inclusive Excellence, was a reflection of this commitment. These women, who came together at the invitation of CWL, represented a full cross-section of American diversity. There was no majority racial group at the meeting, and attendees came from myriad different cultural, class, and religious backgrounds.

Designed by the Steering Committee of Campus Women Lead, formerly the National Initiative for Women in Higher Education, the project aims to develop a new model for leading in academic institutions that will help the academy tap the rich educational assets of all of its students, faculty, staff, and administrators to create the learning and workplaces we need for the 21st century. A group of 26 women invited from around the country gathered at the University of Washington for the two-day retreat, hosted by Dr. Nancy "Rusty" Barcelo, Vice President for Diversity at the University of Washington.

The Goals of the Women's Leadership Project
Convinced that women's power has not been fully tapped as a resource for building the kind of institutions a diverse, stratified, and interdependent world requires, CWL initiated the Women's Leadership Project for Inclusive Excellence. Its initial goal is to design workshops and institutes that mobilize women to be transformational leaders at all levels on campuses, preparing them to build and lead more inclusive institutions.

The campus-based workshops and institutes are currently focused on two principal areas: creating effective multicultural alliances for inclusive excellence and enhancing capacities to do institutional structural analysis to develop stronger, more inclusive colleges and universities. The project includes two more curriculum design meetings: one in October preceding the American Council on Education's Educating All of One Nation conference and the other in January, probably linked to the Association of American Colleges and Universities Annual Meeting, Demanding Excellence. CWL hopes it might offer pilot workshops led by experienced professional practitioners in the late spring, summer, and fall of 2006.

What do you think?
CWL is especially interested in hearing from the field how we might best structure these workshops and institutes to facilitate women's leadership. We invite OCWW readers to let us know what you think should be included in such workshops:

• What issues continue to hamper your ability to move toward an institution that expects the best from all of its students?
• What areas would improve your ability to lead more effectively across multiple kinds of differences for inclusive excellence?
• What format would be most amenable for women leaders on your campus? Three-hour workshop? One-day workshop? Two-day institute?
• Do you think your institutions would invite and pay national workshop leaders to come to your campus with this kind of resource?
• Who would be the person/s on your campus to contact to make such an inquiry?

Please send any responses or feedback to Amy Addams at AAC&U (addams@aacu.org).