This event is for those who identify as women.
With the HE sector at such a pivotal moment, we must take stock as to what has been learnt from the past, what no longer serves us in the present, and what could lie ahead for us to cultivate, as we balance professional advancement and wellbeing.
Continual reporting of the state of HE leadership illuminates why leadership practices must evolve. For example, a global survey of 428 senior university leaders and faculty members from 87 countries (Elsevier, 2024) found most academic leaders want to see “improvements in the equity of their hiring and recognition processes”. Another headline reads “female academics took almost 15 years longer than men to progress to full professorships at top UK Universities on average”, research based on HE Statistics Agency data of Russell Group universities 2004/5 to 2019/20, Harris, Mate–Sanchez-Val and Ruíz-Marín, 2024).
This connects to the wider fluctuating context of EDI / DEI, as we hear stories of Ivy League institutions in the US, suing the incumbent administration over claimed violations of First Amendment rights, and experienced realities at work, such as the metaphoric ‘glass cliff’.
Using these as cultural red flags for this CHEAD Women in Leadership seminar, we have invited two inspirational women, to provide keynotes as activism and the gift of a provocation for us to debate in breakout “circles”.
We ask in preparation, if you might think around the following as “seed” thoughts for this generative seminar:
- What are you noticing on your own professional horizon as an academic leader in the design / arts sectors?
- What issue(s) do you consider most urgent, to have an open conversation about, advocate for and rise to?
- How can we utilise our whole self, experiences, rights and capabilities in our professional lives?
- What can we do to articulate and model our own distinctive and unique styles of leadership within our local ecologies of power?
- How can we utilise our personal agency to challenge established professional frameworks, crack institutional and social codes?
- What instrumental tools can we use to strategically cracking the codes, and nourish our potential as transformational leaders?
Keynotes
The Silent Roar: The Power Within, The Change Beyond, Women Redefining Leadership - Jenny Garrett, OBE
Strategic Alignment: Preparing Your Promotion Application - Caron Gentry, Professor and Inaugural Head of School of Global Affairs, Lancaster University
Breakout sessions
Between the Self and the System
Facilitators: Dr Catherine Glover and Sandra Booth, CHEAD Director of Policy and External Relations
Navigating Progression Criteria
Facilitators: Professors Catherine Dormor and Caron Gentry
Session Schedule
10:00 Introduction to the session: Professor Catherine Dormor
10:05 Introduction to Jenny Garrett OBE, Dr Catherine Glover
10:10 Jenny Garrett OBE – Keynote: The Silent Roar: The Power Within, The Change Beyond, Women Redefining Leadership
10:30 Introduction to Professor Caron Gentry, Professor Catherine Dormor
10:35 Professor Caron Gentry – Keynote: Strategic Alignment: Preparing Your Promotion Application
10:55 BREAK
11:10 Breakout groups responding to Keynote’s starter provocation:
Option Group 1) “Between the Self and the System” – facilitators: Dr Catherine Glover and Sandra Booth, CHEAD Director of Policy and External Relations
Option Group 2) “Navigating Progression Criteria” – facilitators: Professors Catherine Dormor and Caron Gentry
12:00 BREAK
12:15 Summary/Round Up – Actions to take forward
12:45 Close
Jenny Garrett OBE is an empowering Coach & Leadership Development Consultant dedicated to helping women cultivate the confidence and voice needed to lead effectively. One client aptly described her impact as providing 'a yoga stretch for your career'.
Her extensive experience includes nine years facilitating the Advance HE Aurora Programme, Adaptive Leadership day, directly contributing to the development of countless women in Higher Education, and coaching senior leaders within the sector.
With over two decades of experience running a successful global consultancy focused on leadership, talent, and EDI, and as the author of Equality vs Equity and Rocking Your Role: A Guide to Success for Female Breadwinners, Jenny offers practical, real-world strategies to unlock potential and ensure women are heard.
Her specialisms in diversity, inclusion, and leadership coaching are recognised by her OBE for services to Entrepreneurship and Women in Business.
Caron Gentry is a professor and the inaugural Head of School of Global Affairs at Lancaster University. Her main areas of research are gender and terrorism and feminist political theology. She has previously served as Head of School of International Relations at the University of St Andrews and Pro Vice -Chancellor for the Faculty of Arts, Design, and Social Sciences at Northumbria University.
Catherine Dormor, PhD, FRSA is the Pro Vice-Chancellor and Head of College: Design, Creative & Digital Industries and Professor of Textile Practices & Feminisms at the University of Westminster, London, and Chair of the Women in Leadership Working Group for CHEAD. She is Co-Convenor of the Cracking the Code event.
Catherine Glover, PhD is a Faculty Director of Access and Participation and Assistant Professor of Fashion, Product and Heritage at University of Northumbria, Newcastle and member of the CHEAD Women in Leadership Working Group. She is Co-Convenor of the Cracking the Code event. Cat describes her own leadership style as “embodied leadership”, which entails leading from an embedded positionality, integrated body–mind and in connection with the holistic ecosystem. Catherine looks to empathic curiosity, eco-social principles and convergence of wellbeing, balance, personal values, community, and purpose.
