9/28/11 Networking and "Inner circles"

So for class last week we had one of our readings about a leadership style that consisted of having two groups, one that was the"inner circle" and an "outer circle".  I dislike this leadership style but I can see why people would use it.  I dislike it because for the people who are in the "outer circle" it can cause feelings to be hurt and bring about tension and harsh feelings on the part of the "outsiders" towards the "insiders".  I have had experience as a member of both groups, and while being a member of the leader's group of "go-to" people makes you feel great and think it is a really good way of doing things.  When you are on the "outside" it can make you feel really bad and not perform to the best of your abilities.  While reading this chapter I couldn't help but think about and episode of The Office.  In this episode Will Farrell plays a character who is attempting to be the new manager after Michael Scott leaves, and Farrell is doing his best to attempt to find his leadership style.  He decides that he is going to select a group of the men in the office and make them his "go-to" guys.  This move caused wide spread panic across the office and for a number of reasons, including this leadership style, Farrell's character was no longer manager or even part of the company by the end of the episode.

I would also like to make a note of how awesome my group for the activity was, we worked so well together and helped each other in the conversations, so Bailey and Katelyn, thank you!

I really enjoyed the speakers and felt that they did a good job of making us engaged and interested and they did so by utilizing their skills at networking.  I really enjoyed listening to them even though I may not know much about their respective fields, for example I know nothing about being a patent lawyer, but they still made me feel engaged.  They also did a really good job of giving us really good advice, which I found very helpful.
That is all for this week, I will let you know how tonight's class goes! Not that i expect anything but great like all of our speakers have been.

Volunteering at the WELD Conference

Okay, so I just got back from the women leadership conference and I have to say I really enjoyed volunteering, I am so glad I did it.  I was with the session about nonprofit boards.  While I know ZERO about boards, being on a board or running one I feel like I learned a lot.  The women on the panel all had very unique experiences with being on boards, public boards, profit focus boards, and those not for profit.  I will admit I was very nervous about this, because I had no idea what I was supposed to be doing and I didn't want to look like an idiot in front of all of these strong women.  I walked into the room where our session was being held, which happened to be our old classroom, and there were three women already there, two of the three panelists and the woman in charge of running the session.  I took a minute to talk to them and asked them if they needed anything but all they needed help was passing out the literature that they brought with them and asked me to please join the session.  I felt kind of silly because I put a pile of the handouts at every space in the room only to find that the approximately 10 women who had joined us in the room were everyone that would be attending this session.  I took a seat out of the way but close enough to the cluster of attendees so that I could listen easily.  When the session began and the speakers had introduced themselves they asked all of the attendees to say introduce themselves as well.  As they went around the room I was surprised at how many of the attendees were from Otterbein, at least 50%, and it was interesting to hear each persons individual reasons for being in the session.  When the woman who sat two seats away from me, as I left an open seat since I wasn't actually part of the group, everyone looked at me to introduce myself.  I introduced myself and that I was a freshman here at Otterbein and that I was part of president Kredl's class and how I was only a volunteer, all of the women, particularly those on the panel, started talking at once telling me how I was more than a volunteer, that I should think more of myself, and how I was doing a very important thing.  I am sure they said other things but with everyone talking at once it was really hard to understand everything.  As the session progressed I figured out that one of the panelists and one of the attendees were involved with my old school district.  The attendee was Melissa Conrath, who was the superintendent of Worthington schools.  I was really excited to speak to her as soon at the session ended and as soon as I said "hi, my name is Katie Baldwin, and I recently graduated from Worthington Kilbourne" and as I went on to say more she interrupted me to say "weren't you at the academic signing this past spring?" I was so surprised that she remembered me, especially because on that very day when I was up on stage to speak and to sign my letter of acceptance the principal whom I had interacted with numerous times didn't know who I was and I had to repeatedly tell him my name as he kept trying to give me the papers with someone else was supposed to sign.  It was rather embarrassing, I had to tell him three times no that isn't me, so when Melissa Conrath remembered me and knew who I was I was shocked.  She then went on to tell me that she remembered me talking about going to Otterbein, she was so happy to see me here and that she would be coming to work here herself as she was stepping down as superintendent in Worthington.  We went on to talk about how I was enjoying studying here and how my classes were.  As we concluded our conversation she told me to keep in touch and she looked forward to seeing me again.  I know that it was an insignificant conversation to her but just knowing that a woman who had seen me once, and whom I had never talked to before remembered me was a great way to end my day at the conference!

Okay so I saved this post to put up today before class and I totally forgot so here is my post from the past week! SORRY!

September 7th, 2011 first speakers

I really enjoyed our first session of speakers, they were all very interesting.  I would like to take this opportunity to thank our speakers:

Judy Carey Nevin, Melissa Gilbert, Mary DeGenaro, and Steven Grinch

 I found all of these speakers to be very interesting, but I will start at the beginning and with Judy Carey Nevin, our lovely research librarian.  I would like to thank her for setting up the room for us to be in, i know how difficult it is to accommodate such a large group such as ours.  I found her presentation to be very interesting and informative.  I had only been in the library once before and it had been for orientation so I found that having her speak to us about the library was very informative.  I had no idea that the library had so many different resources for the students at Otterbein University.  For example, I did not know that the library had bikes that students could borrow, and the wide variety of technology available to students was shocking!  However what i found to be the most amazing was how above and beyond the call of duty she had gone for our class, when she showed us the entire, I guess you would call it, website that she had set up specifically for our class I was blown away!  Just by looking at it you could clearly see the amount of time an effort she had put into making a resource for just our class!  This was true for all of our speakers, i was touched by the shear amount of work they had put into a presentation for our class, it must have taken them a long time.  This time, being time they took out of their already jam-packed days filled with work they must do for their jobs to do all of these things for us!  I digress, I really enjoyed Judy Carey Nevin's presentation and all of the cool things the library has and does for all of the students here, my only hope is that everyone takes advantage of all they do!

When Melissa Gilbert gave us the papers discussing our project we would be doing with volunteering and mentoring young(er) children in the area I must admit that I was worried.  I began to think, "how am I supposed to be able to do all of this?" and it seemed to be a daunting task. While I still feel it will be a lot of hard work and it is still a scary idea, when Melissa Gilbert had us do the activity about breaking down barriers I began to feel as if "Maybe I can do this" and I know that going throw that experience as the roll of the young girl facing all of these barriers and "road blocks" on my path to being the best me possible, I personally related to having to deal with, and currently dealing with, all of the barriers my peers represented.  However what I found the most helpful was when I took a moment and looked around and saw all of the other young women in the room relating to the barriers as well.  I know that everyone has to deal with these problems but when people actually talk about them and you can see that you are not alone, even people I would never have thought have had to deal with these problems were nodding their heads and relating.  I even noticed that our peer mentors and I believe I even saw Dr. Krendl relating and nodding her head along with us.  I know that I still face these and other barriers on a daily basis but knowing that there all all of these other strong women, who are in different places in their lives, have made it through it and are still going stronger than ever.  Knowing this leads me to think that yes, I will face hardship and I am sure there will be days I wonder if it is even worth it or if I will make it, but I can look back on that night and hopefully future experiences like it and know that I am not alone and that if they can make it, so can I.


okay so i wrote this last week and by looking at the other blogs posted i am going to stop here and possibly pick back up with it later.  I should probably post this lovely blog to facebook!