This episode explores the lasting impact of women in higher education through the emerita role. Dr. Christine Hammond shares insights from her work with the Michigan ACE Network, highlighting the power of mentorship and community among women leaders. She reflects on the network’s growth and its commitment to supporting future leaders in an inclusive environment.

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Website: LCC Women's Network

Website: MI-ACE Women's Network

Hello and welcome to Leading the Way: Women in Higher Education, a podcast dedicated to celebrating, supporting and advancing women in higher education across Michigan.

Hello, I'm Dr. Cynthia Rooker and today we're exploring the enduring impact of leading through the lens of the emerita role.

Joining us today is Dr. Christine Hammond. Good morning and would you please introduce yourself?

Well, good morning, Cynthia. It's a pleasure to be with you and always a pleasure to talk about Michigan ACE Network.

And according to our organizational bylaws, emeritus are senior leaders who have been designated.

And it really is a special honor to help the board and help the organization following some period of significant service that each of us has been recognized for. Throughout my career, the network has been vitally important.

As a young and emerging professional, seeing the role models that I had in other senior women on the Michigan ACE executive board was inspired.

I will also say that as I grew as a professional into mid level positions, it was so affirming to be able to call on that level of expertise and to ask questions in a candid way, knowing that the people who were on Michigan ace's board would give me their very best advice, would understand when I made mistakes, would congratulate and encourage me as they saw my career progress. In fact, I will say that my desire, my intention to apply for the presidency of Mid Michigan College.

The current president is retiring. Have you thought about a presidency? That sort of encouragement through the years has made a difference for me as an emeritus member of the board now.

I hope that I can have that same impact, can provide that service for other women and men as they come through their professional pipeline to make the most of higher education, which is so important in our state and in our country today.

Fantastic. Wow, what a legacy you have definitely trailed for other women and shaping institutions and making future leaders. That's wonderful.

Well, let's go ahead and get started with our questions. Could you please share just a bit about your path?

You've explained a little bit about it, but as Far as becoming emeritus, like, what role does that mean to you personally and professionally?

Yes, the emeritus status is a special honor. It's occasionally bestowed by action of the board in recognition of significant service or exceptional contributions.

I think all of us who are in this emeritus role and there are two versions of the emeritus role. There is an active emeritus status and an honorary emeritus status. I was active for many years and have now moved into honorary status.

I think that all of us hope that we provide some level of continuity for the organization. Some we hope, wisdom about why decisions were made as they were. As the organization has developed and Michigan ACE has blossomed so beautifully.

And now we have women at all levels from across the state. And those of us who are emerita, we provide some service.

But we also get the benefit of getting to know the emerging leaders in our state and the women who are doing wonderful work in colleges of all types.

That's fantastic. Wow. So much that you could share with us. This is great. Well, in reference to.

So with Michigan ace, how they envision an open higher education environment, how have you seen this vision evolve over. Over the course of your career?

Yes, right. The network is very committed to an open and just higher education environment that is a core value for us.

As I said earlier, the network has just blossomed over the years.

They were people who were at the vice president or president level, trying to open up the pipeline for other leaders. In doing that, they broadened access by opening doors to women of all ages in higher education. We have had programs for undergraduate women.

We certainly have supported graduate women, both in their participation in the network, but also with support for certain research projects.

Over the years, it is, I think, the only organization in which you will find members who are from community colleges, private colleges, mid sized public colleges, R1 universities, so a variety of institutions.

And you will find women who are pursuing graduate degrees, who are new in their careers, maybe having their very first professional experience, people who are mid career, people who are moving up through the ranks, through something like the Leader shadow program. And you'll find senior leaders, people who are at the kind of top of their career or getting ready for retirement.

And then those of us who are emerita, most of us are retired and can look back on our careers and have the opportunity to help others and learn from them as well.

Oh, that's a great example as far as how it's really evolved over the years. That's where you meet them, where they're at, and if they want to grow from there or look at other avenues or stay where they're at.

Wow, that's fantastic. Could you please share maybe some of the most meaningful ways that you've worked to elevate women's voices in leadership?

Sure. I would really encourage anyone who's listening to us today, Cynthia, to consider participating in the annual conference.

It is a remarkable event every year and not only provides really good professional development, good workshops, good recognition of achievements by women and by our institutions over the past years, but it is a great way to build your own network.

You know, now that I'm sort of more senior in my professional role, it's interesting to me to hear what has made a difference to others as they interact with me.

And I'm struck by the number of times people will say things like, I remember that conversation we had when we talked about, or you once told me, da, da, da, da, da.

When I hear those recollections from others, I'm reminded of how important personal relationships are, that we have a chance through the network to meet each other person to person and to be there for one another without much artifice or competition. We're not competing with each other in the network. We are encouraging and affirming one another.

Oh, I love that. Yes. And thank you so much for that plug about the conference, because, yes, that.

Is in the early days, as I say, about the evolution of the network. The conference traveled around the state and we were pretty happy if we got 40, 50 people to go to the conference.

Now we are every year somewhere between 250 and 300 women from across the state. How special is that? I mean, that is wonderful growth.

People coming back year after year to reconnect and to get sort of rejuvenated and in stressful roles, as many roles in higher education are not just now, but over the years.

Those conferences provide that affirmation that gives you that little boost to say, yep, I know why I'm doing this work, and I'm going to go back and do it even better on my campus.

There you go.

So I think the conference and the Women of Color Collaborative luncheon and the Leadership Shadow Program, all of those opportunities and more, give us support for our members and our institutions.

Absolutely. Well, Chris, can you please tell us how you personally have contributed to mentoring emerging women leaders? And why is that work so important to you?

Yes, it is very important to me and very significant because you learn from those you are trying to mentor.

For me, the Senior Shadow Program when I was the president at mid, enabled me to bring other voices, women's voices from the network right to the campus and to have that opportunity to work with those women, one of whom I worked with a number of years ago, and she just reached out to me last week and said, I'm a finalist for a presidency. So you see the growth of the people who you're working with, and you know that they are going to do great things that mentoring has done a lot.

The Young Women Strong Leaders program that we had for many years, I think was an opportunity for us to open doors for women who were undergrad or grad students at the time.

And I remember how special it was when I was a grad student and a woman who had already launched her career successfully would talk to me as a real person and engage with me as a colleague. I learned a lot about how to navigate higher education, and I hope that in some ways, I've been able to share that with others.

Oh, it sounds like you already have, right? For many women, right? Absolutely.

So with the IDEALS Framework, which is Identify, Develop, Encourage, Advance, Link support that guides Michigan ace's effort, can you explain which of these principles resonates most with your own leadership journey?

Yes, thank you for that question. I think the IDEALS Framework is such a nice mnemonic for helping us to remember what we're about.

And I often talk to our institutional representatives about keeping those in mind because they're such concrete objectives.

We want to identify promising leaders on our campus to see them develop, to encourage them along the way, to maybe open doors, mention their name in the right circles, help them advance, put them on the right committees, let them go to the right conferences, and then linking people together and supporting them both as a group and at the individual level of those. I think identifying is probably the key.

The initial name of the network when it was first established by ACE was the National Identification Program, and it was to identify promising leaders. That's really what needs to happen and what we want to have happen for ourselves. Right. We want somebody to see us.

And so I think those of us in the network provide A valuable function when we can really see the talent in others, identify that leadership potential, and then go on to use the other ideals. Develop, encourage, advance, link, and support.

To take that from just an identification, oh, that person's doing good work to that person's doing good work, and I should help her do more of it. I think that's what I would say about the ideals framework. I love that framework.

Yeah. I love what you just explained. I think that's fabulous.

In fact, I'm the ir, the institutional rep for Lansing Community College, very proudly and honored to be one.

Thank you for that service.

Thank you. I enjoy it very much. I can. As you were speaking, I was thinking I could see that on a T shirt or something. Wow.

I could see that we'll have to market that a little more, but that's on another note.

Okay.

But anyway, so as a merit, a leader, what keeps you inspired and engaged as you connect with the involving needs of the institutions and within our communities?

Right. And for those of us who are retired and have moved on to other things, that can be a challenge. Right.

And so it's great for us that we get to know emerging leaders and women who are coming through their careers.

In my case, when I retired from the presidency of mid, I signed on with the Registry, and the Registry, as you may know, it's an organization that places interim leaders in higher education when a college or university has an immediate need.

And so I've done two vice President of Academic affairs positions, and then most recently last year, I served as the interim president for the College of DuPage in Illinois. It's a college of about 29,000 students.

Those positions have helped me to stay connected and actually have given me a further appreciation for the Michigan network. Not every state has a network as strong as Michigan's, and so we. We really can take pride.

And we've been recognized at least twice by the national network as an outstanding statewide network. We can take pride in the work that we're doing.

I also stay connected through Michigan ACE through the various initiatives, and I'm delighted that we're starting this podcast. I will be listening to all of those and really trying to learn from each of the sessions.

Fantastic. Well, good to know we've got a fan out there anyway, for future reference. That's great.

So, you know, looking at our current landscape of higher education, which is evolving and constantly changing, Chris, could you tell us, what advice would you give to women who are aspiring to senior leadership roles today? What would you tell them?

I would encourage women in leadership today who are aspiring for senior leadership roles, to be brave and to keep a sense of perspective. So if your career is a book, what you are going through now may be just part of a chapter and things will change.

I think sometimes when we're in difficult situations, it's easy to become mired in them and to think that they will always be that way. But we look for the positive elements and we can be intentional about that.

Research shows that for every negative experience that we have, we need three positive experiences to counteract it. When you.

When we are struggling, when something negative happens, when we face a challenge or make a mistake, we can then go out and get three positive experiences to counteract that. And I think some of those positive experiences can easily come through our relationships with the network.

You have a store of positive energy in Michigan, ace upon which you can draw, and we shouldn't forget that.

Wow. That's fantastic advice. So, finally, what does legacy mean to you?

In other words, how do you hope that your work continues to influence future leaders in Michigan?

I think that those of us in administration see our legacy in part in the policy decisions and the programs that we might begin. But it is especially in the people that we leave a legacy.

It is the people who will think back to the conversations we've had, the opportunities, the projects we've worked on together. Those are the things that are going to carry on through the next generation. Will my name be attached to those? Maybe not, and that's okay.

But the ideas and the sense that higher education is valuable and opens doors in our country and is good for what we're trying to do, I think that is an important legacy that is worth pursuing, whether our name's attached to it or not.

Oh, absolutely. Valuable legacy. Absolutely. So much.

Well, Chris, thank you so much for sharing your wisdom, your experiences, and reflections on the role of emerita in higher education.

I have to tell you, your story reminds me so much of leadership that is not just about titles, but also you mentioned and you explained the impact, the mentorship and the legacy that we all will leave behind. So I appreciate the honor and definitely the conversation that we've had today. Today.

This has been so enlightening and educational in so many different ways. Thank you so much.

It's been a pleasure to talk with you and I hope that when I go to the conference next June, I'll be able to talk with people who have listened to these podcasts.

Yes.

Thanks so much for giving me the opportunity.

Absolutely. Thank you.

Thanks for tuning in to Leading the Way: Women in Higher Education. To listen to this episode and others, visit LCCconnect.com. Until next time, keep leading, keep learning and keep lifting others along the way.