Wednesday, February 11, 2009

Portraits of the Spirited Leadership of African Women

Today I was reminded to blog and indicate that I managed to get the book manuscript completed on time (+3 days) and actually submitted to the publisher. When I put all the documents into that flat rate USPS box, I felt like I had birthed something. The feeling of relief after so many days of editing, re-writing, cutting, and re-writing some more was like the joy that I have seen on mothers faces when them babies finally pop out...well, almost like that. The joy that makes the pain forgetable and worth every moment. A few months down the road, I will be able to post a cover of the book...there will actually be a book out there with my name on the cover.

Now that the book is done, there are a gazillion other projects to get through. The one that is making me sweat (me and two of my colleagues) is a research grant proposal for NSF. None of us has ever done anything this big before, the learning curve is very steep. But if we succeed, it will be a very exciting project, focusing on a mixed methods multiphase study of minority women in academic leadership.

I am also working on a statistics primer for our PhD students most of whom come unprepared to engage in research methods courses. Its been interesting re-learning and refreshing my statistics training and working towards creating a primer that is intuitive for students whose concentrations are Business, Non Profit and Education leadership. Am a geek if this is making my blood pump harder...a self-confessed and happy geek!

Am I a spirited professor? Do I teach in search a way as to facilitate the personal, professional, intellectual and spiritual growth of my students? Do I care deeply for and about my students? For me, being a professor is a spiritual quest. I was reading today a little about Nel Noddings thoughts on spirituality and education. She describes herself as a spiritual agnostic, who believes that children should be taught about religion and spirituality in public schools, so they can learn enough to make thier own choices about what to believe, as well as to grow as spiritual beings. I like that, alot. Since am openly Christian and hopefully, profoundly spiritual, I believe that professors should, if they can, facilitate learning where students can be allowed to be spiritual beings. I hope am doing that for my students. My professors, well, one of my professors who is still a mentor today did that for me, allowing me to express my spiritual identity even through my research.

Saturday, January 31, 2009

the struggling writer

The last few days have been spent editing my book manuscript, which incidentally is due to the publisher on Sunday, Feb 1 2009. Suffice it to say, it will not be ready on time, but am pushing hard to be only a few days late. I had 330 pages four days ago, am aiming for about 270 pages in the next 12 hours, the publisher wants 300 pages...

Back in the day, I thot I was a good writer. The Kenyan education system I went through encouraged a lot of reading and writing, I still remember writing compositions in primary school and loving it. And I did study Language and Literature in Kenyatta University. However, the last few years of being in academia and re-learning to write for academic audiences, I think I have lost my art! Whereas the rules are slowly flexing to allow for creativity, for the most part, academic writing is rather dry. APA encourages that dryness...how many academic papers have you read that make you doze in boredom? So here is my struggle. I am writing a book about women and leadership in Kenya. It is an academic book, a rescripting of my doctoral dissertation. I want it to be palatable to the educated publics, not simply to those within the academy. And therein lies my challenge. More than half the book are stories of women leaders from Kenya, I want those to be widely accessible. I also want the stories to communicate the essence of women's leadership in Kenya, and for folks from the Global South to read those stories and feel a sense of resonance. So I write on, struggle on, to make this, my first book communicate, inform and inspire. I hope that it will communicate the essence of leadership within the culture of Ubuntu as espoused by the 16 women leaders I interviewed. The title of the book is Tempered Radicals and Servant Leaders: Portraits of the Spirited Leadership of African Women. That might change by the time it gets published...