Leadership Philosophy

Gina Vyskocil
EDUC 702
8/2016

I developed these principles because I felt they addressed the widest range of
students whom I anticipate encountering in my career as an educator. I want to ensure
that no student feels marginalized, excluded, omitted, invisible, or undervalued. I believe
these principles will ensure greatest adherence to the cornerstones of equity, access, and
social justice in higher education.

Implications for leadership

I view living and teaching with purpose as fundamental to higher educational

leadership. Willingness to struggle persistently with purpose and to connect that purpose
with our humanity, sums up functioning with conscious awareness of our presence in the
world. The dialectical relationship between our cultural existence as individuals and our
political and economic existence as social beings enables us to live as a critical educator,
to live a critical life. Questions of power, capitalism, democratizing practice, expand a
teachers critical and emotional capacity to enter into effective teacher student
relationships grounded in revolutionary pedagogy and practice.

Scribner and Crow (2012) describe notions of identity and role as both separate
and distinct. However, the praxis by which these intersect contains blurred lines, and the
influence of each on the other is neither distinct, nor separate. While identity can
encompass large segments of human life, and in fact, is a core human trait, roles are more
fluid and dynamic in that we move through a progression of roles throughout our
lifetimes. Formerly I was a student, now I am a professor. However, currently, I shift back
and forth between roles, as do my colleagues in the program. Roles as mother, caregiver,
nurse, professor, leader, partner, function at the intersectionality of my life to influence
which role is assumed at which time(s), and for what purpose. However, my identity as a
woman is neither fluid, nor changeable, and thus I operate from a core trait of feminine.
This identity, in American culture, carries many negative overtones, and detractors, or
minus values.
Of particular interest, based on Messinger (2012) and Chavez (2009) pieces is the
context of human motivation and its interplay in roles and identities, particularly on
college campuses. Who am I? Who am I not? With which group do we self-identify, and
from which group(s) do we distance ourselves?
In my professional practice, my primary role is educator. However, in my identity
as a woman, I am both sensitive to, and cognizant of, professional outcomes for my
students, who are primarily female. I hold as core to my practice, the empowerment and
education of women as resolution to the feminization of poverty (Pierce, 1978, Polakow,
1993). Motivation (empowerment of women) is influenced by identity (female), by the
intersectionality of my roles as single parent and caregiver of female children, roles
shared by many of my students. This common experience causes me to embrace an ethic

of caring (Noddings, 2003) in my professional practice, rather than as tabulator for

departmental outcomes/proficiencies (a dis-identity) from which I distance myself.
However, can an intertwining of roles/identities optimize public good
(outcomes/proficiencies monitor/ensurer & graduation from higher educational degree
conferring programs)?
Scribner and Crow (2012) suggest increased attention to skill competencies and
technological components of success, are influencing current outcomes in education
rather than human qualities. Noddings (2003) advocates professional identities that centre
on the human qualities of caring/caregiver roles. Noddings suggests that educators and
administrators alike can assume identities as caregivers, and that an ethic of caring should
underlay dialogue, practice, and confirmation, meaning discussions, classroom practices,
and recognition of teachers successes should arise from a foundation of caring, rather
than, as Scribner and Crow suggest, focusing on the technical aspects of competencies as
measures of success.
The notion of caring in higher education, according to Noddings (2003), involves
a fundamental interrelatedness in reciprocal human good, and educational nourishment
and guidance as hallmarks of institutional caring in distribution and allocation of
resources and planning. This echoes Scribner and Crows concerns that identities as
humans have been ceded to roles as professional competency tabulators. Central to the
notion of institutional caring are caring and caregiver as roles educators and
administrators may assume. Planning assesses the picture of caring and education, and
identification and maintenance of the ethical ideal is the primary function of the
educational community (p. 180). Dialogue enables discussion to occur about issues which

impact students. Noddings advocates a dismantling of professional structures in order to

facilitate dialectical growth (p. 189), in practice and to regularly ascertain which
arrangements best support caring in curriculum, an identity of caring toward which
Scribner and Crow (2012) feel effort should be directed. Finally, confirming which
classroom practices are working, nurtures educators ethical ideals, and allows
development of unique strands of assessing and planning in meeting of needs of students.
A number of factors must be considered in understanding how the praxis of
identity and achievement interact via the intersectionality of educational experience to
impact educational outcomes, for both students and educational leadership in higher
educational endeavors. Additionally, the importance of professional identity and the
intersectionality of identity/motivation/competencies, and negotiated meaning/identity
(multiplicity of roles/identities, contextualized by situational variables and the
absence/presence of others), all influence which identity rises to the fore and in which
situation(s)and why. Role identity, social identity, personal identity are not always
distinguishable. Should they be? Social, political, cultural capital impacts both access and
opportunity, (Bourdieu, 1984) and institutional grasp and valuation of cultural, social, and
educational resources influence which identities rise to the forefront of student/educator
interactions. Thus institutional identity, faculty identity, and student identity, serve as
praxis by which cultural capital is exchanged. The question is, how and by what means
can these interactions be optimized for the greatest social (collective) good?
In my professional circle at Loma Linda, I see a variety of identities-social,
personal, professional-and that the presence or absence of other influences which of

those identities rises to the fore, and in what situation, and why. Religion and religious
affiliation influences much of personal and classroom practice and institutional structure.
Additionally, professional identities are at work in the classroom, and I can see adherence
to professional identities at work to varying degrees. While motivation is difficult to
assess, from an external perspective, the cultural capital of trust rises to the fore, both
institutionally and personally, in varying and interesting ways. Trust, (Jossey-Bass, 2013)
is implicit in quality leadership and entails facilitation instead of coercion, with
transparency in leadership decision making, and caring about others more important than
promotion of self-interests. Can trust be cultivated as an institutional hallmark? Can
caring be articulated as a foundational value in any meaningful and measurable way?
Finally, can ethics be mandated monitored, or measured, as cultural capital that is
transmissible in perpetuity? How can I empower my students and my colleagues via my
knowledge and understanding of Transformational Leadership theory (Bass & Avolio,
1994; Santamaria & Santamaria, 2013).
As a transformational leadership theorist, I believe the following:

Principle 1

ACCESS

I believe students should have access to education and educational resources

regardless of race, gender, socioeconomic variable, neurodiversity, or disability.

Principle 2

REPRESENTATION

I believe students have a right to proportionate representation in all

programs of study and administration, regardless of race, socioeconomic variable,
gender, neurodiversity, or sexual orientation.

Principle 3

PARTICIPATION (INCLUSION)

I believe students have a right to education absent marginalizing practices

and policies which perpetuate community segregation, diminished access to higher
education, unequal competition in the workforce, and role limitation in community
participation. Students and stakeholders are involved with all aspects of program
development and perpetuity.

Principle 4

INTEGRATION

In educational leadership and curricular underpinnings, I believe students

should have access to education which recognizes the intersectionality, and
demonstrates respect for, and integration of, an internationalist and anti-colonial
perspective, with sensitivity to symbolic domination, and the muted and consistent
ways religion shapes cultural politics in education. Additionally, in the broader
context of justice and equity, I believe students should have a right to access radical
education in shaping their intellectual legacy, purposeful in recognizing indigenous
communities and their contributions to collective knowledge and inquiry. Finally, I
believe students should have the right to access dialogical, democratic, engaged,
pedagogy orientated to revolutionary praxis, --a transnational critical pedagogy

which seeks to fully break with restrictive, reductively nationalist ways of framing
the politics of education.

Principle 5

TRANSFORMATIVE, PURPOSEFUL

I believe institutional policy, practice, and resource distribution in education

should act to transform access, opportunity and resources for underserved for
whom educational achievement may be constrained. I believe students have a right
to teaching with purpose as fundamental to higher education. I believe students
have a right to teachers who express willingness to struggle persistently with
purpose and to connect that purpose with our humanity. I believe students have a
right to teachers who function with conscious awareness of their presence in the
world, teachers who are cognizant of dialectical relationship between our cultural
existence as individuals and our political and economic existence as social beings. I
believe students have a right to critical educators, who enable students to learn and
live a critical life. Finally, I believe students have a right to effective teacher student
relationships grounded in revolutionary pedagogy and practice.

References

Bourdieu, Pierre. (1984). Distinction: A social critique of the judgment of taste.

Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press.
Chavez, Alicia. (2009).Leading in the borderlands: Negotiating ethnic patriarchy for the
benefit of students. NASPA Journal About Women in Higher Education, 2(1) 4167. Doi: 10.2202/1940-7890.102
Pearce, Diana. (1978). The feminization of poverty: Women, work, and welfare. Urban
and Social Change Review, special issue, Women and Work, 11(1-2), 28-36.
Messinger, Lori. (2011). A qualitative analysis of faculty advocacy on LGBT issues on
campus, Journal of Homosexuality, 58(9), 1281-1305, Doi:
10.1080/00918369.2011.605740
Noddings, Nell. (2003). Caring: A feminine approach to ethics and moral education.
Berkley, CA: University of California Press.
Polakow, Valerie. (1993). Lives on the edge: Single mothers and their children in the
other America. University of Chicago Press.
Scribner, Samantha & Crow, Gary Monroe. (2012). Leadership and policy in schools.
New York: Routledge.