Announcing ILA Fellows – Engaging ILA’s Mission at the Nexus of Theory & Practice
by Cynthia Cherrey
Cynthia Cherrey is President and CEO of the International Leadership Association. Previously, Cynthia served as Lecturer in the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University and Vice President of Campus Life. She publishes in the areas of leadership, organizational development, and higher education including co-authoring Systemic Leadership: Enriching the Meaning of Our Work. Her most recent publication is Women and Leadership Around the World (co-editor). She is a Fellow at the World Business Academy and a recipient of a J.W. Fulbright Scholarship. Cynthia’s interests and research explore new ways to live, work, and lead in a knowledge-driven, interdependent, global society. She consults and speaks to for-profit and non-profit organizations around the world on leadership and organizational change. She can be reached at ccherrey@ila-net.org.
The work of the ILA is possible because our members embody intellectual curiosity, value creativity, and honor the collective desire to make an impact on the complex issues surrounding leadership in our society.
The ILA creates the space for enlightened thinking and collective action. Individuals come together to learn from each other and engage each other’s hearts. They come together to think, discuss, and write to further the research, teaching, and practice of leadership. It is a powerful network.
The importance of our collective work to serve humanity by addressing the wicked leadership challenges of today has never been greater. This is important difficult work. As Einstein said, “The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them.” I would humbly add, nor can problems be solved with the same leadership we had at the time we created them. This raises the question: In what other ways can the ILA continue to further leadership work in serving humanity?
This year the ILA has established a new pilot program to do just that — tapping into the brightest minds and most respected professionals to help the association live out its mission more fully. The ILA Fellows program began this January with a cohort of four individuals:
The ILA Fellows are a cohort of distinguished professionals recognized for their outstanding contributions to the field of leadership through their scholarship, teaching, and/or effective practice. Fellows come from a wide range of backgrounds, working across sectors and disciplines, and reflecting the multiplicity of the ILA's membership. Fellows serve as ambassadors for the ILA and above all, aspire to make a greater impact on leadership.
The 2018 cohort is comprised of a university president who comes from the leadership field (Kenneth Ruscio), a leadership scholar who works across sectors (Mary Uhl-Bien), a prior student affairs vice president who is also a scholar and liberal arts dean (Larry Roper), and a leadership scholar with footprints in South Africa and the States (Lize A.E. Booysen). Click their names above to read a full bio on the ILA Fellows webpage.
In addition to serving as an ILA ambassador, each fellow is involved in an ILA project or program, working on both the design and implementation.
Lize Booysen, originally from South Africa and currently based in the U.S., is working onILA’s Next Generation Leadership regional conference in South Africa. Along with ILA’s partner, The Albert Luthuli Centre for Responsible Leadership at the University of Pretoria and her co-chair Derick de Jongh, Lize serves in an oversight role for the regional conference.
The other three Fellows have agreed to serve as the faculty cohort for ILA’s topical event, the Global Higher Education Summit: Leadership for the Future, in partnership with NASPA, at the Schloss Leopoldskron in Salzburg, Austria in June. Reflecting the sectors of senior leadership in higher education and leadership scholars, they embody ILA’s work at the nexus of theory and practice and bring expertise to the leadership topic of the future leadership needed in higher education.
Selected by the ILA board chair (Katherine Tyler Scott) and president (Cynthia Cherrey), each fellow accepted our invitation to serve in this volunteer role because of a desire to continue to learn and to give back. They are called to continued service to the leadership community. Like all ILA members who value curiosity and creativity and who long to make an impact on the complex issues, they want to engage with ILA’s mission to do worthy work at the intersection of leadership research and practice. As a network within ILA’s larger network, they will also come together virtually and in-person to meet, think, share ideas, write, and to be inspired.
ILA values those who work at the nexus of leadership theory and practice and who want to impact the world. Later this year we will extend invitations for the 2019 Fellow cohort. If you have an interest, please speak with me at the 20th Anniversary Global Conference in West Palm Beach, Florida this October.