A Narrative Inquiry on the Life History of Betty Siegel

cognize for her taboostanding achievement in educational policy, Dr. Betty Lentz Siegel was the longest serving female president at Kennesaw adduce University. In 1981, she assumed the position at Kennesaw State University, which then was a four-year college foundation garment with 4,000 students and 15 baccalaureate spot programs. Under her tutelage, Kennesaw State University achieved its university status with more than 18,000 student enrollees and 55 undergrad and graduate degree programs (online Golden Key external award fiat International).It was her vision and leaders that brought the educational institution to its current university status focus on teamwork through the creation of strong administrative teams and group interaction. With her guidance, the institution implemented several(prenominal) enterprises and high profile activities that created opportunities and reference of the institution in the local and state communities. In the book Searching for Academic worthiness Twenty Colleges and Universities on the Move and their Leaders, Dr.Siegel was in a limelight in her accomplishment for Kennesaw State University (online Golden Key International Honour order of magnitude International). In her 25 years of service in the institution, Kennesaw State University genuine numerous recognition and awards for its outstanding achievements (online Golden Key International Honour Society International). Its awards argon as follows 1987, chosen as one of the straigh ten out terzetto college colleges and universities in its nationwide competition foc apply on The electric tame and the Public by the Council of Advancement and Support of Education (CASE) 1989 1991, Kennesaw State withal caught public attention as the US News and World subject area ac knowledges Kennesaw States exemplary programs in minority recruitment and retention, leadership programs for faculty, staff, administrators and students, and international initiatives. US News and World Report distinguishes Kennesaw State as the countrys up and flowrs and rising stars in the Souths regional institutions. 2003, KSU accredited recognition to become one of twelve establish institution included in the program entitled Foundation of uprightness in the First College Year of the American Association of State Colleges and Universities.In addition, this recognition too gave KSU the needed funding to pursue the projects of the RTM Institute for Leadership, Ethics Characters, which Dr. Siegel is the invest Chair. 2006, US News and World Report ranked KSU as soma one among the 25 educational institution known for their learning confederacy programs. In addition, the magazine highlights the schools first year fledgling experience program. Academic Background Behind the outstanding accomplishment of KSU is Dr. Siegels utmost leadership, dedication, and freight to education. Dr. Siegels academic areas of expertise include small fry psychology and administrati on.Her outstanding academic achievement also marks her commitment for continuous learning. She received her Ph. D from Florida State University, A Masters in Education from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, a B. A. n position and History from Wake Forest University and an Associate of Arts from Cumberland College. She also has received her cardinal-year post-doctoral study in Clinical Child Psychology at Indiana University. She holds honorary doctorates from Cumberland College in Kentucky, Miami University in Ohio, Eastern Kentucky University, Lynchburg College, Morehead State University, and Confederate Connecticut State University.Professional accomplishments Dr. Siegel had been an accomplished educational administrator even beforehand coming to Kennesaw State. She started as a faculty element for several universities much(prenominal) as Indiana University and Lenoir-Rhyne College. And in 1967, she taught at the University of Florida. In 1971, she became the first woman Dean of Academic Affairs for Continuing Education at the University of Florida. She go to Western Carolina University in the School of Education and Psychology in 1976 and was also the first woman to hold the position of academic dean for the University.In 1981, she came to Kennesaw State where she has started several programs and later became the first female president. Dr. Siegel was also co-founded and co-directed a non-profit memorial tablet chartered in North Carolina since 1982. She worked with an esteemed colleague Dr. William Purkey in establishing International Alliance for Invitational Education. The organization currently has more than 12,000 members of contrastive headmasters from over twelve countries, who seek to apply the concepts of invitational education to their person-to-person and sea captain lives (online International Alliance of Invitational Education).In 1999, the marrow squash for Invitational Leadership was created to be on the stick of invitational education by offering opportunities for professional to recruit in leadership development programs. Its mission is to to enhance lifelong learning, to rear positive change in organizations, to cultivate the personal and professional ingathering and satisfaction of educators and allied professionals, and to enrich the lives of human beings, personally and professionally. (online Radford Universitys Center for Invitation Leadership). Moreover, with the high-regards to the accomplishments of Dr.Siegel, she has delivered key none continuees at hundreds of national, regional, and state conferences throughout United States, Puerto Rico and ten other foreign countries and has lectured for over 120 colleges and universities somewhat the world. She is an internationally- and nationally-known lecturer and motivational speaker on leadership, educational issues, and the concerns of women. She has also served as a advisor to a wide range of businesses such as educational in stitutions, businesses, non-profit organizations, health-care services, administration and socio-civic groups (online Golden Key International Honour Society International).Public Service Dr. Siegel has also worked in community improvement programs of the government. In 1997, Governor Zell Miller appointive Dr. Siegel to represent the State of Georgia on the Southern Growth Policies batting orders 1998 Commission on the incoming of the South. Prior to that, she also delineated Governor Miller at the Presidents Summit of Americas Future held at Philadelphia in 1997. Currently, she has been appointed as to serve as member of Governor Perdues Commission for a New Georgia.Her work in the commission was largely publicized as she was the driving force arsehole the establishment of the Cobb Education Consortium. The Cobb Education Consortium was created to form a cooperative organization among the public educational institution to trustfulness the resources, energies, and talents o f the member institutions to address areas of common concern in moving public education in Cobb Country from its current level of excellence to the exemplary level which leave alone be needed to prepare students to become responsible leaders, capable workers, and well-rounded human beings. (online Cobb Education Consortium) In addition, she also served as a chair of subcommittee on post-secondary options for the Georgia P-16 initiative. The initiative aims to a comprehensive and collaborative comprehensive effort aimed at raising expectations and ensuring student success from pre-school through post-secondary education. The initiative is different than other educational reform efforts because it impacts the entire educational spectrumnot just the parts. (online University System of Georgia)Lastly, she initiated the Northwest Crescent Alliance between the three private colleges and three public institutions. The alliance was formed to develop programs of collaboration in economic development, enhancement of the arts, the preservation of Southern/Appalachian gardening and history, and the development and promotion of community leadership. (online Northwest Crescent Leadership Alliance) Publications Dr. Siegel has of late co-published with Dr. Purkey entitled Becoming an Invitational Leader. The book offers a fresh and ripe copy based on a single theoretical framework.It deviates from the handed-down control and dominance model of leadership to one that focuses on connectedness, cooperation and communication. This model has been adopted in the International Alliance for Invitational Education and had been employ in numerous fields including administration, business, nursing, dentistry, counseling, and other professions. Purpose of the Study in(predicate) and well-established teacher on leadership, Dr. Siegels life history has been a model for galore(postnominal) aspiring leaders. She not only teaches about leadership, but she has body forth what she h as taught.Her success has led to some(prenominal) look forers to examine what leadership truly is. Indeed, many have published life-stories and lessons on managements leadership, but many have looked into it in lens following the theoretical framework of industrial management. The purpose of the study is to examine the perceptions of race surrounding the leadership during the land tenure of Dr. Siegel at Kennesaw State University. We will looked at what people think at heart and outside Kennesaw State Universitys phenomenal growth in congress to Dr. Siegels leadership.By examining the perceptions of Dr. Siegel in her tenure at Kennesaw State University, trends may place regarding leadership attitudes and/or leadership style. In undertaking this study using story doubtfulness, we hope to answer the following questions 1. What are events and influences that formed Dr. Siegels mental model and invitational leadership theory? 2. What are the factors attracted and the perception s students and alumni with Dr. Siegels leadership? 3. What is the value and contribution of Dr. Siegel to the catching of leadership? Review of associate LiteratureIn the book Telling Womens Lives narration Inquiries in the history of Womens Education, Weiler and Middleton (1999) explored the broader questions of sexual practice and power through education. They have in discussing the stories of women as teachers come across on topics of education bureaucracies, material condition of women teachers, and the ways concepts of gender and sexuality have shaped experiences of men and women in the educational state. Indeed, women had not been fairly represented in the leadership of educational institution. Dr. Siegel has been an exception and as our purpose is to control the success of Dr.Siegels, we looked at it in a different lens of leadership framework. We undertake this study using muniment enquiry to understand further the leadership model of Dr. Siegel. General Presuppositio n on Narrative Inquiry Stories have always been a way to pass on tradition and history of a nation. People love to tell and harken to stories. It is way we communicate and more importantly a way we understand people and events. Hardy (1986) has described communicatory as a base mode of thought, and Brunner (1986) described it as a way of organizing knowledge.Cultures are created and traditions are transferred from generation to generation through archivess. It is through narratives that individuals and society expresses their world views and go forth models of identity and agency to their members (Brunner 1996). Narrative research differs from more traditional uses of narrative education, that is, from didactic and strategic uses of narrative. Conle et al. (2000) argues that narrative inquiry retains these qualities in two areas (1) for seek, and (2) for professional development. Narrative in ResearchPolkinghorne (1988) defined narrative as the dish up that human beings use to make sense of their experiences. It is through the application of language and personal reflection that people are able to continually construct and redo significant events in their life and gain a deeper brain wave of their experiences. Atkinson (1998) argues that people arrange their experiences in a manner that make sense of the events and places the plain chaotic world in a coherent order. Thus, narratives are the process by which people make moment of their own experiences. Denzin (1989) describes narratives as simply stories.Polkinghorne (1988) suggests that these stories experience the organizational scheme used to make importation out of experiences. Very similar to any story, narratives are thematically unionised around a central plot. It in the theme, organization, and the play of language of story that meaning and knowledge is drawn out. That is, we learn and gain insights in the temporal relational nature of the authors reconstruction of events (Polkinghorne 1 995). Narratives catch an grounds of environmental and interpersonal context, temporal sequence, and affective domain of the story.Polkinghorne (1995) offered the simple example of the reprobate The king died the price cried. Taken in isolation, each adequately describes an event. unsounded as a narrative story, with a temporal relationship and context, these two sentences describe a sons response to the loss of his father. They convey emotion and evoke empathy. Conle (2000) describes the two purposes of narratives (1) to convey meaning to others from unrelated events into a thematic story (Polkinghorne 1995), and (2) to convey norms and values to newcomers on a cultural or community level (Mattingly 1991).Narratives, therefore, are both the process of constructing and reconstructing events into organized schemes and the resulting that conveys the scheme (Polkinghorne 1988). Further, Polkinghorne (1988) explains that narratives can be used to either describe or explain an even t. Descriptive narrative inquiry reports and translates existing narratives. Descriptive narrative research describes what underlies the values and assumptions of people within a community by examining several narratives for similarities and themes.Explanatory narratives seek to explain why something happened or to explain an event. It, thus, looks narrative accounts for connections between events and actions that led to a particular(prenominal) occurrence. To put it more succinctly, it looks for effortless connection between antecedents and events. Narrative research uses linguistic info in attempt to understand empirical reality from the perspective of the teller. It uses the resulting story to understand the organizational scheme the teller used to make sense of his or her world.In narrative research, then, it is not only the content of the story that helps in understanding the experience, but the way the story is constructed that reveals more about the experience. It therefo re looks at the study of ways humans experience the world (Connelly and Clandinin 1990). Thus, narrative research begins with the storytellers story, but moves the research toward interpretation. Denzin (1989) suggests that interpretation allows researchers to look for and connects patterns of meaning and experience in the respondents narratives.Bloom (1998) furthers this discussion by assert that by connecting patterns and meaning and experiences of respondents, the researcher are able to draw from a wide array of theories to set forth his/her interpretation. Furthermore, Atkinson (1998) advises researchers to examine the respondents narratives for ordering of events. Context is revealed by understanding the emotions and values conveyed in the narrative. However, Feldman et al. (1990) cautions researchers on the need to scrutinize the respondents use of metaphors, irony, and other rhetorical devices as it may result to misinterpretation.It is therefore, important to understand and gain insight into the mental state of the respondent in order to fully interpret the story. More importantly, the end result should be a synthesis of several stories into one thematic narrative. Interest in the use of narrative research has strong precedents in other fields such as in Psychology, Anthropology, and Educational Research. They use narrative as a medium of data representation and as a guide in the development of methodologies, if they did not want to lose the temporal quality and contextual detail of what they were studying (Fenstermacher 1994).They view narratives as a metaphor for human conduct (Sarbin 1986). Narrative, thus, did not stay confined to data representation, but became an entire mode of inquiry where data analysis and final documents did not have to relinquish their narrative quality. Deweys work on time, experience, and sociality had been central for narrative inquiry, which consists of experiential stories that combine the social and the personal (Dewey 1904).It is these experiential stories without abandoning the particular, the contextual, and the complex events that the inquiry attempts to give utterance to tacitly held personal knowledge of the respondents (Polanyi 1966 Schwab 1970). This personal knowledge has operable dish up or serves as an instrument in order for the researcher to pronounce and explain previously determined outcomes on the subjects deliberations, transcendental decisions, daily action and moral wisdom. Narrative inquiry, therefore works opera hat in getting such practical knowledge.In fact, MacIntyre (1981) promotes narratives for the study of practices, of lives and of traditions. The methodology allows the researcher to recover the moral qualities of all aspects of the subjects present-day(a) lives, qualities that he sees as practically and theoretically lost. Micheal Connellys concept of personal, practical knowledge (Connelly and Diennes 1982) combined Polanyis sense of the personal with Schwab s impulse of the practical and MacIntyres moral intent.Connelly later saw the construction of narrative accounts of experiences as the perfect medium for the study of personal practical knowledge (Connelly and Clandinin 1982). Benefits Narrative Inquiry Conle (1997) notes that the most important contribution that narrative inquiry is a language that implicitly forces the issues of open-ended meanings and of the constitutedness of identities, both ethnic and narrators identities. Narratives are about temporal events and tell us where and when something happens, in which contexts, who said what to whom, with which feelings and in what mood, and under which moral constraints.such(prenominal) contextualization on the surface seems to convey facts, but it also potentially subjuntivizes these facts. If generalization do not watch over the specifics, narrative contextualization limits the factual to the once only and to the reliability of observation make by a specific observer at one pa rticular time. If the temporal quality of narrative inquiry is heeded, the tentativeness of conclusions and the open-endedness of stories will prevail. These are much-needed qualities in pluralist societies.It is the open-endedness that allows readers the ability to further interpret and understand the contextual framework of such actions (Conle 2000). Nonetheless, Berstein (1992) cautions that it is equally crucial for a narrative inquiry not to stomach to the rampant relativism, especially more moral relativism and should not deviate against reason. Such relativism can reduce the instrumental rationality of the research and can resist the ability to draw insights especially in intercultural settings.