Address: Academic Leadership as an Intersectional Feminist Praxis: Stories Applying the HDFS Worldview, Anisa Zvonkovic, Ph.D., Dean of the College of Health and Human Performance, East Carolina University, 2020 Winner of the Alexis Walker Award

Facilitator: Megan Haselschwerdt, Ph.D., Feminism and Family Studies Section Chair

This Session is Organized by the Feminism and Family Studies Section.

Summary

This session will discuss an emergent model of academic leadership grounded in principles of feminist Family Science. I, and my inspirational colleagues, have internalized the Family Science approach (or as Alexis Walker and I used to call it, the “HDFS worldview”) to such an extent that it seemed natural to apply it to our everyday work in the academy. These defining characteristics are: (1) developmental; (2) contextual; (3) relational; and (4) action-oriented. Interwoven within each of these is an intersectional orientation to social justice. I plan to tell stories to illustrate these approaches in action. Another subtitle of this talk could be, given the intersectional feminist praxis involved in applying these characteristics, “why I am not everyone’s cup of tea.” While it’s instructive to highlight successes, I think I would be doing a disservice if I gave the impression that this work has been without struggle, emotional turmoil, and failure. For example, it has been a constant issue to get others in administration and advancement to understand context and why we insist on advocacy toward social justice, especially when application of knowledge is inextricable to its creation. I invite NCFR conference attendees to make a cup of tea and join me in the telling of stories of intersectional feminist praxis in the academy.

Objectives:

The audience will be able to

• apply developmental principles to the work of academic (or other) administration.
• consider how the workplaces, in particular the academy, are situated within specific contexts such as department, college, type of university, and why these contexts matter.
• apply work/life concepts to an understanding of relational approaches to management.
• explain how an orientation to social justice and feminist praxis undergirds work in family science, particularly administration.