BERKELEY, Calif. – At first, Krystal Lyons thought she was headed to another one of those conferences where you frequently check your cell phone under the table because you’ve heard it all before.
But she was delighted to find that assumption wrong within the first few hours of the Executive Leadership Academy (ELA) at the University of California – Berkeley. Lyons, a senior director for operations and budget at the University of La Verne College of Law, says she kept being surprised by how much she learned from the informative sessions, engaging speakers and other fellows.
In fact, Lyons was so engrossed the first day of the five-day academy in July that she didn’t have the time or the desire to check email – and left her computer in her hotel room each morning before heading out to the academy at the David Brower Center on campus, she says.
“I didn’t want to be distracted. I can’t remember the last time that happened.”
Well before the end of the week, that was a common refrain among fellows, who described the annual boot camp for aspiring provosts, presidents and chancellors as inspiring, confidence-building and personally transformative.
ELA is designed to prepare emerging and seasoned scholars and administrators to lead in multicultural settings at colleges and universities around the world. Among the ranks of this year’s cohort of 49 fellows were several leaders freshly appointed to top positions, including Grande Lum, provost and vice president for academic affairs at Menlo College, and Dr. Otto H. Chang, president of the University of the West.
Founded by executive director Josefina Castillo Baltodano – former president of Wisconsin’s Marian University, a respected diversity expert and an influential career coach – ELA is housed in the Center for Studies in Higher Education in the Goldman School of Public Policy at UC-Berkeley. This year’s class joined 272 prior alums, a number of whom have received top appointments after graduating the academy.
