NORTH ADAMS, MA—The Leadership Academy at Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts (MCLA) hosts presentations this month by several guest speakers, including the author of Odd Girl Out: The Hidden Culture of Aggression in Girls, the executive director of Northern Berkshire United Way, experts on sports and gender, and a national commentator on the role of the media in politics and culture.
These presentations are free and open to the public.
Opening the series Friday, July 24, Patricia Griffin, director of It Takes a Team! Education Campaign for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender Issues in Sport, an initiative of the Women’s Sports Foundation, speaks about her work in a day-long program beginning at 8 a.m. at the College’s Church Street Center. She retired as a professor in the Social Justice Education Program at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
Joining Griffin July 24 is MCLA faculty member Patricia Sullivan, a former Division I volleyball coach who teaches courses on coaching and helped develop the College’s coaching minor. She will speak about Title IX, the federal law forbidding exclusion from college sports on the basis of sex.
Griffin and Sullivan speak from 8 to 11:45 a.m. and continue from 1:30 to 5:15 p.m.
Author Rachel Simmons speaks Monday, July 27, from 3:30 to 5:45 p.m. in room 218 of Murdock Hall on the MCLA campus. Simmons wrote the bestseller Odd Girl Out, studied female aggression as a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University, and founded the Girls Leadership Institute. She appeared on numerous television programs, including “The Oprah Winfrey Show,” and served as an Urban Fellow in New York City.
The Leadership Academy welcomes media commentator Sut Jhally Wednesday, July 29, from 1:15 to 5 p.m. in room 218 of Murdock Hall. Jhally is a communications professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and the founder and executive director of the Media Education Foundation. His comments on the role of the media in politics and culture have appeared in publications ranging from the LA Times to the London Observer.
Jim Canavan, executive director of Northern Berkshire United Way, concludes the series Friday, July 31, from 8 to 9:30 a.m. in room 218 of Murdock Hall. Canavan earned a master’s degree in public policy at the John W. McCormack Graduate School of Public Policy and a certificate in executive leadership at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. Under his leadership, Northern Berkshire United Way provides funding for more than 50 programs that serve 11,500 people each year at 23 local health and human service agencies.
MCLA’s innovative Leadership Academy offers intensive study in educational administration. This program allows education professionals to complete graduate credits in just over two weeks during the summer. Leadership Academy sessions can be applied toward MCLA's certificate of advanced graduate study. For more information visit www.mcla.edu.
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