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JANET SISLER • MUND ’74, ’82


PROMOTING LEADERSHIP


A Q&A with the director of the Gannon Center for Women and Leadership


Can you tell us a little bit about your background? • I’m a Munde- lein alumna, and I’ve been involved in Catholic organizations all my life. My most recent position was as the president of the Franciscan Community Benefit Services, working for the Franciscan sisters to organize and manage all of their charity programs for women and children. Before that I worked in the Office of Catholic Schools for the Archdiocese of Chicago. I was superintendent for my last year.


What are some of your plans for the Gannon Center? • I think we have some major areas that we need to address in the short term and the long term for the Gannon Center. First of all, we need to address the search for the Carolyn Farrell Endowed Chair. We would like to see a search team and process in place so that the endowed chair position will be filled by an extraordinary person for the beginning of the 2011–2012 academic year. Second, we would like to substantially increase the scholarship


award for our Gannon Scholars. The program was instituted nearly 20 years ago, and, though the leadership development program for undergraduates has been continually improved, the dollar amount of the scholarship has remained almost stagnant. I would like to see the dollar amount reflect the importance of the program.


Third, we need to formalize a strategic planning process for the


Gannon Center, so that we can move the program from being a great program on a limited scale to a great program focused on the devel- opment of leadership for women at Loyola and at Jesuit universities throughout the United States and world.


Why, in 2010, is it necessary or beneficial to have a center for women? • We don’t have to look far to see why we still have to work on developing leadership roles for and leadership skills of women. Take Fortune 1000 companies: the percentage of women as CEOs has not really grown over the last two decades. We need to ensure that our graduates look at how they can be supported in those positions. We want women to have the savvy and creativity and interpersonal and systemic skills that allow them to rise to leadership positions. Last year 51 percent of the labor force was women. But are they in the highest-paying sectors? No, they’re in the lowest quadrant of salaries. The Gannon Center is here to maximize women’s potential for leadership.


Do you find our Catholic identity and our feminist identity ever to be at odds? • I hope not. There are extremes in both. What we are trying to do is to move forward in a way that will enable women to continue to shape the church and continue to open up the church to women’s gifts and contributions. However we approach the ordained priesthood, which is not an option for women, we have many other options to be in leadership positions. I had the opportunity to serve


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