International Women’s Day panelists offer inspiring advice

Miami University celebrated International Women’s Day by hosting a panel of three female deans who shared their experiences as women in leadership roles, with Renate Crawford, Miami’s ambassador, as the moderator.

Amity Noltemeyer, dean of the College of Education, Health, and Society; Renée Baernstein, dean of the College of Arts and Science and Beena Sukumaran, dean of the College of Engineering and Computing, took part in a panel on Friday, March 7. Jenny Darroch, dean of the Farmer School of Business, was unable to attend.

Global Initiatives, International Student and Scholar Services and the Office of Transformational and Inclusive Excellence sponsored the event titled, “Elevating Women’s Leadership: Global Perspectives, Local Impact.”

The panelists took turns answering questions from Crawford and members of the audience. They each offered different perspectives, as each panelist had a different background before taking on the role of dean in their respective college.

Sukumaran said she fell into the role of department chair “accidentally.” She felt it was her obligation and duty to step up and take on the role of department chair. As an introvert herself, Sukumaran said she struggled to understand how introverts can be leaders; but now, she embraces doing things she’s uncomfortable with.

“I have also evolved,” Sukumaran said. “I was a very black-and-white kind of person, you know, right and wrong. Now I see shades of grey.”

Baernstein said she also embraced the idea of evolving in her leadership.

“Every new role requires you to learn a whole new skill set and a whole new set of information and people and abilities and networks, and so on,” Baernstein said, “and you have to love that. You have to love learning new stuff in order to be successful at that next level.”

Baernstein stressed the idea of coming into a leadership role with a beginner and humble mindset. She said that no matter how hard the job, especially for women in particular, it is important for them to stay at the table and not give up.

Similar to Baernstein, Noltemeyer also knows the importance of learning how to adapt in a role. Noltemeyer gained experience working as editor-in-chief of an international journal. She said through this experience, she learned global perspectives and how to navigate different communication styles, priorities and cultures. Throughout all this, she always makes sure to develop an inclusive approach where all voices are heard.

“When I started as department chair, assistant dean or dean, I always do some sort of listening tour and go around and listen as much as I can just to understand what's working, what’s not working, what are the goals, what are the challenges and what are the resources that are available,” Noltemeyer said.

All three deans also talked about what it meant to be women in their respective fields. When Sukumaran moved to the United States after studying in India, she said she noticed how much more male-dominated the engineering field was. She also noticed how there were only 29 female faculty members when she started her career in civil engineering. Those 29 women quickly developed a close relationship.

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“I always say, ‘I stand on their shoulders, and I celebrate their successes as much as they celebrate,’” Sukumaran said.

But throughout their careers, all three women said they have noticed a change in the representation of women. Baernstein mentioned the ambition of college-aged girls now.

“Nowadays, I see a lot of young women, college-aged women, who are just killing it,” Baernstein said. “They are achieving like crazy, they’re ambitious, they’re driven, they’re doing the work, and that’s wonderful to see.”

However, the ratio of women in higher leadership positions has thinned out.

Noltemeyer said she had a colleague who, when in a room full of men, would get her ideas shut down. But when a man in the room brought up the idea later on, they would applaud it. Baernstein said she noticed a similar pattern when observing small groups in a classroom. Oftentimes, men would be the dominant voices in groups, but when it came time to present, everyone would back away, leaving the women to speak.

“I [needed] to set careful parameters,” Baernstein said. “I [needed] to set rules on those groups, I [needed] to do whatever I [needed] to do to make sure that that doesn’t happen.”

All throughout the session, each panelist offered advice to everyone in the audience – no matter what age.

“Don't let them intimidate you – stay at the table,” Baernstein said. “Stay at the table, and then eventually you will learn they will come to respect you.”

The event celebrated women in leadership positions and the hardships and lessons learned along the way. However, the event also covered different cultures and stereotypical understandings that are important in being a leader.

Joriana Gibbens-Egolf, a first year studying International Studies, was in the audience. She is interested in women’s leadership and is thinking about adding organizational leadership to her studies. She came to the event in hopes of getting more perspective on the two.

“I think it’s really interesting that Women’s Day isn’t something that’s super big in the U.S., and so being able to have this event on campus is really important,” Gibbens-Egolf said.

mulforsj@miaimoh.edu