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The Leadership Thing

• February 6th, 2007

Last week I spent a week as a faculty member with the University of Delaware. I was part of a wonderful and innovative division of this University called the Center for Disability Studies who sponsored a week long focus on leadership. Faculty as well as participants traveled from every major region of the country and represented a diverse and talented group of individuals. Throughout the week many common issues emerged in fact some would say the same issues emerged, lack of funding, priority and value for the work we are engaged in, recruitment and retention of creative and enthusiastic staff, and the increasing demand for unique and individually driven supports by the those who are the biggest stakeholders in the whole system, people with disabilities. But something remarkable happened this week, in a word it was hope. Hope ruled throughout the week, it was dressed up as youth, trimmed and accessorized with imagination and a style of bold determination, yep pure beauty on the catwalk of social justice and human rights. Magnificent.

So a week of intellectual discussion, debate and just plain focus on the art of leadership and what it meant to this group sequestered off in a non- descript building on a campus in Newark. During one particular debate among the full group one individual, I’ll call her Julie (since that is her name) a self described self advocate said “We are tired of being polite, we are tired are being patient and not wanting to offend, we have been asking for ten years to close institutions and even longer to be in control over our own lives”. The discussion was lively with many of those in attendance weighing in… except for me. I kept hearing her words over and over again and those words resonated inside me at such a visceral level that I could not speak.

I suppose I have been concentrating for so long about what I am tired of in this system that when Julie spoke it reminded me once again that my weariness pales compared with Julie’s and those in her movement of equality now and in the past. Why does equal treatment and opportunity take sooooooo long, its agonizing to really think about it too much, so I guess that’s why I don’t… until last week as a faulty member in Delaware, where I met a fellow faulty member named Julie, who taught me once again that I know so little.