Women leaders discuss need to speak up, management skills

GOV. GINA M. RAIMONDO, right, was among attendees at a leadership conference put on by Rhode Island Women In Higher Education Friday at the Crowne Plaza Providence-Warwick. Also there were, from left, Annette Cerilli, director of the Bryant University Executive Development Center, Nancy Carriuolo, president of Rhode Island College, and Heather Abbott, founder of the Heather Abbott Foundation to help people afford customized prostheses. / PBN PHOTO/PATRICIA DADDONA
GOV. GINA M. RAIMONDO, right, was among attendees at a leadership conference put on by Rhode Island Women In Higher Education Friday at the Crowne Plaza Providence-Warwick. Also there were, from left, Annette Cerilli, director of the Bryant University Executive Development Center, Nancy Carriuolo, president of Rhode Island College, and Heather Abbott, founder of the Heather Abbott Foundation to help people afford customized prostheses. / PBN PHOTO/PATRICIA DADDONA

WARWICK – For four university presidents who happen to be women, running their institutions is very much like running a business.
The hour-long panel of leaders from Rhode Island College, and Brown, Johnson & Wales and Salve Regina universities was part of “Learning from Women Who Lead,” a four-hour event hosted by the recently restarted organization, Rhode Island Women In Higher Education, which is a chapter of the American Council on Education.
A video from Rhode Island School of Design President Rosanne Somerson, who could not attend, also was shown. Organized by RIC President Nancy Carriuolo, who is founder and president of RIWHE, the event was held at the Crowne Plaza Providence-Warwick.
“I find myself running an organization, and it’s a business,” said Brown President Christina H. Paxson, a sentiment shared by the rest of the panel.
Paxson said she chose academia over the private sector despite planning to earn a business degree at Columbia University, because she fell in love not only with economics but with doing research. As a student, she switched to a PhD program that indirectly led to her role at Brown, because “advancing knowledge is important to me.”
The educators discussed leadership challenges that include college affordability and student loan debt, a need for available child care in Rhode Island, and improving their institutions’ facilities – all challenges that require finance, planning and people skills like those needed to run a business.
Mim Runey, JWU Providence Campus president and chief operating officer of the university, said trying to figure out how to handle affordability issues means maintaining a price structure that is affordable, but also providing substantial financial aid. JWU increased need-based financial awards from $70 million in 2006 to $160 million today, she said.
Gov. Gina M. Raimondo also attended the event and received the group’s first-ever “First Lady of Leadership” award. Heather Abbott, founder of the Heather Abbott Foundation, which she started to provide expensive prosthetics to those in need after she herself lost a leg in the Boston Marathon bombing, received the “Women of Spirit and Courage” award.
Before the panel convened, Raimondo told a story about a poor decision she made that could have been averted if one of her advisers, a woman who acknowledged thinking the action would be a bad choice, had spoken up at a meeting. The woman told the governor about her hesitancy to speak up, Raimondo said.
“So, that’s on me to create an environment that encourages people to speak up,” Raimondo said. “But it’s also on you to raise your hand and speak up. It matters. … Be heard. In this state in particular we need all hands on deck.”

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