But in leadership it's absolutely critical that you have someone that can mentor you through that process,
especially for students that maybe traditionally haven't been given those opportunities, whether they be women or students of color or GLBT students.
It's not enough just to say you can be a leader but we need to make sure that we have mentors from those communities and allies of those communities to really help them see that there is a path forward
and that their voice is important and their contribution is valued, and frankly expected.
We want everyone to feel like they're a part of this. The other thing that I say is that the leadership table is much larger than we've given voice to over the years
because if you think back throughout history, not just at this institution and this country but around the world, we've had a very narrowing definition of leadership.
We said you had to look a certain way and you had to look more like me than like you. You had to be, you know, skin color of a certain way. That's such a limiting way of looking at leadership.
So when I teach leadership I say the table of leadership is really wide open because the only thing you have to have to be a leader-this is slightly overstating it-is a passion to make change
and the ability to try to engage people in that process.
That says nothing about your gender, your sexual orientation, your race/ethnicity, where you were born, or how much money's in your bank account.
It says that you have an idea that you're passionate about and willing to work hard to work with others to make that happen.