Nadeen Spence has leadership skills
HER aim is to create leaders for the modern world, and while her methods might seem more radical than most, Nadeen Spence doesn’t mind taking her pupils through the paces to challenge their fears and put their strengths to the test.
But Spence is particularly concerned with the low participation of women in areas of school and political governance. This is something she said became even more noticeable upon taking up the post as the Student Services and Development Manager for the Mary Seacole Hall, which is the only all-female hall of residence for students at the University of West Indies, Mona campus.
“It became very evident that there was a fear of leadership or they were just hesitant and felt that it was not their space; or they didn’t have the competence to go; or they didn’t have the time because they have other things to do; or it is too nasty. That was all I heard, and so the women on Seacole kept running for posts like secretary,” she said.
As the first female hall chair for Preston Hall, a co-ed hall for students at the university, she firmly believes that women should always strive to be at the top and that students in general, regardless of gender, should always challenge themselves to become effective leaders.
At the university, she balances her role as a student pursuing her doctorate in gender and development studies and as the head of leadership and student engagement, which develops several projects geared towards strengthening student leaders.
These projects include the UWI Mentorship Programme which is broken down into three areas of mentorship. The first sees persons who are part of this programme mentoring students from the Papine and Mona High schools, the second involves first year students being mentored by second and third year students, and the third one pairs the university alumni and persons in the working world with current students, so that they can provide guidance for them.
Spence also oversees a public speaking programme called UWI Speaks, and an art and entertainment programme that focuses on arts as a way of bringing light to the ills of society. Last year, she and a group of female leaders from other universities in the island started the Young Women Leadership Initiative (YWLI), which is geared towards training young female students for areas of governance.
The idea to form the YWLI came about when Spence got involved in a transformational leadership for gender justice training workshop for Caribbean women last October. The eight women who made up the Jamaican cohort, she said, were challenged to start a dialogue about the low representation of women leaders in both the public and private sector.
“We felt that clearly there was some disparity here and we needed to talk about it,” she said.
One of the main aims of the group, she said, is to get females to start thinking about becoming effective leaders from an early age. As such, they are currently in the process of putting together a leadership and development curriculum for girls at the secondary school level.
“I like to get young people to realise their potential,” said Spence, who is a trained teacher and spent five years teaching in St James before relocating to Kingston to pursue further studies.
It is Spence’s hope that more women will enter representational politics which is the highest area of governance in the country. However, the educator said she herself is not at the point where she will be entering, although she has been asked before and has earned an undergraduate degree and master’s in political science.
She said she is more concerned with training others to take on these roles.
“One of the things they say about a woman is that a woman has to be asked seven times to run and a man volunteers,” she laughed.
In her own way she said, she has been shaping persons to take on these roles. Perhaps the biggest beneficiary of her training has been her 21-year-old son, who did his first degree in political science as well, and is now preparing to study law.
