C06 Session: Using Difference as a Resource

Using Difference as a Resource: Cultivating Leadership for a Changing Agriculture

Friday, August 4, 2:15pm - 3:45pm

Track:  Capacity Building Models and Strategies

Presenter

Barbara Rusmore, Institute for Conservation Leadership

Description

What happens when leadership and organizational development are addressed in a room with organizations who have histories of conflict based on very different worldviews and different organizational roles and niches in a sector?  This session will explore the learning that has emerged during a three-year collaborative project between the Council for Agricultural Science and Technology and the Institute for Conservation Leadership.  The session will tell the story of this unlikely project, highlight the project's methodology and focus on building shared leadership teams, and will include data from the formal project evaluation.

About the Presenter

Barbara Rusmore, Institute for Conservation Leadership

Dr. Barbara Rusmore is Senior Program Associate with the Institute for Conservation Leadership, and based in the ICL Western Office in Montana. She has worked as an activist and adult educator, lobbyist in Washington DC, electoral campaign planner, facilitator and mediator. She received her Masters degree from University of Massachusetts in Organizational Development in 1991, and her PhD. in Human and Organizational Systems at the Fielding Institute in 1996. Her doctoral dissertation is on rural activism and farmer?directed research in sustainable agriculture, and is an outcome of more than 20 years of active involvement in the family farm and sustainable agriculture movement in the U.S.