Southeastern News Online July, 2004 Vol. 2  No. 2

Leadership and Supervisory Development Program

The SENYLRC Leadership and Supervisory Development Program begun in March of this year will shortly complete its eight-session program. This has been a significant time commitment for the almost 40 attendees. Why would busy leaders in the library world make such a time commitment?

There are several possible answers to this question: my supervisor sent me; eight afternoons off can’t be that bad and I need the break; I want to learn more; I need to try different things to become a better supervisor myself; Southeastern offers good quality programs so I will give it a try. These are just a few possible reasons why someone might make such a long commitment to professional development. But whatever got the attendees to the Leadership and Supervisory Program, the reason they stayed is perhaps different.

Barbara Wall presents a topic	Participants listen to Barbara

After Session 4, participants were asked to evaluate this program. We did not know what to expect, but the results far exceeded our expectations. On a scale of 1 to 6, our results when tabulated were much higher than program designer, Dr. Carter McNamara, expected for a mid-term evaluation. Our program and our facilitators ranked between 4.5 and 5.2 consistently across the varied evaluative items. What this indicates is that our participants already perceived the value of peer coaching and appreciated the quality of the program and the information they received. I think there could be many reasons for this, but in my mind it is because we are librarians, a truly unique working group. We look at information and evaluate it every day as a routine function of our jobs. We grasp quickly and put into use that which we perceive as useful. Peer coaching has been around for over 60 years and is used significantly (and expensively) in the business world for problem solving and for learning. To me this peer coaching process seems a natural for the Information Professionals that librarians are.

Several participants have taken the time to approach one or more of us at Southeastern and reinforce the idea that this is a valuable experience. As our time commitment comes to a close, we need to conceive of ways to take our peer coaching experiences back into our several work places and use it to promote problem solving, growth and/or change.

If you have questions or comments or would like to know more, email Barbara Wall <bwall@senylrc.org>.

By Barbara Wall, Training and Program Coordinator

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