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Click on the links below to read about each student's experience
at Antioch:
Gail Cheney
M.S. Management, 2005
Current student, Antioch Ph.D. in Leadership and Change program
When she completed her bachelor's degree at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Gail Cheney considered the University of Washington and Stanford University for graduate studies in management.
"I didn't like the programs, though, because I wanted a place where the connections among related disciplines were an integral and interdependent part of the curriculum, like they are at Antioch University Seattle.
"My Native way of understanding and learning seeks an interconnectedness. That's a real way of looking at the world. Antioch's Center for Creative Change makes a lot of very real connections among its areas of study. They are thoughtful in what they want you to learn at Antioch," says Cheney, a member of the Tlingit and Haida Tribes from Southeast Alaska.
In her management program, she found a lot of other students who came to Antioch to explore their values and passions.
"I already knew my passion and pathway. My passion is to integrate Native values into organizations," she says, "values such as sustainability and community."
She explored her Native thinking process while in the management program and developed a richer understanding of how sacred relationships are in Native American culture. She learned to articulate that these sacred relationships include the environment as well as people.
Cheney realized the Native practice of storytelling is vital to helping connect people to each other and a larger vision as well.
"Story encourages openness, vulnerability and reflection in both the teller and the listener and builds foundations for strong and lasting relationships. Stories translate values that are hard to articulate in other ways," she says.
She has found it especially helpful to be working full time while a student so she always has a structure where she can experiment with new thinking. Today, Cheney is office manager for Sealaska Environmental Services, a subsidiary of Native-owned Sealaska Corp. based in Seattle. She says her work at Sealaska makes use of her skills in strategic planning, organizational development and change.
Cheney has a desire to create organizations where employees are welcome to bring their whole selves to the job and their culture is interdependent with the work. "They don't have to leave part of themselves at the door," she says. "Native people love community. They know what it means to grow and learn in that space."
She says that's one of the reasons Antioch's cohort model appealed to her.
"The cohort model is so realistic. It's a community of learners that you build. You give one another support. Sometimes you might have to carry more of the weight in your cohort, and when life intrudes on you, then you receive help. This model resonated with me as a Native person with deep ties to community."
She warns Antioch isn't a breeze.
"Some people might have the impression Antioch is easy, but it's hard work," she says, "you need to be willing to work to articulate your passion and create your own path of study while you meet the competency and skill requirements of the program."
After completing her M.S. in Management, Cheney chose to enter Antioch's University-wide Ph.D. program in leadership and change, where she continues her studies in organizational culture and how to bring about change by integrating Native values.
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Kimberly Bowen
M.S. Management, 1996
Kimberly Bowen was working as a marketing manager for the Microsoft
Corp. when she realized that career advancement might mean an M.B.A.
"The curriculum in M.B.A. programs I looked into seemed mostly
irrelevant to what I valued in management," she describes.
“I couldn't invest that kind of time and money in learning
what I didn't think was very important and essential to managing
people and organizations. And I couldn't face two or three years
of sitting in rows of desks while a teacher told me what I should
think."
Then she discovered the Graduate Management Program (GMP).
"When I learned about Antioch's GMP, I lit up immediately.
I was thrilled to find a holistic curriculum that recognized personal
growth was essential to being a leader and that examined the role
of organizations in the community and world. When I visited a class,
I knew this would be an exciting place to learn.
"A year after graduation, I left Microsoft to start my own
consulting practice, providing strategic planning, marketing strategy
and team development services to businesses and organizations. I
have evolved my practice from learning about facilitation, organizations
and team dynamics in Antioch's GMP.
"I bring my whole self to my work, with the creativity and
spirituality that was awakened at Antioch, delivered in a suitably
professional form. I can unlock creativity and bring disconnected
teams into alignment with very productive results. That combination
of spirit and business is what excites me, and what made Antioch
a great place to learn," Bowen says.
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Mary Chin Barrett
M.S. Management, 2003
Mary Chin Barrett is information technology services manager for
the Western region of the Banta Corporation, a printing company.
"When I was considering a graduate program," she says,
“I had looked at several M.B.A. programs in the Seattle area.
There were two specific criteria I used to grade each program. First,
it must pursue constant innovation and improvement in its business
education. Second, it must combine theoretical training with practical
business skills, thereby allowing students to keep abreast of current
trends and to master every nuance of management."
Antioch’s program “not only met these two criteria,
but also added to them the strengths of creativity and flexibility.
"Through the Graduate Management Program, I did a personal
excellence project. This project gave me the opportunity to pursue
a topic of significance in my personal and professional life –
exploring the question of strategic outsourcing in China. With this
project, I was able to reconnect with the exciting development of
my native country as well as provide a context for studying the
benefits and risks of outsourcing to China.
"Going into the program, I expected I would become a better
leader and mentor within my own organization. Surprisingly, this
program has been a journey of transformative self-discovery."
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Jane Thilo
M.S. Management, 2002
Jane Thilo was a successful physician specializing in anesthesiology
when she came to Antioch. She was also an entrepreneur by nature.
As a management student, Jane envisioned a new role for herself
in transforming health care. Her master's thesis explored what she
sees as the need for a profound paradigm shift in health care that
involves moving beyond a mechanistic, technical focus to a more
holistic, organic perspective. Evidence of the shift is just beginning
to emerge in the form of more holistic treatment approaches, as
well as collaborative, team models in some health-care schools and
systems.
For Thilo, this is the leading edge of a much more dramatic revolution.
In January 2003, she and her partner established a consulting group:
Encompass Health. The company tag line, “Shaping the future
of healthcare" speaks to their determination to help create
the new type of leadership required of this new era.
Thilo credits inspiration from her Antioch experience for both
the vision and much of the theory and content that informs her work
in Encompass Health.
"We emphasize systems perspectives, action research and emotional
intelligence in our leadership model for physicians and other medical
workers," she says. “These aren’t just about ‘feeling
good.’ They have a direct impact on the bottom line, on the
quality of life and work, and on issues of potential liability."
Thilo is also on the editorial board of a new publication, Modern
Physician. She also has published an article in The Monitor, a journal
for the American Association for Ambulatory Surgery Centers, about
the role of emotional intelligence in creating an effective work
environment for healthcare professionals.
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