By Carleigh Kenny
Baltimore Watchdog Staff Writer
A leadership institute to train both high school students and business employees is being launched this summer at Towson University in honor of retired Maryland Schools Superintendent Nancy Grasmick.
The Dr. Nancy Grasmick Leadership Institute excites the top school leader because she said she has the opportunity to groom potential leaders who may break stereotypes, exhibit skills once thought not suitable for leadership positions, and blaze new trails in multiple ways in the future. In fact, leadership may be redefined and training standards reshaped by the institute, she stressed.
“Everyone is hungry for great leaders,” Grasmick told The Baltimore Watchdog. “Those leaders are not born, they must be nurtured and instructed.”
Grasmick emphasized the importance of “the success of individuals, the success of corporations, the success of government, all of these entities need great leadership!”
The idea for the institute came from Grasmick’s two decades-long service as Maryland Superintendent of Schools. She served from 1991 to 2011 to claim the title of being the longest serving superintendent of a state with 24 districts, 1,424 schools, and 869,113 students. Among the many envisioned duties, the institute will recruit participants, pair them with specially picked mentors and arrange a variety of activities that develop and reinforce leadership skills.
Right now, Grasmick and Towson are looking for an executive director to head the institute. Also, they are seeking full-time certified coaches and mentors. She acknowledged she has used $500,000 of her own money to plan the institute over the past two years. During the planning period, she and her team consulted with more than 200 organizations because the program will focus on corporate, government and nonprofit sectors.
Grasmick earned a bachelor’s degree in elementary education from Towson, a master’s degree in deaf education from Gallaudet University and a doctorate in communicative sciences from Johns Hopkins University. She worked as a classroom teacher at the William S. Baer School for the Deaf in Baltimore City and served as principal and associate superintendent in Baltimore County before moving to the state superintendent spot.
Recently, Grasmick was appointed as the first female president of the Board of Directors at the Kennedy-Krieger Institute. At the institute, she teaches and co-directs a fellowship program that prepares administrators for special education. Nine years ago, Grasmick was appointed as the Presidential Scholar for Innovation in Teacher and Leader Preparation at Towson.
Grasmick pointed to her genuine adoration of helping people. She said she is forever finding different solutions to different problems.
Towson University President Kim Schatzel stressed the importance of the school’s partnership with the institute as “it brings together expertise as well as the diversity aspect that typically leads to Dr. Grasmick’s leadership innovation.”
Schatzel described Grasmick’s efforts as “a hallmark of success.”
Last year, Grasmick launched the Women’s Leadership Collective and said that program will be incorporated under the umbrella of the new institute.
Karli Cluster has been a participate in the Collective the past nine months and is excited about the upcoming institute.
“I first joined Lansdowne High School as a junior [because I want] to go into nursing,” Cluster told The Baltimore Watchdog.
At that time, the 16-year-old student-athlete “definitely learned how to help myself and others from my mentors.”
Cluster, now a 19-year-old nursing major at the University of Maryland, said she’s learned invaluable leadership skills from participating in the Collective’s activities. For example, “it wasn’t just listening to someone talk at you [a lot] it was really having another perspective and craft nonetheless.”
Cluster added, “having that constant support of someone during my days in high school, I could definitely see a major change going into my college, even thinking about a career!”
Cluster explained that her student experience was “coached very thoughtfully with the tools I need … I still use a lot of the seminars on anxiety.”
“I’m interested to see where it’s going to go!” Cluster said about the upcoming institute.
Out of her experience with the Collective, Cluster said she “had my head put on top of my body,” recalling her difficult upbringing and concentration in school. Among the required activities, participants had to check-in frequently with mentors. prepare skill journals and attend seminars.
“I think they really helped me to where I am today!” Cluster said. “I truly took a lot away from their seminars they sent out to help along the week.”
Grasmick said the institute, which will incorporate the Women’s Collective, was created to challenge the status quo of leadership development. And, she added that establishing the work at her alma mater was “a “stroke of luck finding Towson.”
“I’m not so excited about the beginning but where the institute could go,” she said.