At the very beginning of this incredible new century, I was privileged to be selected to participate in the Senior Executive Institute, a leadership program sponsored by the Darden Business School at the University of Virginia. Jeffersonian democracy is a cornerstone of the curriculum that flourishes in a setting that reflects Thomas Jefferson’s academic village. The course is two weeks of intensive and interactive learning with senior local government colleagues from other localities from around the world.
The idea is to have participants explore leadership from both organizational and personal perspectives, with emphasis on the culture and structure of the Council/Manager form of local government. Participants and instructors compare and discuss differences between entrenched bureaucratic structures and organizational systems based on democratic values.
SEI’s goal is to send participants back to their communities with the tools to help craft a healthy, flexible government and to be prepared to interact effectively and collaboratively with citizens.
There were 30 – 40 people, mostly white males, in my class. We were pre-assigned to teams of five or six people. Six Black Africans, two men and four women, were scheduled to be a part of the class. Two of the women were assigned to Team Four, my team. None of the women made it the United States. We were told that there had been another coup in the internal politics of their respective countries and their participation was not to be expected. The two men were active participants and we learned much from them. Their responsibilities were so much greater than ours. They both worked for a newly formed mega-city of more than a million people in South Africa. The new City was a product of the merger of two large urban areas.
One man was the newly appointed City Manager, the other was the Director of Economic Development. Their collective assignment was to learn all they could and return home prepared to address some monumental problems of planning, financing and building urban infrastructure for the new mega-city. This task alone was daunting. But it paled against the job of drafting a Constitution for the new City. What made it particularly challenging was the background of the City Manager who had been imprisoned with Nelson Mandela on Robben Island, Cape Town South Africa and was charged with the responsibility of drafting a Constitution that would include representation for the group that had imprisoned him. Compared to him, the issues for the rest of us became much more manageable.
The obvious comparison with our Founding Fathers and Thomas Jefferson was oft-discussed outside the classroom. It prompted many of us to take a fresh look at Mandela and to our own Martin Luther King. February is Black History Month. It’s not just for Black Americans. It’s our history. I strongly recommend that all Americans read King’s Letter from a Birmingham Jail to better appreciate our history and his important role in it.
You may not know this but February 21st is also International Mother Language Day. Its purpose is to promote linguistic and cultural diversity and multilingualism. Assessing the prevailing mood in this country, it’s fair to say that we have a long way to go, but I remain optimistic!
Slainte!
John Kelly