John Clemens

Like most executives, Hartwick Leadership Institute founder and executive director John Clemens claimed he was “too busy” to dig into some of the greatest leadership and management handbooks ever written: classic works by such authors as Homer, Machiavelli and Hemingway. But a year of sailing the Mediterranean gave him time to immerse himself in such literature.

It was a call to action. He changed careers, dove deeper into his studies, and co-authored a best-selling book on the subject entitled The Classic Touch: Lessons in Leadership from Homer to Hemingway. As Clemens puts it, “I left my comfort zone with its traditional managerial career path and entered, without even knowing it, my Leadership Zone.” His latest book, Movies to Manage By: Lessons in Leadership from Great Films, is the foundation for the innovative seminar, “The Leadership Kaleidoscope: Gaining Insight into Leadership Through Film.”

Clemens, now professor of management at Hartwick College, founded the Hartwick Leadership Institute in 1985 and funded it with a million-dollar allocation from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation. For the past ten years, he has conducted hundreds of Hartwick Leadership Seminars for many of the world’s largest corporations. In the early 1990s, Clemens helped develop the First Edition of Phi Theta Kappa Leadership Development Studies and was the first National Facilitator to train Phi Theta Kappa Certified Leadership Instructors. His book, The Timeless Leader, was published in 1995. Clemens, with co-author Scott Dalrymple, has just completed Time Mastery: How Temporal Intelligence Will Make You a Stronger and More Effective Leader, a book that explores how leaders can learn to stretch beyond time management to time mastery.

His mission? To get others into their Leadership Zones. His expertise and skilled facilitation for this mission will provide a unique, interactive experience for Leading Edge Conference attendees.

Clemens will show us in our Colloquy on Building Social Capital how the movie Crash can help us all with this mission in our communities and with our students. He is receiving rave reviews in assisting the Virginia Beach police force and other groups and companies with leadership development, diversity awareness, and bulding social capital with Hartwick’s workshop “Crash - Beyond Stereotypes” and since the movie is included in the “Guiding Through Conflict” unit of the Fourth Edition of Phi Theta Kappa Leadership Development Studies, it will be a valuable workshop for Phi Theta Kappa Certified Leadership Instructors.

For more information about the Hartwick Leadership Institute, click here.

Jeanne Woodford

Jeanne S. Woodford recently retired from the position of Secretary of the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation on (CDCR). CDCR is California’s largest state agency with over 59,000 employees working in 33 adult prisons, 13 adult community correctional facilities, eight juvenile facilities, and other parole and administrative facilities in California. Woodford previously served as CDCR Undersecretary, a position to which she was appointed on July 1, 2005. She was named Director of the California Department of Corrections (CDC) on February 19, 2004, after serving as Warden of San Quentin State Prison for five years.

Woodford began her CDCR career in June 1978 as a Correctional Officer in San Quentin and subsequently served in many capacities, including Work Incentive Coordinator and Legal Affairs Coordinator. In August 1997 Woodford was appointed as Chief Deputy Warden, where she was responsible for the day-to-day operations of San Quentin. In March 1999 she was assigned as the Warden of San Quentin State Prison.

Woodford is a developer and facilitator for the California Public Safety Leadership and Ethics Program and has directed its implementation within CDCR. She is a Class A Trustee on the General Services Board of Alcoholics Anonymous, and sits on the Advisory Committee for the Prisoner Reentry Institute at John Jay College of Criminal Justice. Prior to retiring, Woodford was overseeeing a major reorganization within CDCR and refocusing the agency on its role in achieving a vision of improved and safe communities by seeking to end the causes and the effects of crime, violence, and victimization. CDCR is a national leader in providing victim and survivor services.

National Public Radio interviewed Jeanne Woodford in 2005. To listen, click here.

Christopher Phillips

“Like a Johnny Appleseed with a master’s degree, Phillips has gallivanted back and forth across America, to cafes and coffee shops, senior centers, assisted-living complexes, prisons, libraries, day-care centers, elementary and high schools, and churches, forming lasting communities of inquiry.” (Utne Reader).

For Christopher Phillips philosophy is not academic discipline reserved for “the lecture hall or the faculty lounge,” it is a living thing — an essential way of approaching the world and puzzling out one’s place in it. Philosophy is his passion and he has found his life’s vocation in bringing the Socratic Method to ordinary people in ordinary places, challenging them to consider: What is virtue? Good? Justice? Moderation? Piety? Courage?

He believes that, “Socrates’ example continues to teach us how to expand our own intellectual and imaginative horizons.” Phillips’ goal is inspire people who are curious, perplexed and filled with an insatiable sense of wonder, so they can dialogue for discovery and democracy.

In the bestseller Socrates Cafe (W.W. Norton, 2001), Phillips describes his extensive travels across the U.S. starting philosophical discussion groups and recalls what led him to start his itinerant program to begin with. Recounting some of the most invigorating sessions, he reveals sometimes surprising, often profound reflections on the meaning of love, friendship, work, growing old, and others among Life’s Big Questions.

In his successful follow up, Six Questions of Socrates (W.W. Norton, 2004), Phillips continues this work, venturing to foreign lands and engaging in spirited and provocative discussions with people from many backgrounds: Japanese fifth-graders, Somalian refugees, a Mexican museum worker, an Israeli university student, Korean Buddists. . . The responses uncover surprising commonalities between cultures and reveal the deep connections between classical philosophy, modern life and the rich traditions and experiences of people far removed from the “canon” of Western academic philosophy.

“… Phillips induces his listeners to examine their assumptions rationally, in hopes they will see the way to improving the meaningfulness of their lives. These dialogues are intriguing, interesting, and often unexpected, as Phillips modestly considers himself a fellow inquirer, rather than a didactic instructor.” (Booklist)

Phillips reminds us that we ought to ask questions — that the process of dialogue and the space of human interaction are good for us as individuals and are essential for us as a society. At a time when American culture is perceived as isolationist and self-involved, Phillips’ inquiries provide us with a key to understanding ourselves and the people around us with greater openness and less fear.

Christopher Phillips travels around the world, facilitating hundreds of Socrates Cafes, in which ordinary people gather to ask questions — and questions about questions. He has been a teacher, a journalist, and is the founder and executive director of the nonprofit Society for Philosophical Inquiry (SPI). The distinguished scholar and professor of philosophy Matthew Lipman and Harvard psychiatrist and Pulitzer Prize-winning author Robert Coles serve on the advisory board of SPI.

At this Fall’s Leading Edge Conference of Phi Theta Kappa Leadership Educators, Christopher Phillips will speak on the Conference theme “Bowling Together: Building Social Capital and Civic-Mindedness” and on “Socrates Cafe: Philosophical Communities In and Out of the Academy,” providing conference attendees with a training experience to establish Socrates Cafes at their own institutions.

Books
Socrates in Love: Philosophy for a Passionate Heart (forthcoming, W. W. Norton, February 2007)
Six Questions of Socrates (W. W. Norton, 2004)
Socrates Cafe: A Fresh Taste of Philosophy (W. W. Norton, 2001)

Children’s Books
Ceci Ann’s Day of Why (forthcoming, Tricycle Press, September 2006)
The Philosophers’ Club, illustrated by Kim Doner (Tricycle Press, 2001)

For more information about Christopher Phillips and the Society for Philosophical Inquiry, click here.
To listen to an interview with Christopher Phillips on National Public Radio, click here.