When President Bolton arrived at Whitman, she joined a community where women’s leadership is a vital part of our strength. In honor of last Friday’s International Women’s Day and the current Women’s History Month in the United States, today we honor and learn from some of the many women leaders all around us.
Of course, leadership can be exercised in many ways. For this column, we are celebrating women who hold visible roles in our region and thus are public figures and sources of inspiration, power, debate and scrutiny. Also, this is only a sample and is not in any way meant to be comprehensive—rather, it’s subjective based on who I’ve gotten to know and work with and admire during my twenty years in Walla Walla.
To begin, the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation (CTUIR) has many women leaders, some of whom Whitman has been fortunate to work with, including Kat Brigham who was a long-time member of the Board of Trustees and served as board chair during the years when Whitman was building our Memorandum of Agreement with the Tribes. Bobbie Conner is the long-standing Director of the Tamastslikt Cultural Institute who Whitman has hosted on campus numerous times and sought advice from in important decision-making moments.
Martina Gordon, recently elected CTUIR General Council Secretary, reflected, “While I do not consider myself an expert in the subject matter, I do believe that women are the backbone for many families and communities. Women lead every day even without having the title of a leader. I believe that being in a leadership role is being a servant to those you lead. We are all interconnected and we should strive to make decisions with that at the forefront of our minds.”
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