Hundreds of women have benefited from a leadership program at Gonzaga University since its creation more than a decade ago. The program, Women Lead, is offered through the university's School of Leadership Studies, and drives positive changes for women in the workplace in Spokane and abroad, says Sherri Lynch, Gonzaga School of Leadership Studies assistant dean.

Lynch and colleague Rachelle Strawther, director of Gonzaga’s Center for Lifelong Learning, co-founded Women Lead in 2015, says Lynch. Women Lead is designed to empower and educate women and to assist everyone in improving gender parity and opportunities for women in the workplace, she explains.

“Research shows that when women can build a community and they can feel supported and seen, they actually show up better at work," Lynch says. "When workplaces become more productive, retention is better."

Women Lead held its first conference in 2016. The program’s largest conference is its annual Women Lead Spring Conference, which attracts between 300 and 400 attendees each year in March. Program leaders also host a conference at Gonzaga's international campus in Florence, Italy, in May. 

“We'll do a variety of different workshops — sometimes they're on emotional intelligence, sometimes they're on how to negotiate, sometimes it's on how to build your network,” Lynch says.

In addition to conferences and workshops, Women Lead hosts free book clubs and provides online resources available at no cost. Women Lead also offers a graduate-level leadership course to students and nonstudents. The course, dubbed the Certificate in Women’s Leadership, is a 14-week program Lynch established in 2018, after realizing that conference attendees were eager for more engagement.

“People would come to a conference, and they would learn so much about women and women in the workplace and some of the barriers that women face, that they were asking for more, and so I wrote a certificate program,” says Lynch.

The School of Leadership Studies develops the Women Lead content, while the Center for Lifelong Learning teaches and manages the certificate, she explains.

Professionals of all backgrounds and genders have taken this course, experiencing tangible benefits in their workplaces, she contends.

“They sit side by side in the classroom, and they very quickly realize that they have a lot of the same problems in the workplace,” Lynch says of participants. “When women can see themselves as not being alone, and they can help create a sense of community, it really gives them a boost in their confidence and really can go back to the workplace and start doing things differently.”

The certificate course costs $3,200 per person. Courses typically begin in September and February.

In 2019, course graduate Julie Kelsey succeeded Lynch as the program's lead instructor. With a background in finance, executive leadership coaching, and a 20-year career at Merrill Lynch, the role was a comfortable fit, notes Kelsey.

“It was a nice little segue and a bonus from taking the course to then being able to move into the instructor role, and I’ve been the lead instructor ever since,” Kelsey says.

The hybrid course combines online learning with two full-day in-person immersion lessons at Gonzaga University. Participants are not required to be enrolled students to attend. However, students who participate are eligible to earn three elective academic credits to be applied toward either a graduate degree in organizational leadership or communication and leadership studies at Gonzaga, says Kelsey.

The class is intentionally small — course enrollment averages 16 to 17 students, capping at 20, she says. Of all participants, about 80% of identify as women and 20% men.

“The majority of the people have taken it as a standalone certificate course without doing any further graduate work at Gonzaga,” adds Kelsey.

Learning modules cover topics such as negotiating with employers, work-life balance, leadership, and communication. The curriculum is designed to build confidence, amplify voices, and preserve identity, she explains. Kelsey also notes that for male participants, course graduates emerge better informed about challenges women face in the workplace and learn how to best support the women they work with.

Past participants include leaders from Spokane-based Avista Corp. and the Washington State Department of Transportation, who have taken the class and noted positive culture shifts in their workplaces as a result, Kelsey says.

“People naturally tend to hire people that look and act like them, so I think it really opens people's mind to looking for somebody that they would expect to apply for a job,” Kelsey says.