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414212
4212NevilleThe Counseling Psychologist
The Author(s) 2012
TCP40310.1177/001100001141
Helen A. Neville1
Abstract
Rosie Phillips Bingham has contributed to the field of counseling psychology
and the broader discipline of psychology in myriad ways. She is nationally recognized for her innovation, leadership skills, and fundraising capabilities. She is
also known for her commitment to student development and her caring mentoring approach. In this life narrative, the multiple factors influencing Rosies
professional development are uncovered, as is her journey in becoming a selfassured psychologist who is committed to social justice and who has made a
significant difference in individuals lives and in the profession.
Keywords
life narrative, professional issues, social justice
Rosie is one of the most respected psychologists in the nation. She is without
peer in her ability to effectively lead. She has always been in the forefront of
visionary changes in the field, able to get different groups to collaborate with one
another, been gifted in building consensus even among competing groups, and
has ably moved the profession to confront important issues of the future.
Derald Wing Sue
Corresponding Author:
Helen A. Neville, Department of Educational Psychology, 1310 S. Sixth St.,Champaign, IL 61820.
Email: hneville@illinois.edu
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development represents the process of challenging internalized representations of self primarily because of poverty, color, and race to accepting that she
is complete and whole with many talents. The title thus reflects Rosies journey
and her process of becoming a person, mother, friend, mentor, and professional. Rosies story is unique to her life experiences. Her story also reflects
the experiences of many girls and women in America, particularly African
American girls coming of age at the cusp of the modern Civil Rights and
Black Power movements. Thus, at critical junctures, I place her narrative
within a historical backdrop.
What I hope is captured in this narrative is Rosies authenticity and genuine warmth. It is difficult to fully represent the multidimensional nature of an
individual in one short life narrative. I wish everyone had an opportunity to
listen to the taped interviews with Rosie. What strikes me most about the series
of conversations is the honesty in which she talked about her life. Rosie
placed her narrative within context and did not shy away from the complexities
of real life. I had a similar reaction as did Valene A. Whitaker, a counseling
psychology doctoral student who assisted with transcribing the nearly 6 hours
of tape. In her process notes, Valene underscored the inspirational nature of
Rosies story and the influence she has on others:
When I think back over the entire interview as a whole, I am perhaps
most profoundly affected by the fact that transcribing this conversation
allowed me to really get a sense of why Dr. Bingham is so well-regarded
in the field of psychology as a whole, and why she means so much to
so many psychologists and future psychologists! Listening to the interview gave me such a clear sense of her authenticity as a Black woman,
and as someone who found success in her career, even after a few
professional and personal setbacks. As she spoke, it was evident to me
that this was a woman who did not seem to feel as if she had to sacrifice
loving her husband and son or connecting with and finding support
from close friends and colleagues, in order to advance her career. It is
encouraging for me to look to her as an example of a psychologist who
has achieved so much in life, while still staying true to her goals and
aspirations, and maintaining her sense of self.
This life narrative consists of quotations based on excerpts from my conversations with Rosie. We talked about her early life, critical incidents in her
development as a person and as a professional, and peak and nadir experiences. I read and reread the transcribed conversations. Through my close read
of the text, I decided the best way to represent Rosies story in this article was
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Table 2. Selected Publications of Rosie Phillips Bingham
Bingham, R. P., & Walsh, W. B. (1978). Concurrent validity of Hollands theory for
college-degreed black women. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 13, 242-250.
Walsh, W. B., Horton, J., & Bingham, R. P. (1979). A comparison of the concurrent
validity of Hollands theory with college-degreed Black women and collegedegreed White women. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 13, 217-223.
Bingham, R. P., & Tucker, C. M. (1981). The counseling center practitioner as
researcher. Personnel and Guidance Journal, 59, 531-536.
Bingham, R. P., Fukuyama, M., Suchman, D., & Parker, W. M. (1984). Ethnic student
walk-in: Expanding the scope. Journal of College Student Personnel, 25, 168-169.
Sheffey, M. A., Bingham, R. P., & Walsh, W. B. (1986). Concurrent validity of Hollands
theory for college educated black men. Journal of Multicultural Counseling and
Development, 64, 437-439.
Walsh, W. B., Bingham, R. P., & Sheffey, M. (1986). Hollands theory and college
educated black men and women. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 29, 194-200.
Ward, C. M., & Bingham, R. P. (1993). Career assessment of ethnic minority
women. Journal of Career Assessment, 1, 246-257.
Fouad, N., & Bingham, R. P. (1995). Career counseling with racial/ethnic minorities.
In W. B. Walsh & S. H. Osipow (Eds.), Handbook of vocational psychology (2nd ed.,
pp. 331-366). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Bingham, R. P., & Ward, C. M. (1997). Theory into assessment: A model for women
of color. Journal of Career Assessment, 5, 403-418.
Sue, D. W., Bingham, R. P., Porch-Burke, L., & Vasquez, M. (1999). The diversification
of psychology: A multicultural revolution. American Psychologist, 54, 1061-1069.
Walsh, W. B., Bingham, R. P., Brown, M., & Ward, C. M. (Eds.). (2001). Career
counseling for African Americans. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Bingham, R. P. (2003). Fostering human strength: A counseling psychology
perspective. In W. B. Walsh (Ed.), Counseling psychology and optimal human
functioning (pp. 279-296). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Bingham, R. P., Ward, C. M., & McGhee, M. (2006). Career counseling with African
American women. In W. B. Walsh & M. J. Heppner (Eds.), Career counseling with
women (2nd ed., pp.165-195). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Bingham, R. P. (2009). My life is a balance between. . . In J. Ponterotto, J. M. Casas,
L. A. Suzuki, & C. M. Alexander (Eds.), Handbook of multicultural counseling (3rd ed.,
pp. 19-24). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.
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Rosie has overcome in her life, including the intense racial oppression in the
Jim Crow era and extreme poverty. We also get a glimpse of Rosie as a precocious youth with a vivid imagination. Later, I outline Rosies professional
development and accomplishments. Because Rosie is involved in a wide
range of professional and community organizations, I focus on her contributions to the university settings in which she has worked and the American
Psychological Association, especially Division 17. What emerge in these summaries are Rosies resourcefulness and imaginative leadership style and
effectiveness. I include brief discussions of the role of family and faith in her
life to acknowledge their importance in her life story. I conclude with Rosies
words of wisdom to emerging professionals; this seemed fitting given her commitment to the development of students and professionals.
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tell my mother. Georgia and I plotted how we were going to kill the lady.
We were going to feed her some ants. I remember when my mother
returned from the fields; she was sitting outside and I was in the kitchen
sweeping. I heard the neighbor telling my mother what I did. I knew I
was in trouble. My mother called me out, turned me across her lap and
spanked me. What I remember about that story is the fact that I was
actually cleaning; I was four or five years old. The point of the story is
that in some ways children are so different now; when I was growing up
children worked in some capacity.
Rosies life was filled with the love of family that countered many of the
harsh realities of racialized poverty and Jim Crow policies. These realities are
captured in the following story about being critically ill as a child:
I remember going to the hospital when my brother and I were very ill
with typhoid fever. We got sick from drinking the water that was delivered to our house in barrels. I was sick first; my brother was later ill. I
remember the hospital was divided into the colored section and the white
section. My mother was very good to us and took very good care of us.
And my father gave me a blood transfusion.
Rosies family moved to Memphis when she was 5 years old, after her illness
with typhoid fever. The move took place at a time in which farm mechanization increased and consequently sharecropping as a mode of production was
becoming obsolete. The Phillips family became part of the Second Great
Migration in which African Americans from the Deep South fled racism and
sought increased economic opportunities in more industrialized cities. The
Phillips family did not migrate to a northern city such as Chicago, like the
majority of African American Mississippians during this time. Instead, they
migrated to Memphis to be close to family.
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attractiveness of lighter complexioned African Americans (women in particular) compared to their darker counterparts (see Russell, Wilson, &
Hall, 1993). Racism structured Rosies larger social world in terms of the
economic exploitation of her family and the inferior services provided to
African Americans in the South. Colorism and sexism intersected to influence Rosies direct experiences of discrimination as a Black girl. Within the
family, the lighter grandchildren were given preferences, and outside of the
home, she was taunted with names such as Black and ugly. Poverty also
played a role in Rosies development. The majority of African Americans in
segregated Memphis in the 1950s were poor. Rosies family were the poor
among the poorthe church mice poor. Although her familys social condition was a source of embarrassment, it served as the impetus to achieve in
school and later in life.
Rosie was resilient and actively challenged the external representations
of her. She relied on internal resources such as her imagination to redefine
the color and class discrimination to survive the torments and thrive in
school:
Learning to cope with color issues outside of the home was a critical
incident for me growing up. I dealt with being teased by learning to use
my imagination. One way I used my imagination was to think to myself,
Every time somebody calls me ugly, Im going to pretend I have a dollar, and Im going to buy stuff that I want. In addition to learning to use
my imagination, I learned how to reframe a negative situation into a
positive situation to make it more bearable.
Rosie learned to read at an early age, before starting school. Reading also
served as a resource for her as she dealt with colorism and poverty throughout
her childhood and adolescence. Reading fueled her imagination and enhanced
her self-esteem:
Reading allowed me to escape. Reading allowed me to have a bigger
vision for what my life could be. Reading also contributed to my vivid
imagination. My imagination in turn enabled me to create things in my
head. For example, as a child I imagined myself living in New York
wearing a sophisticated suit and meeting the love of my life. Through
reading I was able to imagine a different world. The fact that reading
has the potential to expand ones world is fundamental, especially to
children who are in an oppressed situation in which their world experiences are restricted.
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Rosie attended Manassas High School, founded in 1900 and one of the centers of pride of Black Memphians (Jenkins, 2009). In the mid-1960s, Memphis
tried to integrate the public schools, but the Black students, including Rosie,
refused to attend the new integrated high school. It was not that they opposed
attending school with White youths; they had nothing against Whites, as they
had very few interactions with them. These students identified with and were
attached to their high school; they wanted to graduate from Manassas, a place
they loved! Even today, graduates of Manassas get together regularly for activities such as monthly luncheons.
In high school, Rosie found acceptance and a sense of community with
other smart and talented youths. Yet this acceptance came at a cost:
When I was in ninth grade, I was selected to be in the tenth grade club
called the Deburetts. This club had about 20 or more members. I never
thought I would be selected to be a member, but I was thrilled to be part
of the group. The senior elitist club was the Double Ten Society.
Members of the Double Ten were considered the smart kids, and many
were lighter and were part of the middle-class. Although I was neither
light nor middle class, I was selected to be a part of the group in large
part because I was smart. Since I was bright, I was tracked with kids
with more advantages. My friends who lived in my neighborhood were
not in the same track. This means I had two sets of friends. I had my
friends in the neighborhood who were my walk around the block
friends, and my friends whom I spent most of my time with in school.
I began to resent that my friends at home were not good enough. The
various clubs would sponsor parties. Club members turned in a list of
students to invite to the party. Inevitably, not one person from my neighborhood was perceived as good enough by the advisors to invite to the
party. I did not like that kind of exclusion.
In reflecting on her childhood and adolescent experiences, Rosie identifies
the poverty, perception of her neighborhood friends as not being good
enough, and her familys internal dynamics as helping her to be an accepting
person of a wide range of people later in life. She also views the acceptance of
others as an essential piece of her own self-acceptance.
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1960s. It was a time of protests against a war and injustices on the home
front. During his presidency, Lyndon B. Johnson initiated a series of legislations designed to end poverty and racial injustices under the vision of the
Great Society. The Higher Education Act of 1965 was part of these programs;
the act increased access to higher education to racial minorities, and poor and
working-class Whites. Thus, bright and talented students such as Rosie who
would have been excluded from college previously were admitted and provided financial assistance.
Rosies strong academic record provided her with many college options to
consider. She was accepted to a number of colleges; she ultimately decided to
attend Elmhurst College, a small liberal arts college outside of Chicago. In
high school, Rosie was relatively quiet, conservative, and tried to conform to
the status quo. Rosie blossomed at Elmhurst. Like so many youth of her generation, Rosies social consciousness was awakened during her college years.
Also during this time, the seeds of leadership that were planted in Rosies high
school years as part of the Deburetts sprouted as she assumed a number of
leadership positions in college:
I received scholarships to Mount Holyoke, University of Chicago,
Vanderbilt, Cornell, Ithaca, and a number of other schools. I didnt tell
anyone that I was scared to attend some of the schools. My biggest fear
was social. I was afraid that I would be isolated. I didnt voice my concerns to anyone. Instead, I chose not to act on the scholarship offers.
I ultimately decided to attend Elmhurst College. One of the recruiters
came to our high school and recruited three of us. I received a full ride.
Elmhurst, Illinois, is a middle-class suburb outside of Chicago. The
school is a beautiful, little school. In my class, there were about 23
African Americans. At the time I attended college, the campus was
maybe 3,000 students. By the time I graduated from college, there were
perhaps 150 African American students.
I had a great time in college, though. I began to participate in peace
marches and other types of protests. I was very conservative in high
school. I preferred Martin Luther King to Malcolm X. I believed in
the domino theory of communism [the belief that if one country fell to
communism then so would neighbor counties] and in the Vietnam War.
These were values and beliefs that were reinforced by my high school
teachers that I internalized. I began to challenge these beliefs in college.
I came out against the war and I became active pretty early on.
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the racial stratification in most jobs during this time, the Black sanitation workers completed the dirtiest and lowest paying jobs. Rosie remembers hearing
stories about Black workers being forced to eat meals outside of the truck
near the maggot infested garbage. Martin Luther King, Jr., actively participated in these protest activities and was assassinated in Memphis toward the
end of the 2-month strike:
When the strike began in Memphis, I began to send money home to
help out with the expenses. I had two jobs. One job was a desk job at
the university, which paid me a dollar an hour. I made more money at
my other job; I cleaned the home of a nice White lady. She wanted her
floors scrubbed. That meant I had to get on my hands and knees and
scrub her floor. That was challenging. However, I learned how to
clean from that woman.
I remember it was a critical incident when Dr. King was killed. The
women students at Elmhurst were in the midst of trying to form a
sorority. Elmhurst did not have sororities on campus at that time. The
Black and White women who were interested in forming a sorority
joined efforts. Without our knowledge, the White women that were
part of this joint effort formed their own sorority. We were in the music
listening room of the student center talking to these same White
women students when my girlfriend Shirley slammed the door open
and yelled, Talking to these White people about having a sorority, and
they shot Dr. King. The death of Martin Luther King, Jr., created
havoc on campus. This was an interesting time. As students, we talked;
there was a lot of crying. We engaged in difficult dialogues. It was
pretty amazing.
In following up with the story about the sororities, Rosie noted:
We never talked with the White women students about it again. Some
African American women students joined city chapters of sororities in
Chicago. Most of the students did not join sororities at that time. I
joined Delta Sigma Theta [a historically African American sorority]
in graduate school.
Rosie excelled in all aspects of college. She received good grades, was
a student leader committed to social change, and worked. Her only academic
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graduate years. For example, he helped her study for qualifying examinations
by teaching her how to respond to questions on the basis of her knowledge. He
also assisted her in navigating the political terrain of graduate school, and he
continued to support her professional development through writing and other
activities. She began to really appreciate Bruces support and guidance when
deciding on who she wanted to place on her oral qualifying examination committee and then later when working on her dissertation:
As an eager and motivated graduate student, I wanted to prove that I
was bright and capable. As part of these efforts, I decided to put on my
oral examining committee the most difficult men on the faculty. Bruce
approached me and said, Rosie, didnt you and so and so have a little
disagreement? I replied, No, he was complimentary of me. Bruce
briefly responded, Well, didnt the two of you have. . .. I later reflected
on my conversation with Bruce and decided to follow his advice and
remove the person from the oral committee. The entire faculty graded
students written examinations at Ohio State. I did well on the written
examination, with the exception of one set of low scores. Bruce commented, You have one low set, but we called that one.
I think a part of what cemented Bruces place in my life so firmly was his
assistance and support throughout the dissertation process. We used cards
to run data analyses when I was in graduate school. When I was ready to
analyze my data, Bruce offered to meet me early in the morning and to
stay with me as long as it took to complete the analyses. This turned into
a day-long activity. I completed the analysis in the computer lab and
returned to Bruces office. We reviewed the printout together, worked out
problems, and identified the next steps. I returned to the computer lab and
we repeated this process. Bruce also helped to pay for my materials.
Rosies dissertation built on Bruces vocational interest research in a number of important ways. Specifically, Rosie was interested in examining the
applicability of career theories with Black women. There were very few articles on career issues with Black women at the time Rosie was working on her
dissertation. A PsycInfo search yielded three articles published between 1973
and 1977 in this general area. Thus Rosies work validating two operationalizations of Hollands Theory with college-educated Black women was
groundbreaking. She spent a year collecting data on nearly 100 Black women
with college degrees; findings from her study provide initial support of common assessments of Hollands theory with this population.
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After completing the dissertation, Bruce encouraged her to write a manuscript on the basis of the findings: He was the first person to say to me, I think
we ought to publish an article. In fact, Rosie received her degree in 1977, and
the following year she was the lead author on a Journal of Vocational
Behavior article reporting findings from the dissertation. Bruce continued to
encourage Rosie to publish research in general: He asked me if I wanted to
write a book chapter with him on career counseling with African American
women, and so Dr. Connie Ward and I wrote the chapter. Subsequently,
Rosie co-authored a few other articles with Bruce, including the 2001 coedited book Career Counseling With African Americans (Walsh, Bingham,
Brown, & Ward, 2001). Rosie also established an independent line of research.
She and her colleagues helped to articulate a model of conceptualizing and
assessing career theory for women of color. For example, in her 1997 Journal
of Career Assessment article with Connie Ward, they built on her earlier work
and outlined four areas relevant for career assessment with racial and ethnic
minority women, including: cultural (e.g., identity, structural oppression), gender (e.g., gender role socialization), self-efficacy (e.g., career), and traditional
career assessment variables (e.g., values, interests).
In addition to nurturing her research, Bruce has supported Rosie throughout her professional career:
He is responsible for me being a fellow. One day he approached me
and said, Rosie, I think its time for you to be a fellow. At that time,
I was unaware of fellow status and its importance in the field. When I was
not awarded fellow after the first nomination, Bruce phoned me and
encouraged me to try again. Later in my career it was Bruce who gave me
the oath of office as Division 17 president. He was so proud.
On Becoming a Professional
Rosie experienced a number of developmental turns in her journey to becoming a professional, including the in-between status of being all but dissertation
or A.B.D., and securing and beginning her first job as a newly minted Ph.D.
This period represents tremendous personal and professional growth:
When I was close to completing my doctorate I worked as a faculty
member at Ohio Dominican College (now University), a small liberal
arts school. I was offered an Associate Dean of Students position at
Oberlin College, but I decided to stay in Columbus until I finished my
degree; I was afraid of being an A.B.D. While at Ohio Dominican, I
wrote a proposal for them to establish an Academic Effectiveness Center,
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training in assessment, which was rare at that time. The Center also created the
College: Getting Down to Basics program as an outreach effort to high school
students interested in attending college. Rosie and her staff also initiated a program to promote Black student development. They formed Black Scholars
Unlimited, which remains active today. According to the mission statement of the honor society, Black Scholars Unlimited is designed to promote
academic excellence, leadership, and service (see http://www.memphis.edu/
multiculturalaffairs/organizations.htm).
Shortly after V. Lane Rawlins became president of the University of Memphis
in 1991, he asked the Vice President, Donald K. Carson, to restructure student
affairs. Don restructured student affairs and subsequently created two assistant
vice president positions. Rosie was encouraged to apply for one of the positions. Rosie accepted the Assistant Vice President for Student Affairs/Student
Development position when it was offered to her.
Rosie was able to accomplish a lot during her 9 years as Assistant Vice
President for Student Affairs. In this position, Rosie was responsible for the
Health Center, the Center for Student Development, the Athletic Academic
Center, Student Disability Services, and the Career Center. The accomplishments of her leadership team are extensive. I will briefly highlight a few.
First, Rosie was able to transform the culture such that the five units, instead
of working relatively independently, worked as a team. They identified the theme
Students First and were able to prioritize budget requests as a team. Thinking
outside of the box, Rosie and her team were able to revitalize and grow the Health
Center, which was in danger of being eliminated. She also worked with others
to increase the retention efforts of the university. This included (a) encouraging the university to hire nationally recognized higher education consultants
to assist with recruitment and retention efforts, (b) influencing college efforts
such that every college within the university (such as the College of Engineering)
developed a retention plan, (c) conducting research to identify predictors of
students success (they found that GPA was a better predictor than ACT score),
and (d) instituting the first freshmen Introduction to the University course.
When Don Carson retired in 2003, Rosies son was a freshman in college.
At this time, Rosie applied for the vacated position and also other positions
in the country. Rosie was offered and ultimately accepted the vice presidency
position. This new position increased her leverage to implement additional
changes on campus and to promote student learning and development. Rosie
was excited about the possibilities the Vice President for Student Affairs position provided and she was acutely aware of the university hierarchy, which
many times devalues the contributions of student affairs. Rosie was also aware
of the way in which race and gender played a role in how others responded to
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the leadership of women of color. Research shows that Rosies concerns were
grounded in reality. Black women leaders authority is often undermined, in
spite of the multiple ways in which their leadership as a group contributes to
resolving conflict and negotiating resolutions (see Parker, 2005):
. . . it is really difficult for women and persons of color to have credibility when they step through the door. When I got the job as Vice President,
I realized that everybody thought that they could tell me how to do my
job. No matter which area they were responsible for. I just capitalized
on that and used that to my advantage. I felt free to come into the meetings and make controversial suggestions because I knew people would
dismiss me by saying, She just doesnt know any better. This provided
our team an opportunity to confront some really difficult things. I was
able to turn a potential negative into a positive.
The previous passage highlights the ways in which racism, sexism, and their
intersections may influence others responses to Rosie and more importantly
Rosies refusal to be defined by these isms:
I want to keep on claiming my power. I have no interest in being a victim
of sexism and racism. That is not to say that these two societal problems
do not and will not affect my life. It is to say that in my fight with them,
I want to use them to become stronger. (Bingham, 2009, p. 23)
There are a number of strategies Rosie used to enter the group of administrators at this level:
In addition to asking questions, I accepted my team and other administrators as full participants. I remained firm and clear about my position
and that of Student Affairs. I also made sure I had data to support my
observations and suggestions. What I found critical was to speak and
speak often. When a woman enters a group such as this, I believe she
must speak up because the group will interpret her silence as she does
not have anything to contribute to the discussion and may even think
that the woman is not fully competent. The group will then begin to
ignore the woman and devalue her contributions to the team. Women
must find their voice and speak. Part of the reason I continue to speak
up is to encourage my team and others to wonder What will Rosie
think about this? or What is the Student Affairs point of view? This
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Assistant Vice President; she also was involved in thwarting potential campus
outrage after a similar incident occurred in 2006, when she was Vice President.
Both incidents involved interracial interactions between Blacks and Whites at
a White fraternity party in which White fraternity members used racial epithets
and both incidents resulted in student concern on campus. The misstep in
1995 mainly resulted from the minimization of the seriousness of name calling, lack of immediate action, and excluding multiple student voices in solving
the problem. The successful outcome of the 2006 incident was due in large part
because staff and administrators identified the problem as serious after hearing
about it, involved all groups on campus to assist in solving the problem, and
allowed the students to lead with support from the administrators.
Rosies training as a scientist-practitioner also contributes to her leadership
effectiveness; making data-driven and supported decisions has helped her to
grow important campus initiatives:
My training as a scientist-practitioner influences the way I approach
and think about my work, even now in my job as a vice president. One
of my mentors was the previous vice president and he loved a program
called the Emerging Leaders Scholarship Program. He was afraid the
university would cut the program when he left. When I came on board,
I was committed to saving the program. I began to gather the existing
retention and graduation data to determine if the program was effective. As we analyzed the data and compared it to other programs on
campus, we found that the rates for the Emerging Leaders Scholarship
Program were the best on campus. I was able to provide the president
and the provost data about the effectiveness of the program in increasing retention. At that time it was a small program. The program worked
with about 20 new students each year. The president and provost immediately told me that I could have 10 additional scholarship students each
year. [Rosie and her staff have been able to more than double the size
of the incoming class; the program has grown from having 80 total
students on the 4-year scholarship to a total of 200 students.] I am now
working with the university to increase the stipend for that scholarship,
which I think I am going to be successful doing because I showed them
the numbers. I believe in evidence-based practice. My staff and I have
encouraged the university to consider the anticipated student outcomes
from the various programs within student affairs; we want to move
beyond the numbers to capture the benefits we hope students will gain.
I also worked to restructure a program and a position to hire a Director
of Student Learning and Assessment.
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the challenge. We were charged with raising over $7 million over the
course of 7 years. While I was Chair we were able to help the city obtain
two $20 million grants.
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As I was walking in the park the voice of God spoke to me and said
these things: Turn your depression to joy, your anxiety to excitement,
and your fear to faith. Since then I always apply those things. Initially, I
might say, OK, God, but what about my anger? [Laughter] But I could
never get past just those first three. These are guiding principles for me,
and so I never have a bad day. I havent had one since 2002.
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I have known Rosie for over 35 years as a friend, confidante, and colleague. She is highly intelligent, vibrant, witty, wise, thought-provoking,
introspective, analytical, genuine, and caring. It is these qualities that
have attracted so many mentees to Rosie. She continues to give generously of herself, her time, and her knowledge. As a mentor, many students and professionals have benefited immensely from their interactions
with her and have become better individuals and psychologists as a
result. Rosies impact is far-reaching and enduring. I am blessed to have
her as a true friend.
In celebration and recognition of her contributions to the development of
others, Rosie has received a number of awards, including the SCP Lifetime
Achievement in Mentoring award, the Division 45 Charles and Shirley Thomas
Award for mentoring and contributions to African American students and
community, and the Teachers College/Columbia University Janet E. Helms
Award for Mentoring and Scholarship.
471
Neville
Funding
The author received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Acknowledgments
The author thanks Sundiata K. Cha-Jua for his historical consultation, Amanda Long
and Valene A. Whitaker for transcribing the interviews, Meta C. Laab for helpful comments on an earlier draft, and Rosie Bingham Phillips for sharing her life story and for
her support throughout the writing process.
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Bio
Helen A. Neville is a professor in educational psychology and African American studies
at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.