SEEDS co-sponsored Distinguished Scholar, Linda Sanford

Linda Sanford

Member of the National Academy of Engineering, Senior Vice President at IBM Gave a talk, Jan 25, 2009, on "Building a Smarter Planet: Strategies for Meaningful Change" and mentored junior engineering faculty and women from IBM. Co-sponsored by The College of Engineering

 

Dean Tien and Dr. Sanford

Mentoring event

Below read participant answers to the following questions.

• What was the most significant thing you learned today?
• Was this event useful to you, and if so, how?
  
• Was this event what you expected? Please elaborate.
  
• Did this event help you to establish useful contacts? Please elaborate.
  
• Did the networking /lunch portion of this event help you establish new contacts or gain new information?
  
• How might this event be improved in the future?

What was the most significant thing you learned today?

• Four traits of new leaders
• Be Yourself”
• Collaboration for success
• There are some great mentoring opportunities available here
• Being myself and developing a T structure
• The smart analytics efforts
• “Be Yourself”
• Collaborative discussion
• Great detail about IBM
• I learned about future transformation of leadership skills
• Some new technology opportunities

 

Was this event useful to you? Was it what you expected? Please elaborate.

• Yes
• Yes
• No
• Yes, I think having more time or small groups with food would be good
• Very much
• Yes, more than I expected
• Yes
• Yes
• Yes
• Yes
• Yes
• Yes
• Yes

 

Did this event help you to establish useful contacts? Please elaborate.

• Yes
• Yes
• Yes
• Yes, it was a casual and very pleasant opportunity to get to know other senior women faculty. Yes, this was the fifth such mentoring/networking event that we have had, and I always learn something new. Also I continue to meet women around the university, including the medical school, who I have not yet met.
• Yes
• Yes, actually it was better.
• I often am not as keen to attend these events because I fear the whining! But several attendees set a really positive tone.
• Yes

Did the networking /lunch portion of this event help you establish new contacts or gain new information? Please elaborate.

• Yes
• Yes
• Yes, It helped me with networking
• Yes, it expanded my networking contacts
• Yes, I met fantastic students and shared my contact information so they can send inquires or turn to me for info on IBM
• Yes
• Yes, Engineers without borders
• Yes
• Yes
• No, not yet but I will follow up to see if our organization can help

 

How might this event be improved in the future?

• Make it a regular occurrence
• Not sure
• More interaction via email
• Q& A for the entire audience
• Get more students engaged!
• Great networking opportunity
• More time making firm connections effort
• Food.
• More established structure, present questions
• Maybe there could be a pre-existing list of questions polled from women scientists and engineers
• Career venue- more interesting leaders