School administrators from Shaker Heights, Painesville, Akron’s Firestone cluster and Westlake delved into understanding leadership through a contextual and cultural lens in a recent four-day Creating Global Mindedness Leadership Institute sponsored by Kent State University’s College of Education, Health and Human Services. The institute was held at Kent State’s Regional Academic Center in Twinsburg. 
This international training is offered on every continent of the world, and only 35 facilitators worldwide are authorized to be the presenters. Facilitators for this institute were Andreas Swoboda from International College Spain and Chris Wright from Woodard Schools in the United Kingdom.
The curriculum for the institute was developed by the International Baccalaureate World Schools with input from educators around the world – truly a global leadership curriculum based on inquiry, differing cultural context and the belief of lifelong learning.
“With the changing demographics and increased diversity worldwide, schools must adapt to the changing population that they serve,” says Linda Robertson, Ph.D., outreach program director of Kent State’s Gerald H. Read Center for International and Intercultural Education. “This leadership workshop offers the opportunity for administrative teams to reflect, inquire, learn and celebrate the changing environment of the schools and communities they serve.”
This is the second year that the Martha Holden Jennings Foundation and Kent State’s Gerald H. Read Center for International and Intercultural Education have collaborated on offering this unique workshop for Northeast Ohio educators. Last year, educators from Oberlin, Shaker Heights, Kent, Aurora, Fairport Harbor and the Lake County Educational Service Center participated in the training.
For more information about Kent State’s College of Education, Health and Human Services, visit www.kent.edu/ehhs.