William Kenyon: About

My name is William Kenyon, and I am a servant leader. The term servant leader, first coined by Robert K. Greenleaf in 1970, is defined by leadership traits focused on service to others (Greenleaf, 1970, as cited in Ellis, 2019). As a servant leader, I seek to help people to the best of my ability regardless of their need, race, gender, or orientation. I desire to teach or inspire others to grow, and give others the capacity to be confident in any and every aspect of their lives where possible.

My commitment to promoting diversity and inclusion in academia and the workforce is grounded in my own personal experiences and my leadership education. I am a first-generation college graduate. I did not have many financial resources available to me and I had to pay my own way through college.

There were a lot of emotional, social, and financial barriers that I had to overcome both in the classroom and out. Times often got tough and there were days where I had to choose between work, sleep, or school. These experiences all shaped me to be who I am today, as I have deep commitment to the removal of barriers in education wherever possible. The stress of affording my textbooks each semester, and the stress of trying to manage my time to pay for all of those expenses so I could better improve my life and live my dream at times, felt insurmountable.

My dream today is to lessen this burden wherever possible for the next generation of college students and my current efforts continue to reflect my commitment to enhancing diversity, equity and inclusion. Gender, age, race, orientation, and wealth all affect the student learning experience because these traits in part define us. As a person and instructional designer, I am an advocate for open educational resources (OER) to reduce cost to students and to increase accessibility of content for everyone. And as a designer, I work to remove barriers to the learning experience by following general universal design (UDL) principles so we can better engage students and allow students to demonstrate their knowledge in ways that connect with them.

In my 11 years in undergraduate and graduate education both as a student and employee in the field of higher education, I have directly observed the many ways that diverse teams make academia stronger. I have been fortunate to work alongside talented, creative, and insightful students, staff, and faculty to solve complex problems. I have been inspired by the resolve of our student base who overcame many obstacles to attend a university, students that eventually graduated and are committed to being life-long learners themselves.

Looking ahead to my new role in higher education, I intend to use my education, skills and position to ensure excellence and increase equity and diversity at my university and in society.

About Servant Leadership

References

ELLIS, P. (2019). What it means to be a servant leader. Wounds UK, 15(5), 76–77.

What is Servant Leadership? (n.d.). Greenleaf Center for Servant Leadership. Retrieved October 12, 2022, from https://www.greenleaf.org/what-is-servant-leadership/

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