An Interview with Gwen Morgan

10/05/2005

An Interview with Gwen Morgan

If you could only sense how important you are to the lives of those you meet; how important you can be to the people you may never even dream of. There is something of yourself that you leave at every meeting with another person.
Fred Rogers

A new monthly feature of ExchangeEveryDay (EED) will be an interview with a leader or emerging leader in our field. Recently we had the opportunity to interview Gwen Morgan. The following is a portion of that interview:

EED -- What are you doing now and how did you get there?

Gwen Morgan (GM) -- Right now I am heavily engaged in policy advocacy, and in big and wonderful changes at Wheelock College. My title at Wheelock is Senior Fellow in Child Policy. I got to this point after spending most of my life doing those two things. Now that I am at the undisclosed age I have reached, I don't want to lead any effort, I want to help. So my new strategy has been to offer my help to all those people I see as the next leaders. I recommend that strategy as a way of moving.

EED -- What was the most satisfying part of your career?

GM -- The most satisfying part of my career happened when I took a group of students on a field trip to learn about policy, and we visited the office where policy on child care was implemented. To my delight, the person we met with was . . . .

EED -- How did you select this particular career?

GM -- I didn't select this career; it selected me.

EED -- Predict the future of ECE over the next 10 years -– what changes are coming and what stays the same?

GM -- I can predict two different futures for ECE over the next ten years. The happy future will be for the early educators to be working in a coherent system that brings together the schools and all the private settings in which education and care take place. With all our trilemma problems, which are systems problems, solved. The other future is for education and care to . . . .

EED -- If you were an animal, what would it be?

For the complete interview, and pictures of Gwen, including one as a young child, Click Here!

Reminder: The Art of Leadership, and all Exchange books are on sale this week at a 20% discount.

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