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Conoley earns Women of Achievement Award, mentored by nuns

Arriving to Cal State Long Beach as the first permanent campus female president in 65 years, incoming CSULB President Jane Close Conoley said that she had many female role models in her career that shaped her into the leader she is today.

“I’d say a big advantage I had — going to a Catholic school run by nuns … I saw women in leadership positions,” Conoley said.  She said that they gave her some “expectations” that one day she could assume.

Conoley, who begins her duties at CSULB on July 15, was the keynote speaker at the College of New Rochelle’s 76th Annual Alumnae/i College Weekend on June 7, and also earned the Women of Achievement Award that same day, according to a press release.

The weekend was a class of 1969 reunion conducted annually by the CNR. Conoley and four other women, Nancy Carey Cassidy of Loudonville, class of 1979; Jeanne Cashman, of Bear, Delaware, class of 1964; Barbara Wismer McManus, of Rye, New York, class of 1964; Carol Murphy, of Gainesville, Florida, class of 1969, earned the same award.

“Lessons from My Ursuline Mothers,” the title of Conoley’s keynote speech, illustrated how the philosophy nuns use helped her see the bigger picture, work harder, believe in self and serve others — among other things — ultimately influencing how she lives her life.

Conoley said that if it weren’t for a scholarship to CNR, she might have had a different life  because would have gone to a public school.

“In those days, if you were at a public school — a big public university — it was predominantly the leadership positions [that] went to the young men,” she said. “That was the culture.”

Many of her professors worked for a college that was owned by the Ursulines, an all-girls Catholic school, she said.

“We used to call them mothers, instead of sisters,” she said.

The award was instituted in 1999 to recognize alumnae/i for “brilliant accomplishments in their chosen careers,” stated the release.

“What I tried to do was relate it to the current research on well-being — how do we keep ourselves happy and productive and high-achieving,” Conoley said. “I talked about how a lot of who we are is genetically determined and about 40 percent of who we are is determined by how we see the world and what we say to ourselves and the kind of attitudes that we try to keep.”

Conoley said that one of the things that relates to CSULB is that “what we have learned is that what a leader can do is create an environment where other people can succeed — and that’s been researched.”

She said that she plans to instill Ursuline values, such as providing adequate resources, having no constraints to performance and implementing opportunities for self-development to CSULB.

“I’ve met lots of smart people from public schools, obviously,” she said. “I think one thing that the Catholic education reinforced in me — at least with these particular nuns — was a strong sense of service.”

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