How to form political connections for win-wins.

Forming connections with politicians in your community can greatly benefit your school, and the relationship is mutually rewarding, said Dr. Charlene Drew Jarvis, president of Southeastern University DC. She discussed "Connecting with Women in Politics" at the February Office of Women in Higher Education conference, held before the American Council on Education conference in Los Angeles.

A layered career path

Dr. Jarvis' career path to higher education administration included working as a scientist for 10 years at the National Institutes of Health and serving as a member of the Council of the District of Columbia for 21 years. There she chaired several committees, with a focus on revitalizing communities.

At the time Jarvis joined Southeastern University, its focus was on business management and serving mainly adult learners. Very attuned to the needs of its community, leaders noticed that many small, women-owned businesses were failing because they didn't have the specific entrepreneurial skills, such as HR expertise, to run the business.

Jarvis, who worked in the white-male dominated field of banking at the time, had witnessed the phenomenon firsthand. Continuing in her commitment to improving her community, she left the business world for the university, to develop programs to strengthen the skills of the next generation of business leaders.

She also worked on expanding the college's online learning program, which helped the university deal with ebbs and flow in enrollment. At the time of her hiring, SEU had a large international student population, but after 9/11, visa problems kept out most of them. This transformed the campus student body into one that is now primarily African American females.

"It presented another university to run," said Jarvis. She knew that she needed to engage the public sector to get support for her new campus to really make a difference for her community. Using the platform of access to higher education as a central issue helped her to reach out to local officials.