On Monday afternoon, the Saint Mary’s College Alumnae Association hosted its first “Lunch and Learn” as part of their Success After Saint Mary’s series, which invited Saint Mary’s alumna Beth McCormick ‘96 and interim provost Megan Zwart to speak on a panel titled, “Saint Mary’s Prepares You to Be a Values Based Leader.”
Jessica Zigmond ‘97, chair of the cultivation committee for the Alumnae Association, helped organize and guide the event and hopes it will bring greater connection between current students and alumnae.
Editor’s note: McCormick is a former Saint Mary’s Editor and Managing Editor for The Observer. Zigmond is a former reporter for The Observer.
“We hope students understand the incredible education and experience they get here at Saint Mary’s and how that will translate in the real world,” Zigmond said. “And we hope to encourage our alumnae to give back, because I’ll live my whole life and never be able to give Saint Mary’s back all that I received … Let’s give back, because we were given so much.”
Hosted in the Welsh Parlor in the Haggar College Center, the panel began with Zigmond offering thanks to McCormick and Zwart for agreeing to participate in the event as well as several current and former professors and administrators in attendance.
Zwart was the first to present. In her presentation, she focused on the values for leadership taught by Saint Mary’s and a democracy and dialogue class she founded and taught for six years before taking on her current provost position.
“After the 2016 polarizing election between Trump and Clinton, I remember, it was the first day that I taught after that election, and students didn’t want to talk about Descartes or whatever was on the syllabus for that day. They wanted to talk about how they were experiencing the world with roommates and family members who had voted differently than they had and were feeling like they didn’t know how to have the kind of conversations they wanted to have,” Zwart said.
“We had those conversations in class. And I thought, ’This is remarkable. The country at large is not able to do this but look at our students stepping up and talking.’ I mean, they were about 50-50, how they would have voted in this class This was a very diverse crowd, and they were having these remarkable conversations about things that mattered to them,” she continued.
Zwart founded a democracy and dialogue-centered class the next year and believed it helped her students learn to have meaningful and difficult conversations. She asserted that “to have good dialogue across social and political difference,” a person should know and practice five “virtues” which are also important values for any leadership role. These values include giving attention, empathy, curiosity, intellectual humility and courage.
“This is a place where we want to grow women and leaders who care about things and who speak up for what matters to them, and that means they’re not going to always agree on what those are, but you need to have the courage in your convictions to speak up as much,” Zwart said.
McCormick presented after Zwart, focusing her presentation on her career and life path and how five core values she resonated with kept her “anchored” in her leadership skills. The five values she shared were connection, curiosity, optimism, perseverance and growth.
After graduating from Saint Mary’s with a degree in political science and English writing, McCormick began working for a publishing company in New York. She quickly realized such a career was not fulfilling for her, so she took on the position of director of communications at Catalyst, a nonprofit organization that “focuses on the advancement of women in business.”
After working with Catalyst for just under five years, McCormick switched directions and served as the director of global diversity of UBS for another six. In 2009, she was hired by Pfizer as diversity and inclusion lead of worldwide pharmaceutical operations, but she swiftly moved to work as the executive director of diversity and inclusion of Morgan Stanley in 2010.
McCormick was rehired by Pfizer two years later to serve as their vice president of diversity and inclusion. She has worked at Pfizer for the last 14 years and is currently their vice president of organizational development and colleague communications.
“I’m really working with our leadership teams to ensure that we have a culture that’s welcoming for everyone, to ensure that we have a really strong grasp of the talent that’s working currently at Pfizer, how we’re developing them, how we’re ensuring they’re ready for future roles and then aligning all of our people strategies to the business strategies to make sure that we’re meeting the needs of the business,” McCormick said.
After her presentation, Zigmond moderated a short Q&A session with Zwart and McCormick. When asked how her education based in Holy Cross values has impacted her leadership approach, McCormick called upon the importance of reflecting on how one presents oneself.
“I worked with a lot of people, and the ones who do it well, it starts first with yourself, your empathy, your humility, so that you can build that relationship, so that you can truly engage with people and see them and hear them and move forward in a collective way,” McCormick said.
Zwart was also asked how Saint Mary’s students could live out these values as leaders in their daily lives to make a positive difference in the world.
“What I see our students talk about most is, they go out in the world, and they realize how extraordinarily well prepared they are to be leaders in whatever industry they want to find their voice. I love this language of thinking about finding your voice, but I always want to pair it with listening to the voices of others, because I don’t think you can be that kind of values-based leader if you aren’t also listening to the needs of the world,” Zwart said.
As one of the final questions of the afternoon, McCormick was asked how her experience with extracurriculars during her time at Saint Mary’s prepared her to be a future leader in her career field. McCormick cited that working as an editor for The Observer was influential for much of her leadership skills after graduation.
“When you’re an editor, you get to work with people on their writing. You get to choose stories, which was a learning moment for me and a growth moment for me,” McCormick said. “But [I] also, in that role, was part of the editorial board, and we would lock ourselves in an office all the time and debate things, like have real conversation, about what we were going to write in our editorial pieces. Who was going to write it? Who’s going to draft it? What were we going to say? What was our point of view? And I learned how to sort of articulate a point of view, influence my peers and challenge things.”
