Women’s Leadership Program

The Women’s Leadership Program (WLP) is a longitudinal program for women faculty on the Boston University Medical Campus (BUMC). The program uses self-assessment and reflection, experiential learning, and peer and senior mentorship to provide faculty with the tools necessary to navigate a successful career in academic medicine and to foster leadership skills that enable participants to positively affect change from where they stand.

Course directors: Emelia Benjamin, MD, ScM, and Alyssa DiNicola, BA.

AY24 Applications are now closed.
Target Participants:

BUMC women faculty members in leadership roles (e.g. Clinic Director, Associate Program Director, PI of a lab)

Time Commitment:
  • Meet with a peer mentor 7x a year (in between sessions, meet with a program peer)
  • Meet with a senior mentor 3x a year
  • Attend 8 out of 10 sessions, all sessions are 2 hours long and take place from September to June on Wednesday afternoons from 3-5 pm, approximately every two to three weeks in person.

AY24 Dates:

    • September 13th, 2023
    • October 4th & 25th , 2023
    • November 15th, 2023
    • December 6th, 2023
    • January 10th, 2024
    • February 7th, 2024
    • March 6th, 2024
    • April 3rd, 2024
    • May 1st, 2024
Program Components:
  • Experiential seminars. Senior faculty members and leaders from BUMC and beyond engage with participants around key determinants for effective leadership, with a special focus on topics identified as areas of particular interest to women faculty.
  • Peer coaching. Participants develop peer mentoring and coaching skills to provide support and accountability to one another to successfully negotiate challenges, foster resiliency, and achieve personal goals.
  • Conversation café. Opportunity to engage with inspirational women leaders from BU/BMC and beyond in an informal setting to learn about their career and leadership experiences, challenges, and insights.
  • Leadership goal. Participants commit to making substantial progress on a personal leadership goal throughout the program.
  • Participant commitment. Participants commit to actively participate in at least 11 of the 15 sessions that take place from September to June, to make progress on their projects, and engage in self-reflection and honest conversation with peer and senior mentors.
Curriculum Topics:
  • Self-reflection, awareness, and assessment
  • Understanding your personality & leadership style
  • Art & style of interpersonal communication as a woman leader
  • Leading high performing teams
  • Navigating organizational politics & change
  • Graceful self-promotion (& impostor syndrome)
  • Giving and receiving feedback that results in behavior change
  • Conflict management and negotiation
  • Mentoring & developmental networks
  • Strategically saying yes and no
  • Unconscious bias
  • Resiliency in academic medicine

For more information about the WLP, please contact us at bumcfdd@bu.edu.