by Renee Levy

Leadership development expert Carole A. Leland ’56 will be honored with the Melvin A. Eggers Senior Alumni Award during Syracuse University’s 2022 Alumni Awards Ceremony on September 30 during Orange Central weekend. The award recognizes alumni who have graduated more than 50 years ago and have demonstrated loyalty and service to the University. Leland served as a member of College of Arts and Sciences’ (A&S) Board of Visitors (now Dean’s Advisory Board) from 2006 to 2019, and as chair of the board from 2014 to 2017. She currently serves the Dean’s Advisory Board as an emerita member.

Leland was student government president as a Syracuse University undergraduate. Subsequent to earning a bachelor’s degree in English, magna cum laude, from the College, she pursued a master’s degree in education from Harvard University and a doctorate in higher education and sociology from Stanford University, where she was a Carnegie Fellow.

Leland spent much of her career in the field of leadership development as a researcher, teacher, executive coach and consultant. She spent more than 35 years with the Center for Creative Leadership’s (CCL’s) San Diego branch, serving as a program manager and senior faculty member, and was named a senior fellow in leadership diversity. She is now a principal at Leadership Enterprises, a management consulting firm providing executive coaching and team development for individuals and organizations. Her commitment to public health provided Leadership Enterprises with consulting and coaching assignments in both domestic and international organizations, including Leland’s role as lead consultant on a foundation-sponsored project working with the Minister of Health and his senior team in Ethiopia. She has been affiliated with the Public Health Institute, the International Family Planning Leadership Program, the Global Health Fellowship Program and USAID.

Leland is co-author of the highly acclaimed Women of Influence, Women of Vision: A Cross-Generational Study of Leaders of Social Change (Jossey Bass, 1991). She was honored with the 2006 A&S Distinguished Alumni Award and the 2021 Global ATHENA award, which recognizes individuals who have lived up to the organization’s vision of encouraging more women to take on leadership roles.