Betty Sue Flowers, former director of the Lyndon Baines Johnson Presidential Library and Museum, will deliver the inaugural Taylor Willingham Lecture in Change Management at GSLIS on Tuesday, March 29. The lecture will take place from 4:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. in 126 LIS with a reception immediately following in the east foyer of the GSLIS building.
Flowers’s talk, “Archetypes, Visions, and Stories: Managing Change through Dialogue,” will address the question, “How can change be managed where there are differences of opinion, no clear lines of authority, and the stakes are high?” She will use three case studies to show how archetypes, visions, and stories can encourage transformation in relation to difficult issues.
Until her appointment from 2002-2009 as director of the LBJ Library, Flowers was Kelleher Professor of English at the University of Texas Austin and had served as associate dean of the Graduate School and director of the Plan II Liberal Arts Honors Program. She is a member of the Academy of Distinguished Teachers, a Distinguished Alumnus of The University of Texas, and a recipient of the Pro Bene Meritis Award. Her publications include scenarios for major corporations, two books of poetry, the Penguin English Poets edition of Christina Rossetti’s poetry, and four television tie-in books in collaboration with Bill Moyers, among them the best-seller, Joseph Campbell and the Power of Myth.
The Taylor Willingham Lecture in Change Management was established by a gift to the School from Susan Kumar (MS ’05) and her husband, Parameswaran Kumar. The lecture honors their friend and former adjunct lecturer Taylor Willingham (1957-2011), who inspired students and faculty alike through her innovative teaching and civic commitment. In addition to teaching at GSLIS, Willingham led Texas Forums, an initiative of the LBJ Library with the goal of engaging Texas residents in discussion about current issues.