Public Oral PhD Defense: Irene K. Fernando

Applying Human Resource Development to County Elected Officials as a Profession, to Explore Background and Career Development for Women and Women of Color

Advisor: Joshua C. Collins

Abstract:

County governments intersect with people’s daily lives and have proven to be effective mediums to care for communities, deliver services to those in need or in crisis, and advance a more sustainable shared future. Counties play an essential and consequential role in meeting the challenges of today and for generations to come; this vision can only be fully realized when women take their turn at county elected leadership. This novel research inquiry involved elected officials, local governments, race, and gender; however, the issue under investigation and potential interventions from findings derived from Human Resource Development (HRD) theories, terms, and practice. The mixed methods successfully developed findings for women and women of color to view county elected official as a viable career chapter, through the exploration of background and career development from women serving in the job at the time of the study. Due to the United States’ historic and persistent exclusion of women in political participation and leadership, alongside the alarming political and institutional dynamic intensifying against women, people of color, transgender people, and neighbors born outside of the country—it is necessary for future research to promote and nurture the communal, compassionate, pragmatic, accountable, methodical, and matriarchal leadership principles embodied timelessly by women and women of color for generations.