Chris Anderson's career began as a middle school science teacher and an instructor at the post-secondary level, which then led to program administration. She has extensive experience developing precollege academic programs and diversity, retention, and student support programs. Her current role involves establishing and maintaining partnerships with secondary schools, community colleges, corporations, and state and national organizations that help strengthen the University's outreach,

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... t, retention, and graduation of underrepresented student populations, as well as the recruitment and retention of diverse faculty and staff. Michigan Tech's ongoing climate study is directed by Anderson. She advises and reviews unit diversity plans with the provost and deans on an annual basis. Anderson provides leadership for these and other institutional-wide initiatives. She is a co-PI on a number of NSF grants (e.g. ADVANCE) and is active in national and state organizations and consortiums (WEPAN, SWE, KCP, DAPCEP, etc.). Abstract The Women in Engineering Division (WIED) of ASEE will be organizing a panel featuring academic leaders who will provide valuable insight on how academics can move into leadership positions. The panelists will address the following questions:  How did you get your leadership position?  What can faculty/staff do to position themselves to move into leadership positions?  What can faculty/staff do to prepare themselves to be successful in this type of position?  Are there special challenges that you faced and how did you handle them?  Are there any skills that were especially helpful for being successful in the position you are in? It is expected that this panel will be informative and insightful and provide a tremendous opportunity to ask our current academic leaders to reflect on their experiences and provide insights to the future leaders of the academic profession. The panel will also highlight women in leadership roles in academia and address the specific concerns that women face. The panelists also discuss the various strategies that they employed in moving up through the academic ladder to leadership positions at their institutions and the challenges they faced. It is hoped that the panel will serve as a suitable catalyst for women in academia to consider leadership opportunities as they become available and broaden participation. The panel will be interactive and the audience will have various opportunities to ask questions to the panelists.