{"id":510,"date":"2017-05-04T09:43:48","date_gmt":"2017-05-04T13:43:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/criw\/?p=510"},"modified":"2025-08-14T10:55:38","modified_gmt":"2025-08-14T14:55:38","slug":"graduate-profile-gillian-szollos","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/criw\/2017\/graduate-profile-gillian-szollos\/","title":{"rendered":"Gillian Szollos"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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\n Gillian Szollos\n <\/h1>\n \n \n <\/header>\n\n <\/div>\n\n <\/div>\n\n <\/div>\n<\/section>\n\n\n\n

Women\u2019s Management Program A Perfect Fit for Busy Life<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Suzanne Bowness from the Carleton Newsroom<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This year marks the 25th<\/sup> anniversary of the Centre for Research and Education on Women and Work<\/a> (CREWW) which offers a part-time professional program for women to enhance their leadership and management skills. Graduates from the program will be profiled over the next few weeks.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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When Gillian Szollos went looking for options to advance her education, she wanted a program that would not only benefit her diverse career as a community health promoter and partner in her husband\u2019s stonemasonry business, but one that would fit her busy life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI was looking for a post-graduate course that I could do while working, and parenting a young family, and looking after my aging parents and all of the other responsibilities that fall to women in my age category,\u201d says  Szollos, who is mother to two young adults and a teen, and daughter to elderly parents in their 80s and 90s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Sprott School of Business\u2019s Management Certificate for Women<\/a>, with its Friday and Saturday class schedule, turned out to be a perfect fit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Management Certificate for Women: A Manageable Commitment<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNot only did it speak to my needs in terms of furthering my education, but it also really fit my life, in that the time commitment was something I could manage,\u201d adds Szollos. She started the program in September 2016 and finished this past March.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While Szollos was initially attracted to the program for its financial management component, she says she surprised herself by learning a lot in areas where she was already confident about her skills, including leadership and communications. Some of her top lessons included exercises in negotiating where she learned a lot about trust, and on \u201clistening exquisitely\u201d where students practiced focusing in on important conversations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Favourite assignments included a branding exercise and a capstone project that culminated in a presentation on how students would incorporate the program into their careers moving forward. \u201cThat was really a great way for me to gel some of that knowledge in a way that I can apply it in the community,\u201d says Szollos.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Szollos also raves about the people in the program\u2014stellar professors and great classmates. \u201cIt was a very non-threatening and collaborative environment, which was wonderful,\u201d she says. \u201cI\u2019ve done some great networking with the women and with the faculty, and I\u2019m in a position now where if I don\u2019t know an answer, I know where to go to get it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Taking Her Career to the Next Level<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Szollos says she\u2019s not only developed skills to take back to Carpathian Masonry<\/a>, her family\u2019s business\u2014estimating, payroll, purchasing, health and safety are among the multiple hats she wears there\u2014but that the program has renewed her determination to take her health career to the next level.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019m passionate about community development and capacity building, and very specifically building collaborative partnerships to better the health of our community. I think I\u2019m at a place now where my passions and my management skills are equally strong. I am ready for a leadership role which will allow me to use these strengths for the benefit of the community,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She\u2019s already recommended the program to two co-workers at the Carlington Community Health Centre<\/a> where she works, and would recommend it to any woman who wants to build confidence as a manager.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI would encourage anyone to step up to this, even if you already think that you\u2019ve had a lot of professional development. This was really well done and I learned a great deal.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Women\u2019s Management Program A Perfect Fit for Busy Life By Suzanne Bowness from the Carleton Newsroom This year marks the 25th anniversary of the Centre for Research and Education on Women and Work (CREWW) which offers a part-time professional program for women to enhance their leadership and management skills. Graduates from the program will be profiled over the next […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":520,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-510","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-creww-graduate-profiles"],"acf":{"cu_post_thumbnail":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/criw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/510","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/criw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/criw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/criw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/criw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=510"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/criw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/510\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4990,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/criw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/510\/revisions\/4990"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/criw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/520"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/criw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=510"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/criw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=510"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/criw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=510"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}