Page 10 - spring_2020_exemplar
P. 10
Spring 2020
Being the Change She Wished to See:
The Life and Work of Dr. Jane E. Myers
Craig S. Cashwell, Upsilon Nu Chi Chapter
CSI President 2014-2015
The familiar quote from Gandhi that “You must be the change you wish to see in the world”
was a mantra for the late Dr. Jane E Myers. It was in the signature line of both her professional
and personal email, was displayed prominently in her office and home study, and often found
its way into her professional talks. It was a guiding principle in her life (both personal and
professional) and clearly part of her mission. I was privileged to work as a colleague with
Dr. Myers for over 15 years in the Department of Counseling and Educational Development at
the University of North Carolina Greensboro and to publish with, present with, and be mentored
by her along the way. I also had the privilege of serving as President of Chi Sigma Iota during
her time as CSI International Executive Director. I also had the personal and professional
challenge of serving during the time when she received her cancer diagnosis and as she fought
her short but valiant battle with cancer. One of the great personal blessings in my life are
the conversations we shared between her diagnosis and passing. Because these were deeply
personal conversations, I will respect both of our privacies by not addressing details, but they
were among the most deeply spiritual conversations in which I have ever engaged.
It is an impossible task to begin to capture Dr. Myers’ professional accomplishment with
the necessary word limitations of a newsletter article, so interested readers are encouraged to
review Cashwell and Sweeney (2016) for a more exhaustive, albeit still incomplete, summary
of her professional accomplishments. Similarly, it is overly reductive to try to summarize her
leadership as Executive Director of CSI International, which was cut short by her illness, or
her 25+ years of tireless service as Chapter Faculty Advisor to the Upsilon Nu Chi Chapter of
CSI. Her legacy cannot even be fully captured in her many years of unpaid service as she toiled
alongside her husband, Dr. Tom Sweeney, the inaugural CSI International Executive Director, to
promote the CSI mission.
10 CHI SIGMA IOTA EXEMPLAR
