Non-Fiction Writings

While studying for my master’s degree at the University of Washington in Educational Leadership and Policy Studies with an emphasis in Higher Education, I became very interested in Organizational analysis and design. So much so, that after the completion of my MEd degree I began doing more research about organizations. This book is the result of that research. I had the privilege to speak about this innovative organizational design for two international conferences of the League for Innovations of Technical and Community College; one in Tampa Bay, Florida, and the other in San Francisco, California. At Bellevue College, I developed an online Education Course that featured the principles written about here.

An Organizational Model: Overlapping Circles of Collaborative Leadership

By Bev Reil, M. Ed. In Educational Leadership and Policy Studies with an

Emphasis in Higher Education

1. Introduction:

A. Dedication:

There are amazingly numerous people who I would like to thank for my being able to develop and publish this work.

The two people, however, to whom I would like to dedicate this book are Craig and Tomie Turi. As I write these words Tomie is in a hospital bed at home with hospice care.  Her struggle with cancer and her recent decision to believe in Christianity are my motivation to move forward with writing this work.  She is such a beautiful person. I am so fortunate to know her. (She passed away a little more than a week after I wrote these words.)

Craig, Tomie’s, husband, was the Major with the Bellevue Police Department who I interviewed for an organizational analysis paper that I completed in graduate school. It was that course that began my interest in organizational analysis causing me to develop the ‘Organizational Model: Circles of Collaborative Leadership.’

I would never have thought that I would be sitting down to my computer with words on the ends of my fingers.  The experiences of the last six years have been so amazing.  But my story is crying to be told.  To put it into a concise thought, think of a dry organizational model on paper that describes a sterile concept of collaboration and resource sharing.  When I explained it to my brother he said, ‘well how does it function and why would anyone want to change to this innovative untried idea?’ This written work is a result of my desire to answer those two questions. In the process of developing the concept and ‘thinking out of the box’ I realized that this model could be used outside of education and provide a framework for across organization collaboration and resource sharing. The original dry concept has come alive as it has continued to develop.”

Copyright, December 2002, 2004