Submitted by arlenegloria on Sun, 06/20/2010 - 14:21

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KAREN LEWIS | Never hesitated to switch gears to take a chance

by Rosalind Rossi, June 20 

The career trajectory of Karen Lewis proves that the route to the top does not always reflect the shortest distance between two points.

The president-elect of the Chicago Teachers Union left Kenwood High School in 1970 without a diploma, skipping right from her last day of junior year to a prestigious university, and eventually graduated -- "thank-you laude," as she puts it -- from Dartmouth College

A pianist and opera buff, she began college with the dream of becoming a symphony conductor because, she says, "I liked being in charge.'' A trip to Barbados changed her life, and she entered medical school intent on becoming a physician on the island paradise. She dropped out instead, turned to substitute teaching to support herself, and found her calling.

Funny, bubbly and even "brilliant'' by some accounts, the 56-year-old Lewis is not afraid to switch gears to pursue a passion -- to take a chance, to dive into a challenge. She has had more jobs than she has salmon-frosted, manicured fingernails.

On July 1, Lewis will begin the challenge of her life when she assumes the mantle of president of the nation's third-largest teachers union.

She will lead the union through the worst financial crisis since Mayor Daley won control of the city's public schools 15 years ago.

Please visit Chicago Sun-Times for more, pix:
http://www.suntimes.com/news/education/2410556,CST-NWS-lewis20a.article