Amanda Stricklen does not get starstruck.
Months later, she still cannot identify why her eyes welled up like they did.
Yet there she was, tears pouring down her cheeks, while in the embrace of former President George W. Bush.
Stricklen, lead senior project manager for two statewide collaboratives and a registered nurse, met the nation’s 43rd president in April as part of the 2024 Presidential Leadership Scholar program.
The president’s reaction to seeing Stricklen become emotional was a pinnacle moment during a transformative experience that only a few hundred people have ever enjoyed.
“He was so kind when I met him, tears filled my eyes,” Stricklen said. “He hugged me again and (the tears) kept going. He pulled me in like a grandpa would. I don’t live to meet Taylor Swift — that’s just not me — so I don’t know what came over me. His reaction to it was so touching to me.”
Stricklen was one of 60 people from around the country selected to participate in the PLS program this year and the only one from Michigan. According to its website, PLS “brings together bold and principled leaders who are committed to facing critical challenges, both at home and around the world, and who are interested in exploring lessons learned during the administrations of George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George H.W. Bush, and Lyndon B. Johnson.”
The program was launched in 2014, with the inaugural class selected in 2015. With only 600-700 applicants considered for 60 spots each year, selection is competitive.
Stricklen is one of only two people from Michigan to be selected in the past three years. The other was Riana Elyse Anderson, a faculty associate in the Research Center for Group Dynamics in the Institute for Social Research and former assistant professor of health behavior and health education at the School of Public Health, who was chosen in 2022.
The five dozen people were treated to a private tour of the White House in January before embarking on trips to Little Rock, Arkansas; College Station, Texas; Dallas; and Austin, Texas, over the next four months before ending their journey in Philadelphia for graduation in June. All expenses are paid by the four presidential centers.
Stricklen was the only nurse in this year’s cohort to join other leaders in diverse fields from all corners of the country. That honor was not lost on Stricklen, who graduated from the School of Nursing before working at the hospital as a floor nurse and spending the last 17 years on the research side at Michigan Medicine.
“One of the things I found unique was the equal playing field. No matter if you’re a CEO or a CFO or a nurse like me, everyone has equal opportunity with the program, so I thought that was really special, too,” she said.
“The reason I did the program was not to check a box, or I would have gotten a degree instead. I wanted to meet people who were driven like me who were in some sort of leadership role to give me new ideas outside of health care.”
As the lead senior project manager for both the Michigan Bariatric Surgical Collaborative and, most recently, the Michigan Surgical Quality Collaborative, Stricklen said she was looking for new ideas and strategies to serve both teams. Someone suggested PLS, and she spent a month on the application last summer, was selected for an interview in September and learned in December she had been chosen.
“Just disbelief,” she said of her reaction. “I just thought it was completely a shot in the dark. Once I was chosen and met the other people in my class, I’m like the only one who probably had never done any other leadership courses.”
Stricklen said the tour of the White House, as well as dinner on the first night in the rotunda of the National Archives Museum, were “amazing.” She was struck by the partitions or false walls erected on certain floors to allow the first family to maneuver through the White House in privacy.
While in Little Rock in February, she had her picture taken with Clinton, who had shared previously that his mother, an influential person in his life, was a nurse. When Stricklen introduced herself to Clinton for their photo, she told him she was the only nurse in the cohort, and he responded, “Well that’s awesome. It’s such an important profession.”
In College Station in March, the scholars laid a wreath at the grave of President George H.W. Bush. Stricklen went to Houston a day early and, thanks to a fellow cohort’s connection, took a private tour of the neutral buoyancy pool used by NASA.
The cohort visited Austin in May and met Johnson’s grandson who shared tales of life on the ranch.
But the highlight for Stricklen was Dallas in April and meeting George W. and Laura Bush. She said she was in the former first lady’s group of about 10 people touring a huge wildflower garden in the back of their library and stood only a couple feet from her for about an hour.
She also met a man named Robert — an easy name for Stricklen to remember as her husband, son, father and brother share it — who had served Bush for many years. He shared that the former first couple invited Robert’s young son to join them at Opening Day for the Texas Rangers this season. Learning from Robert and others so close to former presidents was enlightening.
“The type of things I learned about them being in that environment, and all the back-door-information stuff,” she said. “People who worked like an arm’s length away had all sorts of stories, so that was really cool to learn that more personal level about them.”
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For the graduation ceremony in Philadelphia, Stricklen and her husband made 75 copies of a 5-by-7-inch group photo of the PLS class, framed each and gifted them to the cohort members and PLS faculty and staff. Thanks to copious notes Stricklen took over the course of the six months, she included in each gift bag a hand-written note acknowledging a memory she and each member shared.
“I felt so lucky to be there and fortunate, that I took a million notes because I didn’t want to forget anything,” she said.
She also said she had a couple extra photos, wrote “PLS 2024” and “Stricklen” on the back and asked if they could be sent to the presidents. PLS staff agreed to do so.
“I’m hoping one day if I ever go back, that this picture may be in their museum because a lot of this stuff ends up in their museums,” she said.
Stricklen said being a part of PLS is essentially lifelong. Alums of the program return to have lunch with new cohorts and serve as mentors — she and another cohort member were voted most likely to be invited back to speak to classes.
She continues to work with the CEO of the Clinton Foundation on how to open PLS doors to more nurses, as she was a bit of a trailblazer as one of only a couple nurses to be accepted since its inception. She was also encouraged by many cohort members to pursue her Master of Business Administration, and this fall will start that venture after being accepted to the MBA program at the Stephen M. Ross School of Business.
Through it all, she left the experience with dozens of friends, an emotional embrace with a former president and a notebook filled with memories.
“Everybody checks their egos at the door. It’s not a who’s who type of thing, so it gives people a chance to truly network,” she said. “People are truly there to get to know each other. It was unreal.”
