Next Generation Leadership Education: Rigorous Design, Engaging Experiences, Demonstrated Results
REGISTRATION INFORMATION
Symposium Focus: As an overall interest in leadership has grown, so has the demand for university courses, co-curricular programs, and community leadership organizations. Scan the mission statements of most colleges, universities, and professional organizations and you will find educating leaders as a common thread. However, has this expanding interest in, and commitment to, leadership development been matched by the quality of the offerings and the results they produce? What knowledge is necessary to design rigorous programs, teach leadership, develop leadership ability, and demonstrate outcomes? The 2012 National Leadership Symposium believes that next generation leadership education must be grounded in three core commitments.
Rigorous Design If you were charged with creating a program to develop leadership skills, abilities and capacity, where would you start? Would you choose a practical approach? One based on best-selling leadership books? One based on research and theory? What knowledge base in leadership education would you access that demonstrates the rigor of this emerging academic discipline? What knowledge preparation and/or experience is required for the aspiring as well as the seasoned leadership educator? How can intentional design of a curriculum foster the learning of leadership and how does design impact assessing outcomes? Rigorous design specifies what a learner will do, understand and gain as a result of participation in a program, seminar, workshop, or activity.
Engaging Experiences As noted in the by Snook, Nohria, and Khurana, “Leadership is a collective endeavor: teaching it, perhaps more so” (2011, p. x). How would you determine what techniques or pedagogical methods to utilize in designing and delivering the leadership program or curriculum? How do we create the environment for engagement in learning? What do we know about the way different individuals engage with content, with a learner community, with their own self? In A New Culture of Learning, Thomas and Brown (2011) state that the “teaching-based approach focuses on teaching us about the world, while the new culture of learning focuses on learning through engagement within the world.”
Demonstrated Results How do we know we are successful beyond mere participant satisfaction with a leadership development experience? What are proven methods for assessing impact and what new approaches might hold potential for leadership program accountability? The demonstration of learning by participants or the effectiveness of a program provides valuable information for designing programs with impact and deliver engaging experiences. "What is your current program’s contribution to participant learning? Do your participants know what you think they know, and can they do what your program or learning outcomes imply? How do you ensure that?" (Schuh, Upcraft & Associates, 2001, p. 9) What are the challenges in creating curricular and co-curricular leadership programs outcomes with the intent of "educating or developing leaders? "The closer students [learners] come to attaining their educational objective, the greater their learning and personal development gains." (Kuh, Branch Douglas, Lund, & Ramin-Gyurnek, 1994, p. 13)
About the Symposium and the Learner Community
The National Leadership Symposium is a professional development experience designed for faculty members, student affairs professionals, and other educators involved with promoting leadership education at colleges and universities. The program is coordinated by the National Association for Campus Activities (NACA) and the National Clearinghouse for Leadership Programs (NCLP).
The Symposium includes a variety of formats, exercises, and conversations to engage different learning styles and preferences, both introverted and extroverted. Given the immersive learning environment of the Symposium it is advised that registrants have significant professional experience in leadership education . In order to fully engage in the Symposium learner community, participants are expected to have read several selected readings in advance of the arriving for the NLS experience. The national leader symposium is designed for an intimate collegial learning environment of 60 participants. Your engagement will involve intense periods for learning in the large community, small group, and individual levels.
Symposium Scholars-in-Residence:
Scholars-in-residence provide theoretical frameworks and practical considerations for this exploration. Scholars and participants will engage in thoughtful discourse about what it means to educate or develop students and design curriculum for learning leadership.
Program Chairs:
