Background+information

Four of the five academic divisions offering graduate studies at Wilmington University offer courses or entire programs related to leadership. A quick review of the currently offered leadership courses reveals some common terminology within the University’s graduate curriculum. Examples include: Legal & Ethical Change Management Diversity Organizational Strategy Technology Organizational Behavior Supervision Academic Discipline Topics Executive Leadership Dynamics of Leadership Leadership Development Art of Leadership Communication Leadership Roles Upon further examination, it would not be difficult to discover many areas of commonality among the graduate leadership curriculum and quite possibly, areas of duplication. Possibly, there may be areas for significant collaboration related to curricula and instruction. On a much larger scale, Adkins & McNamara (2004) undertook a study of university leadership programs (N=24) in the upper Midwest region of the United States. This study recommended that institutions of higher education should seek to bring together “faculty, staff and students from different disciplines with the goal of producing teaching, training, recognition and research of leadership”. The author’s believed that such cross-fertilization would help to bring “to fruition more innovative approaches to the field of leadership” (p.5). Further, Hay and Hodgkinson (2006) published an article responding to “calls” to strengthen the development of leadership programs and assert that “one way to tackle this thorny issue of teaching leadership may be to rethink leadership, and to conceptualize leadership in a way that is more helpful to our attempts to teach leadership” (p144). This is an interesting hypothesis. The article, //Teaching Leadership as Engaged 21st Century Social Science// identifies four drivers that are prompting the need for “progress” in teaching leadership. These drivers are: the information and biotechnology revolutions; changes in population demographics; globalization; and security (p. 1,040). Certainly the world is changing very quickly. Hopefully these thoughts provide some context for our work as a task force. My hope is that together we can have a conversation among faculty related to leadership education at Wilmington University. As you may be aware, you were selected by your respective Dean to participate on this task force. I appreciate your willingness to serve. Together, as a group, let’s “rethink” leadership education and perhaps we will develop some suggestion for review by the Academic Council. Type in the content of your page here.