Presidents Leadership Class
PRLC 1810-Ethical leadership
About The Class:
Ethical Leadership introduces students to the fundamental principles of leadership, ethics, and critical thinking that will establish the foundation for their subsequent PLC program, academic, and personal development. Students will gain an understanding of themselves and how they might collaborate and interact with, and lead others. Students will gain experience in making arguments and presenting their positions verbally and in writing. Students should be able to appreciate the symbiotic relationship between leadership, personal ethical reasoning, and critical thinking.
My Experience:
Over the course of the short semester, I was able to gain many valuable skills that will only help my leadership journey in the future. Everyone has an idea of what leadership should and shouldn’t be. In order to be an effective leader, often, this idea cannot come from others, but must be defined by the individual. During the past several months, my notions of what truly made a leader have changed for several reasons.
Firstly, the many lectures and guest speakers were able to reveal to me that everyone leads in a truly unique way, however, each leadership style is largely self defined by each individual’s values, morals, and beliefs. Moreover, group work and exposure to so many people my age, who also aspire to be leaders, has truly allowed my to begin the definition of what kind of leader I will be. Through the processes of group interaction, I have begun to realize where my strengths and weaknesses actually exist, and how to best make them effective. Finally, class readings and papers that focused on challenging ethical topics pushed me to think critically, and to begin developing ways in which I would respond to such challenging situations given my own leadership style.
Overall, in terms of my leadership style, I learned that is is best to let others do their own work so I can better focus on my own ambitions and contributions. At times it can be stressful, however, part of what makes many leadership styles effective is allowing others to complement ones pitfalls and shortcomings. Additionally, I learned that I have talent to motivating those around me and persuading each of them to truly believe in the cause. I am very passionate about what I am working on, and I learned that one of the ways in which I can be an effective leader is sharing that passion with those around me. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, I learned that there is still a long road ahead in terms of leadership development. In my opinion, that road will never end, and I truly believe, that in other to be a great leader, one must also be a lifelong learner. the quest of leadership development ought to not end with age, and I will strive for leadership and self improvement for the rest of my life.
PRLC 1820-Community issues in leadership
About The Class:
PRLC 1820 challenges students to think about the dynamics within and among communities, and how leaders work to build and sustain healthy communities. Students will gain an understanding of how communities are conceptualized, the underlying realities that challenge communities and how committed leaders are addressing those challenges. Students should apply their critical thinking skills, ethical reasoning, and foundational leadership knowledge gained in PRLC 1810. Students will also join with a community partner to address a real-world challenge utilizing design theory and practices.
ENLP 3100-Complex Leadership Challenges
About The Class:
The gist of the structure is that each individual student chooses a complex issue that they care about and spend the entire semester investigating that issue. Almost every single week students are exposed to a new "lens" and then research that topic from the perspective of that lens. For instance, one would research how their topic manifests at the level of the individual human being, in interpersonal interactions and in institutions. Then they would look at ethical dimensions of the issue, historical perspectives, systems, cross-cultural.... Every week each student does new research and generates a new analysis. Sometimes this is a short paper (~500 words), other times we practice different communication modes like visual modeling, oral presentations and creative narratives. Our approach is iterative so every assignment is refined at least several times.
The final assignment for this class is to create an online portfolio showcasing our efforts throughout the semester. The portfolio can be found here.
prlc 3810-Global issues in leadership
About The Class:
PRLC 3810 examines leadership in a dynamic 21st century world. It is designed to help students think broadly about global issues and continue their preparation for leadership positions in business, government, and non-profit organizations. The course is focused on improving personal leadership skills and emphasizes the importance of always leading consistently with the highest ethical principles and values. The course will involve some leadership and management theories, but throughout it emphasizes how to apply them in the real world. By combining practical examples with theory, and what works with what does not, the course will provide useful guidelines for students who want to be leaders of the future.
Global Issues is organized around seven major global flows: population, energy, security, investment, disease, illegal drugs, and terrorism. Each topic includes a guest lecture, and an overview taught by teams of students. Five of the seven topics also include a case study. To round out the class, the professor provides five general leadership lectures. To support the lecture material, there are assigned readings and other assignments, both individual and team-oriented.