Table of Contents
Title page
Copyright page
EDITORS’ NOTES
Chapter 1: Considering Context: Developing Students’ Leadership Capacity
Higher Education
Institutional Mission
Administrative Support
Collaborative Environment
Conclusion
Chapter 2: Using Student Development Theories as Conceptual Frameworks in Leadership Education
Student Development Theories as Conceptual Frames in Leadership Education
Theories of Psychosocial Development
The Leadership Identity Development (LID) Theory and Model
Integrating Theories and Perspectives
Final Thoughts
Chapter 3: Leadership Pedagogy: Putting Theory to Practice
What Is Leadership Pedagogy?
Theoretical Framework for Leadership Education
The Role of the Leadership Educator
Content of Leadership Programs
Models Popular in Higher Education
Applying Leadership Theory to Student Services
Supervising and Advising Individual Students
Conclusion
Chapter 4: Teaching and Learning: Using Experiential Learning and Reflection for Leadership Education
Experiential Learning
Reflective Pedagogy
Effective Reflection Activities
Application of Experiential Learning and Reflective Pedagogy to Leadership Education
Conclusion
Chapter 5: Leadership Online: Expanding the Horizon
Overall Considerations for Incorporating Technology Into Leadership Education
Education Goes Online: E-Learning
Virtual Environments
Social Media Tools
Conclusion
Chapter 6: Using Standards to Develop Student Learning Outcomes
Purpose and Use of Standards
Council for the Advancement of Standards for Higher Education (CAS)
Other Central Documents
Other Related Documents
Assessing Outcomes
CAS Self-Assessment Guides
Futures Issues
Conclusion
Chapter 7: Exploring Local to Global Leadership Education Assessment
Domains of Assessment
Unique Considerations in Assessing Leadership Development
Building a Comprehensive Assessment Plan
Conclusion
Index
DEVELOPING STUDENTS’ LEADERSHIP CAPACITY
Kathy L. Guthrie and Laura Osteen (eds.)
New Directions for Student Services, no. 140
Elizabeth J. Whitt, Editor-in-Chief
John H. Schuh, Associate Editor
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EDITORS’ NOTES
Leadership education has become an essential outcome of higher education in the past decade and yet leadership development efforts vary greatly on campuses. While some efforts are centralized, many are decentralized and lack campus-wide coordination. Leadership educators have sought associations and other professional networks to increase their capacity to develop, implement, and assess leadership development opportunities.
The purpose of this New Directions for Student Services sourcebook is to explore leadership learning for undergraduate students and provide a foundation for readers to develop students’ leadership capacity. The concept of leadership learning includes leadership education, development, training, and engagement. This sourcebook is rooted in the philosophical belief that students enhance their leadership capacity through these four pedagogical strategies: education, understanding of leadership knowledge, skills, and values; training, acquisition of leadership knowledge, skills, and values; development, reflection, and integration of leadership knowledge, skills, and values; and engagement, application, and practice of leadership knowledge, skills, and values. In addition to the concept of leadership learning, this sourcebook uses the International Leadership Association’s (2009) Guiding Questions as a framework.
In 2009, in response to the increased accreditation movement, the International Leadership Association (ILA) published “Guiding Questions: Guidelines for Leadership Education Programs.” The Guiding Questions document is a result of a five-year, collaborative process to create guidelines for leadership education programs. ILA’s format of open-ended guiding questions is applicable to any higher education administrator or faculty member developing a student leadership program (Ritch and Mengel, 2009). This sourcebook was developed specifically to assist educators in their understanding, conceptualization, and implementation of the five standards outlined in the ILA Guiding Questions: Context, Conceptual Framework, Content, Teaching and Learning, and Assessment of Leadership Education. The overarching questions that focus on these five standards include:
- Context: “How does the context of the leadership education program affect the program?”
- Conceptual Framework: “What is the conceptual framework of the leadership education program?
- Content: “What is the content of the leadership education program and how was it derived?”
- Teaching and Learning: “What are the students’ developmental levels and what teaching and learning methods are most appropriate to ensure maximum student learning?”
- Outcomes and Assessment: “What are the intended outcomes of the leadership education program and how are they assessed and used to ensure continuous quality improvement?”
Through the frames of leadership learning and the ILA Guiding Questions, the following chapters will present an approach to the development of leadership learning programs. In Chapter One, Laura Osteen and Mary B. Coburn present how context influences the development of students’ leadership capacity in higher education. This foundational chapter explores how important the context, culture, institutional type, and mission of an institution influences the alignment and implementation of leadership education.
Chapter Two, by Julie E. Owen, builds upon this contextual foundation to provide conceptual frameworks to using student development theories in developing leadership capacity. After a brief overview of student development theories, this chapter particularly explores the leadership identity development (LID) theory and model (Komives, Owen, Longerbeam, Mainella, and Osteen, 2005) as an essential conceptual frame for college student leadership development. Further, this chapter explores the challenges and promises of applying any developmental theory to individual students and situates the LID model in relation to other developmental theories, including perspectives on LID as a social identity and how it may relate to other social identities.
David M. Rosch and Michael D. Anthony discuss the necessity of effective pedagogy and strategies to apply it to leadership education. Significant leadership theories are summarized, and application across various student affairs contexts is explored.
Experiential education is a defining pedagogy in leadership education. Kathy L. Guthrie and Tamara Bertrand Jones, authors of Chapter Four, present how Kolb’s (1984) experiential learning process is vital to teaching and learning leadership. This chapter explores how leadership education can be taught from an experiential education framework and provides practical applications.
Chapter Five, by Kirstin Phelps, expands the notion of teaching and learning to include virtual environments. Whether it is through online credit-based courses, Facebook, YouTube, mobile applications, or gaming, this chapter explores challenges, lessons learned, and best practices of facilitating education of leadership knowledge, skills, and values online.
Susan R. Komives and William Smedick discuss assessment in leadership education. Integrating the Council of the Advancement of Standards (CAS), National Association of Campus Activities (NACA) Standards, and ILA Guiding Questions, the authors present how standards and guidelines can be used to help educators develop, enhance, and assess comprehensive leadership programs and improve students’ learning opportunities.
From individual student learning outcomes to full-scale program enhancement, assessment is critical in developing and sustaining leadership education. Finally, in Chapter Seven, John P. Dugan looks at assessment techniques and trends spanning from local to global frameworks.
We hope you enjoy the ideas and reflections of these leadership educators; moreover, our hope is that these thoughts are relevant to your work in developing students’ leadership capacity. For students and educators, leadership learning is a lifelong endeavor; we look forward to learning from your reactions and experiences as together we enhance and develop collegiate leadership programs.
Kathy L. Guthrie and Laura Osteen
Editors
References
International Leadership Association (ILA). “ILA Guiding Questions: Guidelines for Leadership Education Programs.” College Park, Md.: Author. Last modified 2009. www.ila-net.org/communities/LC/GuidingQuestionsFinal.pdf.
Kolb, D. A. Experiential Learning: Experience as the Source of Learning and Development. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1984.
Komives, S. R., Owen, J. E., Longerbeam, S. D., Mainella, F. C., and Osteen, L. Developing a Leadership Identity: A Grounded Theory. Journal of College Student Development, 2005, 46(6), 593–611.
Ritch, S., and Mengel, T. “Guiding Questions: Guidelines for Leadership Education Programs.” Journal of Leadership Education, 2009, 8(1), 216–227. Retrieved July 21, 2012, from http://www. fhsu.edu/jole/issues/JOLE_8_1.pdf.
KATHY L. GUTHRIE is an assistant professor in the Higher Education Program at Florida State University.
LAURA OSTEEN is the director of the Center for Leadership and Civic Education at Florida State University.
1
Considering Context: Developing Students’ Leadership Capacity
Laura Osteen and Mary B. Coburn
This chapter describes the contextual factors that influence the development of students’ leadership capacity in higher education. International Leadership Association overarching Context Guiding Question: “How does the context of the leadership education program affect the program?”
The International Leadership Association’s (ILA) Guiding Questions (2009) identify context as the foundational framework from which educators build successful leadership programs. Echoing sentiments from W. K. Kellogg’s landmark study Leadership in the Making (Zimmerman-Oster and Burkhardt, 1999), context matters. Context includes tangible and intangible factors such as: society’s expectations for higher education, institutional mission and history, and organizational and administrative structures (ILA; Zimmerman-Oster and Burkardt). Successful collegiate leadership programs are embedded in and aligned with the following four contextual layers: higher education’s purpose, institutional mission, administrative support, and collaborative environment. Each of these layers contributes to or detracts from desired student leadership learning outcomes. Through paying attention to these layers, educators can make wise choices in the creation of leadership programs (ILA). Exemplary leadership programs have a strong connection to university mission and celebrate administrative support across campus (Zimmerman-Oster and Burkhardt). How to create alignment and build a case for this support is explored in this chapter, as well as the contextual nuances of understanding institutional culture and creating collaborative partnerships. This chapter explores developing students’ leadership capacity through aligning program design with the contextual layers of higher education, institutional mission, administrative support, and collaborative environment.
Higher Education
In 2007, Roberts identified leadership learning as the primary purpose of higher education. Describing higher education as “a vital and fertile holding environment for leadership learning among young adults,” Roberts (2007) calls for higher education to assume responsibility for this student learning outcome (p. 1). From the 1993 Wingspread Group on Higher Education’s report, An American Imperative: Higher Expectations for Higher Education, and the 1994 ASHE–ERIC report, Redesigning Higher Education: Producing Gains in Student Learning, to the W. K. Kellogg Foundation report, Leadership Reconsidered: Engaging Higher Education in Social Change (Astin and Astin, 2000), and the 2012 Association of American College and Universities’ report, A Crucible Moment: College Leadership and Democracy’s Future, socially responsible leadership development has repeatedly been called for as a desired outcome of higher education. In the ASHE-ERIC report, Redesigning Higher Education, Gardiner (1994) stated, “our graduates will be central to solving every major social problem that faces us … society depends on us to produce … citizens to lead our democracy” (p. 3). Declaring that our communities look to college graduates for leadership, Gardiner (1994) summarized the ASHE-ERIC report and challenged higher education to restructure to meet such student learning outcomes. Astin and Astin (2000) reinforced this statement with their call for higher education to assume responsibility “to produce future generations of transformative leaders” who will solve our most pressing social problems (p. 6). Looking across literature and practice, Dugan and Komives (2007) identified multiple trends in higher education that create a mandate calling “for institutions of higher education to purposefully develop socially responsible leaders” (p. 3).
While reports and trends identify leadership as a desired outcome of higher education, the specifics of how these programs should be designed may not always be as clear. This lack of clarity reflects, in part, the diverse institutional missions and cultures across American higher education.
Institutional Mission
Effective leadership programs have a clear understanding of, and focus on, the specific campus contexts in which they are developed (Cress, Astin, Zimmerman-Oster, and Burkhardt, 2001). There is not one correct way to model leadership programs; however, their organization and development should derive from a deep understanding of their home institution (Woodard, Love, and Komives, 2000). This deep understanding comes from reflection and action based on the university’s mission.
Effective and relevant leadership programs emerge from their institutional contexts and environments (Cress et al., 2001). Cress and colleagues (2001) reinforce the importance of mission-based leadership programs through identifying leadership development activities as perfect opportunities for institutions to align their student learning goals with tangible outcomes. To create these mission-relevant programs, educators must ask the first question, “How is leadership education important to this institution?” (Arminio, 2011, p. 139). The face of student leadership education looks very different across the range of institutional histories, cultures, types, and traditions; and yet deep student engagement in these programs comes from a link between mission and practice that is not accidental or haphazard (Manning, Kinzie, and Schuh, 2006).
If an institution has roots as a liberal arts or women’s college or has religious affiliation or military purpose, the mission of leadership education will be influenced by the values and beliefs of that foundation. Institutional mission shapes culture and dictates strategy (Eckel, Green, and Hill, 2001). Whereas a liberal arts tradition may focus on character development or civic duty as its philosophical grounding for leadership education, a religiously founded institution may emphasize the importance of servant-based leadership or a leader’s spiritual path. However, a military academy may be best structured to challenge young men and women to rise and distinctly understand their individual roles within a collective hierarchy. With an increase in the number and diversity of students entering community college campuses, leadership learning needs to consider a wide range of student ages and life experiences. Programs will more likely have success if they are linked closely with credit courses and activities that have an academic component like forensics programs and internships.
At large public research universities with a broad mission and specialized units that serve distinct purposes, a comprehensive center or department may be established to provide leadership learning to all students. These departments have the capacity to expand and coordinate the wide array of curricular and cocurricular leadership opportunities across campus. Many land-grant universities can credit current-day efforts in leadership programs to their historical (and current) mission-based extension and outreach efforts. Leading the way in higher education, extension programs were practicing mission-based leadership long before the 1970s’ wave of campus-based student leadership development efforts. Many contemporary leadership programs focus on leadership for the common good (Komives, 2011) and yet, since 1863, land-grant college and universities have been helping farmers bridge knowledge to practice for the common good.
Administrative Support
Even when claimed in university mission statements as a priority, leadership programs battle with competing priorities for support on a college campus (Cress et al., 2001). Catalysts for change and program support start with the president and provost; the Documenting Effective Educational Practice (DEEP) study results clearly demonstrated, “leadership, particularly at the executive level … makes a difference” (Manning et al., 2006, p. 157). In addition to believing leadership programs are mission-based, key administrators’ decisions and actions to influence and shape the university context for these programs is crucial (Eckel et al., 2001). Thus, leadership programs are more effective and pervasive if they reflect the personal and professional mission institutional leaders (Eckel et al., 2001; Manning et al., 2006). As positional leaders, they are likely to have the authority to focus attention on the importance of leadership learning to achieve the institution’s mission.
Administrative support for leadership programs can be evident across a wide range of institutional factors. A clear, consistent message focused on the campus philosophy of leadership, and the importance of leadership learning can be conveyed in recruitment literature, department websites, core curriculum, organizational structures/staffing, and university awards. Administrators typically have the authority to create tangible and intangible messages that support leadership programs’ development and growth across the campus. When the senior administration values leadership education, resources will be devoted to this purpose and buy-in will be encouraged and expected. The level of cooperation that comes from this support leads to expanded collaboration, multiplication of resources, and comprehensive curricular and cocurricular activities that ensure student access to leadership education. Collaboration, resources, and comprehensive activities ensure that leadership education is found in all corners of the university, from academic courses and student programming to community partnerships and student-led organizations. When the administration creates this web of support for leadership learning, the achievements of students, faculty, and staff are highlighted and acknowledged. This acknowledgment, through the content of presidential speeches and university press releases or the receiving of campus awards and staff recognition, amplifies the very administrative support critical to expanding leadership learning across campus.
If leadership education is not particularly valued by the institution’s senior administration, how can a case be made to increase support for it? In other words, why would a president decide to expand leadership education at an institution? First, presidents want to elevate the reputation of their campuses. Having a comprehensive leadership education program provides the knowledge and skills that students need to become nationally competitive. Students with a strong leadership learning foundation become leaders in their academic fields and bring recognition to their institutions through their accomplishments and national awards. They contribute their talents to improving the campus community and the broader world. In turn, the recognition that comes from a comprehensive leadership education program serves as a magnet for high-achieving high school students and recruiting these students becomes easier. In addition, since involvement and engagement in campus life can have a positive impact on student persistence, success, and satisfaction (Astin, 1993; Kuh, 2003; Pascarella and Terenzini, 2005), leadership education can contribute to higher rates of retention and graduation. Institutions that hope to improve these benchmarks may benefit from implementation or expansion of leadership programs.
Other reasons to expand leadership education can be found in addressing students’ preparation for life beyond college and their employability. As institutions receive feedback from alumni and employers about students’ skills, they often hear that the most successful new graduates are those who have strong interpersonal, teamwork, and problem-solving skills. Leadership education builds self-awareness, facilitates relationship building, and challenges students to apply skills and knowledge to complex issues (Dugan and Komives, 2007). A student who has acquired leadership knowledge and has had opportunity to apply this knowledge in service projects or student organizations can translate that to the world of work.
In addition to being essential to achieving the mission of many institutions, leadership education is a value-added benefit to the college experience. Since students arrive at institutions with a set of prior leadership beliefs and experiences, they have come to expect opportunities to hone their skills in the college setting. They often arrive, however, with a narrow definition of leadership. First-year students in particular may understand leadership only as a position with titles and hierarchy (Komives, Longerbeam, Owen, Mainella, and Osteen, 2005). A comprehensive leadership program helps them expand their thinking to see that everyone has leadership potential and that if students choose to engage in the process they can make a difference as well. As this leadership philosophy becomes more prevalent in the cultural context of the campus, the benefits will be demonstrated through increased student initiative, stronger buy-in for institutional values, and improved civility.
Collaborative Environment
Leadership programs differ in structure across diverse university and campus contexts. Program structure may include a single department or interdisciplinary focus, curricular or cocurricular home, and selective versus all-student participation (Haber, 2011). Student development educators have the capacity to build effective leadership programs within higher education through recognizing these diverse program structures and creating collaborative partnerships to enhance university efforts. Whether housed in a student service division or academic department, student development professionals collaborate with academic colleagues to create successful leadership programs (Haber, 2011; Zimmerman-Oster and Burkhardt, 1999).