The UConn Honors Leadership...
Transcript of The UConn Honors Leadership...
The UConn Honors Leadership
Experience
Catalyzing Student Capacities for Change
Leigh E. Fine, Ph.D.
Assistant Director, Honors Program
October 26, 2018
Honors Students and Leadership
• UConn Honors wants to
empower our students to be
leaders in their chosen fields
of study and beyond.
– So what does that mean?
• UConn Honors believes
leadership is…
– …a process, not position;
– …something that requires
connection with others;
– …something that results in
change for the common
good (Rost, 1991; NCLP,
Komives, & Wagner, 2016).
Individual
Group
Society
CHANGE
(Komives, Wagner, & Associates, 2009)
Honors Students and Leadership
Honors Students and Leadership
Individual
Group
Society
CHANGE
(Renzulli, 2002) (Komives, Wagner, & Associates, 2009)
The University Honors Laureate
Leadership Experience
• By completing the University Honors Laureate
Leadership Experience, students will be able to:
– articulate a personal definition of leadership that
includes an examination of the role of self, others,
and society / context;
– exercise leadership that creates positive change in a
community of practice;
– reflect critically on a leadership experience to both
learn from successes and identify areas for future
leadership development.
The University Honors Laureate
Leadership Experience
Three Phases (Ash &
Clayton, 2009;
University of Maryland,
1999):
1. Preparation
2. Action
3. Reflection
Phase I: Preparation
Three major steps:1. Attend a leadership workshop facilitated by an Honors Guide for Peer
Success (GPS) peer mentor
- Explore definitions of leadership
- Engage with UConn Honors’ approach to leadership
- Identify spheres of influence
- Start to identify leadership gaps / needs in spheres of influence
- Leadership Experience process
2. Submit a Leadership Action Plan (LAP) via Portfolium
- Personal definition of leadership
- Identifying spheres of influence and gaps / needs in spheres
- Developing a SMART plan to address a need in sphere of influence
- Preparing for coaching
3. Honors GPS peer leadership coaching
E-Portfolio System
E-Portfolio System
Peer Leadership Coaching
• Coaching
– A proven framework that leads to enhanced leader efficacy and goal completion (Boyce, Jackson, & Neal, 2010; Ladegard & Gjerde, 2014)
– Throgh a solution-focused relationship, coach can ask mentee incisive questions to promote goal completion, recognition of blind spots, and development of tactics to facilitate success
• Why peers?
– Peer mentorship is as – if not more – efficacious in generating student learning as compared to faculty- or staff-led interventions (McKeachie, 1994; Newton & Ender, 2010)
– Reciprocal peer leadership
Phase II: Action
• Examples of LAPs in Progress
– A scholarship information handout and session for current
students who want to fund their research ideas
– A pen-pal and in-person mentoring program for UConn
undergraduates and students in the Hartford public school
system
– A recycling program at university-owned apartments
– Development of a partnership between local restaurants and
campus food reclamation systems to provide more resources to
local food banks
– Inventing a sensor to determine when residence hall laundry
machines have finished a cycle and texting students; partnering
with Residential Life to install
Phase III: Reflection
• Submission of a Leadership
Reflection via Portfolium
• A reflection coaching meeting
– Successes
– Obstacles / failures
– What could I have done
differently?
– Were communities of
practice transformed?
– Leadership lessons for
future practice
Limitations & Challenges
• Students: “This seems like a lot of extra work.”
– Our students were exercising leadership anyway! Let’s document them and learn from them!
– Focus on improving social conditions a la Houndstooth
• Students: “What if I fail?”
– Students define success on their own terms
– We don’t evaluate on task, but the process (like leadership!)
• Managing community partners
– True community partnerships take time and energy to nurture
– Coaching students: “I’m the only one doing this!” or, “Do this for me, thx”
• Peer coaching: resources, time, training
– Fortunate to have resources
– Training is very time-intensive
• Faculty buy-in: “Is leadership a discipline?” “Shouldn’t faculty be doing this?”
– Many Honors programs have co-curricular requirements
– Leadership as a field of study
– Many faculty have been supportive
Considerations
• What is your leadership infrastructure?
– Who “owns” leadership on your campus? One department? Multiple
stakeholders? Student or academic affairs?
– What do you, your students, and your institution believe about
leadership? Can anyone practice it? Should anyone? To what end(s)
should leadership be practiced?
• What do you want your students to gain?
– Confidence? Tangible skills? An appreciation for diversity? An
appreciation of group processes? The ability to improve social
conditions?
• What resources do you have available?
– Staff? Training? Time? Monetary? Community partners?
• What is attainable, and with whom do you need to partner?
References
• Ash, S. L., & Clayton, P. H. (2009). Generating, deepening, and documenting learning: The power of critical reflection in applied learning. Journal of Applied Learning in Higher Education, 1, 25-48.
• Boyce, L. A., Jackson, J. R., & Neal, L. J. (2010). Building successful leadership coaching relationships. Journal of Management Development, 29(10), 914-931.
• Heifetz, R. A., Linsky, M., & Grashow, A. (2009). The practice of adaptive leadership : Tools and tactics for changing your organization and the world. Boston: Harvard Business Review Press.
• Komives, S. R., Longerbeam, S. D., Owen, J. E., Mainella, F. C., & Osteen, L. (2006). A leadership identity development model: Applications from a grounded theory. Journal of College Student Development, 47(4), 401-418.
• Komives, S. R., Lucas, N., & McMahon, T. R. (2013). Exploring leadership: For college students who want to make a difference (3rd ed.). San Francisco, CA: John Wiley & Sons.
• Kuh, G. D. (2008). High-impact educational practices: What they are, who has access to them, and why they matter. Washington, DC: Association of American Colleges and Universities.
• Ladegard, G., & Gjerde, S. (2014). Leadership coaching, leader role-efficacy, and trust in subordinates. A mixed methods study assessing leadership coaching as a leadership development tool. The Leadership Quarterly, 25(4), 631.
• McKeachie, W. J. (1994). Teaching tips: Strategies, research, and theory for college and university teachers (9th ed.). Lexington, MA: D.C. Heath & Company.
• NCLP, Komives, S. R., & Wagner, W. (2016). Leadership for a better world : Understanding the social change model of leadership development (2nd ed.). Newark: Jossey-Bass. Retrieved from http://www.vlebooks.com/vleweb/product/openreader?id=none&isbn=9781119207603&uid=none
• Newton, F. B., & Ender, S. C. (2010). Students helping students (2nd ed. ed.). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
• Northouse, P. G. (2012). Introduction to leadership (2nd ed. ed.). Los Angeles, CA: Sage.
• Priest, K. L., Bauer, T., & Fine, L. E. (2015). The hunger project: Exercising civic leadership with the community for the common good in an introductory leadership course. Journal of Leadership Education, 14(2), 218-228.
• Renzulli, J. S. (2002). Expanding the conception of giftedness to include co-cognitive traits and promote social capital. Phi Delta Kappan, 84(1), 33-58.
• Rost, J. C. (1991). Leadership for the twenty-first century (2. print. ed.). New York, NY: Praeger.
• University of Maryland. (1999). Service learning models: The P.A.R.E. model. Retrieved from http://source.jhu.edu/publications-and-resources/service-learning-toolkit/service-learning-models.html