This course explores the basic theories, trends, and practices for leadership from varying global perspectives. Leadership theories are often taught from a Western perspective. This course discusses these historical Western perspectives, while also introducing students to how leadership is viewed and practiced around the world. Note: This section of this course was taught at Scott High School, where students received both high school and college credit under NKU’s School-based Scholars program.
- Professor Rick Brockmeier
In this course, our learning goals are to introduce leadership concepts and cultural diversity issues to high school students who aspire to further their education in college.
Many of the students have leadership experience but have not been exposed to a systematic study of leadership concepts and practices. Their experiences of cultural diversity, its issues and power, is very limited.
The Mayerson Student Philanthropy Project promotes the delivery of experiential learning in support of those goals by assigning the students to research and analyze a global organization and its leadership and assess its "worthiness". In doing so, it fundamentally serves the learning objectives of the course and also helps establish philanthropic spirit in the student. Students also apply leadership concepts in that this research, analysis, and advocacy is done by teams.
The cultural exposure is enriched, since most of the organizations provide services and solutions to global groups, the problems for which are developed because of their particular cultural values, attitudes, and beliefs. Many of the organizations were established with the purpose of providing economic benefits, health benefits, and examination of ethnic and gender issues that are inherent in the cultural groups to which those organizations serve.
One of the surprising things that the students conclude is that there are many fine organizations involved in delivery of a wide variety of services, but most service is directed towards a handful of issues of very universal and long-standing cultural circumstances dealing with economic, health, and social mores. Most of the groups are worthy and the selection is a contested one.
“My overall favorite part of the course was the philanthropy project at the end. As a class we had money to donate to an organization. We were split into groups and presented a nonprofit organization of our choice. We had to give information and persuasion as to why the nonprofit we chose was worthy of the donation.
This project felt more like trying to make a difference than it did just another normal assignment. I loved researching my topic and sharing it the best I could with my peers. I also enjoyed learning about the nonprofit organization they had chosen and why they believed it was worthy of the donation. This project not only will impact you as a student but also an organization trying to make a difference in people of situations in need.
The philanthropy project was a great way to round out a leadership class. Leadership is all about stepping up and doing what is right and necessary to make progress. After learning about leadership and culture around the world we were able to put everything we had learned into a real life situation and help out. This was a very hands on and beneficial learning experience that I believe you as a future student in this course will also enjoy.”
- LDR 160 Student from Scott High School
SOIL is a non-profit research and development organization working in Haiti to design, test, and implement sustainable and cost-effective solutions to the sanitation crisis. SOIL focuses on pioneering approaches to sustainable sanitation service delivery that combine innovative service delivery models and new technologies with a strategic, catalytic approach to financial sustainability.
Click the image to view the team presentation for SOIL.
Professor Brockmeier: This course is designed to be delivered face-to-face, online, or in a blended fashion. The students have had some limited exposure to online modalities and certainly comfortable with technology applications.
But the abrupt changes in educational relationships and transmission of learning, imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic, required the students shift to an exclusive online delivery. Since aspects of the course had already been explained and used during its blended delivery, the transition was, to a large extent, seamless.
The students had previously been exposed to some online learning tools while engaging in the class in a face-to-face or blended delivery for learning. While dialogue was limited, discussion boards in an asynchronous manner were presented to the students who did have an opportunity to experience and therefore learn how this online form of learning, though different, can provide certain benefits that face-to-face learning does not. The primary one was that the pandemic imposed the requirement that learning be more self-regulated than these high schoolers have experienced in the past. They soon confirmed that they were responsible for their learning and the progress of it.
Northern Kentucky University
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Phone: (859) 572-1448
E-mail: engage@nku.edu
