Staff and Faculty Share Best Practices at Premiere Leadership Development Conference

The Center for Leadership staff and the Leadership Faculty Fellow presented two sessions at the Leadership Educators Institute (LEI), the premiere conference for leadership educators and professors, at Texas Christian University in Fort Worth, Texas, on December 11 and 12.

Associate Director of the Center for Leadership Dana Carnes, Student Life Fellow for Leadership Stacey Rusterholz, and Leadership Faculty Fellow Frances Ward-Johnson, associate professor of communications, shared with the 360 LEI attendees some of Elon’s best practices around leadership development.

Carnes and Ward-Johnson’s presentation, “Facilitating Learning through Creative Experiential Leadership Courses” focused on two classes that utilize experiential learning for leadership development. Carnes’ COE 310 course, “Infusing Creativity into the Workplace,” explores leadership, creativity, and innovation through the lens of the Walt Disney Company and culminates in an experience at Walt Disney World over Spring Break. Additionally, Ward-Johnson shared about her GST 224 course, “Disarming Injustice: Nonviolence in the Civil Rights Movement,” using the history of the Civil Rights movement to teach sophomore Isabella Cannon Leadership Fellows about social change and leadership through experiences in Alabama and Georgia during Winter Term.

Rusterholz and Carnes also presented  by sharing about the Intersect: Diversity and Leadership Conference and the Leaders in a Global World Living Learning Community and how these programs are a demonstration of the Center for Leadership’s contribution to Elon’s unprecedented commitment to diversity and global engagement.

Leadership education and development is an essential and ongoing processing for college students, especially at Elon University. The Center for Leadership staff play an important role in coordinating, shaping, and evaluating leadership development for Elon students by creating both curricular and co-curricular opportunities. For more information about the Center for Leadership’s curricular and co-curricular programs, please go to www.elon.edu/leadership . For information about LEI, please go to http://www.acpa.nche.edu/event/2014-leadership-educators-institute.