Community-Engaged Leadership

The Leadership Studies Program, a part of the Department of Counseling, Family Therapy, and Higher Education (or CTH)  in the Reich College of Education, offers a number of courses each semester. Leadership Studies courses utilize critical reflection, active engagement, and community-based learning to explore the phenomenon of leadership through theory, research, scholarship, and lived experience. All courses (except Senior Leadership Capstone) are open to all students interested in learning about leadership, even if you aren’t a part of the Leadership Studies Minor.

Leadership Studies Courses

• LDS 2700 - Principles of Leadership*: This course is designed to introduce students to models and theories of leadership and to create an understanding of the increasing complexity of leading in diverse contexts. It will provide opportunities to wrestle with large leadership questions such as What is leadership? Who can be a leader? and How does understanding self and others influence leadership?

  • Multiple sections are offered every semester

  • Designed for first and second-year students

• LDS 3531 - Leadership and the Campus Community -- new offering Fall 2024! 

• LDS 3544 - Group and Organizational Leadership: This course will explore the complexities of groups and organizations through a multicultural and intercultural leadership lens. You'll examine several models and theories for understanding all kinds of groups and organizations and develop your skills for being an effective organizational leader

• LDS 3100 - Ethical Leadership: Through the examination of moral and ethical frameworks, students will develop their efficacy in analyzing multiple perspectives, decision-making, and navigating complexity. This course focuses on values-based leadership and one's responsibilities and commitments in the context of leadership for the common good and for purposeful change.

  • Offered every Fall semester

• LDS 3200 - Leadership for Social Change: This course explores social change as both a process and a goal through the lens of adaptive leadership theory. Frameworks, strategies, and models for personal, organizational, and societal change will be examined in an experiential and reflective class environment utilizing pedagogies of mindfulness and dialogue

• LDS 3540 - Leading Change: Campus Activism: This course is a 3-credit hour dialogue-based seminar exploring student leadership and activism on college campuses from the formation of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) at Shaw University during the Civil Rights Movement to Occupy Wall Street, #MeToo, #BlackLivesMatter, and others. Using traditional and modern change theoretical models students will analyze and discuss the efficacy of these models in leading change from an activist perspective

• LDS 4300 - Advanced Leadership Development: Designed for designated student body officers/leaders to develop and practice their leadership capabilities, this course emphasizes an understanding of leadership and action within the University community.

  • Offered in the Fall semester

  • Restricted for those with formal leadership roles in University student organizations

• LDS 4700 - Senior Leadership Capstone*: As a culminating academic experience for the Leadership Studies Minor, this seminar is designed to be both retrospective and integrative. Course activities will promote the synthesis of relevant concepts and experiences in order to formulate your own perspectives and beliefs on leadership.

  • One section is offered every semester

  • Restricted to students with senior standing in the Leadership Studies minor

  • Completion of HPC/LDS 2700 required as a prerequisite

Review the Undergraduate Bulletin ^{(opens in a new tab)} (opens in new tab) for a full description of all Leadership Studies courses and the official Program of Study for the Leadership minor.

*courses required for Leadership Studies Minor