In the Know
Reconsidering Leadership

A new report calls on the higher education community to rethink traditional practices and beliefs in order to teach all students leadership skills.

The nation's colleges and universities must make sweeping changes in undergraduate education if the quality of leadership in American society is to improve, says a new report from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation and the James McGregor Burns Academy of Leadership at the University Maryland.

Leadership Reconsidered: Engaging Higher Education in Social Change is intended, say its authors, to stimulate conversation and ideas on how to produce future generations of effective leaders.

The report calls on higher education institutions to develop ways to promote the development of leadership skills in students and offers tips on sharing responsibility and making positive changes in leadership education.

The report also discusses how faculty, student affairs professionals, and senior administrators can take part in preparing undergraduate students for taking on future responsibilities. Noting that any student has the potential to be a leader, the authors advocate teaching and leading by example.

"It's not enough to turn out graduates who have mastered knowledge in traditional disciplinary fields," notes Alexander Astin, director of the Higher Education Research Institute at UCLA and co-editor of the report. "Higher education institutions need to help students develop the personal qualities and abilities that are crucial to effective leadership."

The report's authors identify a number of qualities that define effective leadership. They call on higher education faculty, staff, and students to use the report to start conversations among themselves about ways to rethink curricula, teaching practices, campus rewards systems, governance processes, and other higher education practices.

"We didn't write Leadership Reconsidered so it could sit on library shelves," says Nance Lucas of the Burns Academy of Leadership and one of the contributing authors. "We wrote it so that people would begin to believe that they can make a difference—and then go out and do it.

For more information or to obtain a copy of Leadership Reconsidered: Engaging Higher Education in Social Change visit www.academy.umd.edu. You can also send an E-mail request for info to academy@academy.umd.edu.