President's Office

Learning Leadership Through the Liberal Arts

---

Introduction
Building in Leadership Opportunities
Learning to Lead
Our Exciting Opportunity

---

Building in Leadership Opportunities

I agree with John Gardner, former Cabinet Secretary, who says that a liberal arts education is the best preparation for leadership. It gives students a broad perspective, which is essential in dealing with a global community. It enables students to think clearly, preparing them to anticipate, respond to and guide change. It reinforces values that guide ethical behavior. In the context of One-Course-At-A-Time, students also learn to focus their energies and work closely with classmates around a specific topic or project. This is a pattern of work that they will encounter repeatedly in the future.

We have in the past three years established an active presence in community service and new co-curricular leadership programs. Our work in community service is integral to our commitment to leadership. Leadership at its best is service. In community service, students gain valuable experience in working in teams. They receive a "crash course" in community dynamics and interpersonal relations. They learn how organizations work and how to get people together to get things done.

I have been proud of the way that our students have responded to the creation of an Office of Volunteer Services. In each of the past three years, more than two-thirds of our students have been engaged in some form of volunteer activity. They have tutored in local schools, established a mentoring program for middle school children, helped renovate affordable housing, and given leadership to a number of fund-raising activities to benefit community health and welfare. Twenty-two faculty members have incorporated service as part of the learning experience in their courses. Dick Peterson involves students in the MidAmerica Housing Partnership as part of their coursework in sociology, for example. The students are enthusiastic. They report that through this service, the concepts they read and discuss "come alive."

Cornell has created a Visiting Leaders Series, which invites leaders--many of them alumni--to visit classes and work with students. Through this series, John Urheim '62 taught using a case study about re-entry into a pharmaceutical market. Aleta Grillos Trauger '68 explained how the liberal arts helped her career as a federal judge. John Smith '71 told an economics class about survival in the highly competitive world of trucking. Bob McLennan '65 talked about his career in finance and investment in Chicago. Our most recent Visiting Leader was Richard Bowman '62, a nationally recognized product-liability defense attorney.

Learning to Lead

Cornell now has leadership programs for students in each of their four years at the college. Students are introduced to these opportunities at orientation, and we encourage first-year students to participate in the Emerging Leaders Program. They participate in "leadershops" where they learn about leadership, and they participate in a variety of service projects, where they are coached by students in our junior program. Sophomores participate in the Developing Leaders Program. They form project teams, participate in "leadershops," and mentor local junior high school students.

Juniors are engaged in the Evolving Leaders Program, with their activity focused on small reading and discussion groups, serving as mentors for first-year students or designing and implementing a service project on their own. Advancing Leaders, seniors at Cornell, join with mentors from the community in a set of activities designed to help them plan their transition from leadership in college to leadership in their communities after college.

These leadership programs serve a broader purpose at the college. Not all students can participate in these programs, and we think that leadership development should not be limited to a few students. Therefore, we look to these programs as a training ground for leaders of campus organizations. We also see them as a "foundation" on which a broader leadership emphasis can be built. Leadership development can become a theme for a wide range of activities outside the classroom. After all, much of the experience on an athletic team or in a residence hall, social group, or campus activity is about leadership. We aspire to be much more deliberate about helping our students seize these opportunities.

Leadership is often learned in an internship where a student has the chance to observe, work, and learn with an established leader. Attorney Julia Gutz '88, president-elect of the Alumni Association Board of Directors, developed a valuable relationship with a mentor during her internship at a Cedar Rapids bank and now works in the banking industry. Howard Gardner, in his book "Extraordinary Minds," writes about the importance of mentors and apprenticeships in developing expertise. He proposes that creative individuals learn their mastery of a field by working closely with an established master.

One-Course-At-A-Time offers a unique opportunity for internships. Students can work full-time individually or in teams on a leadership task. Traditional semester-long internships are only for an hour or two a week, and students end up doing menial tasks. Our internships are opportunities for students to solve "real-world" problems. Our survey of 1998 graduates indicated that 38 percent had an internship at Cornell. We want that to be higher, and this year hired an internship coordinator to help students find and prepare for challenging internship experiences in the community.

Our Exciting Opportunity

We now have an exciting opportunity to heighten our emphasis on leadership. This fall we established a Center for Leadership and Service to provide a focal point on campus for the support and nurturing of leadership skills. This center brings together our community service, leadership, and internship programs. It will serve as a catalyst for the development of new programs in leadership and service.

Having created a Leadership Center, we can look to the future. Let me share three of my ideas for your consideration.

1. Leadership As a Pervasive Theme. This past fall, we experimented with a leadership development experience as part of our training for resident assistants, students who work in staff roles in the residence halls. Other campus activities offer similar opportunities to learn and exercise leadership. Over the next several years, we need to build into these positions opportunities for students to study and reflect so that they can gain maximum advantage from the leadership roles they fill on campus.
2. Community Problem Solving. Experts in learning theory tell us that students learn best when they confront "real, messy" problems that are important to community leaders. Our students would learn important lessons by serving as problem-solving teams, available to community organizations to perform research and analysis to help improve the quality of life in the community around us. A couple of years ago, a group of marketing students designed and implemented a "Bring a Friend to Church" program for local United Methodist Churches. They helped boost church attendance and they learned a lot about themselves, their community, and what it means to lead by serving.
3. Entrepreneurship. Effective leaders are entrepreneurs and we should explore the importance of entrepreneurship in leadership. We are all familiar with entrepreneurial success in the private sector--individuals and groups who achieve success by developing important new products and services. What we do not appreciate as fully is the importance of public or civic entrepreneurship, the ability of individuals to shape new responses to community needs in the public and non-profit sectors. Rich examples abound, and our students must learn from them so that they are prepared to offer leadership in a variety of career and community settings. One-Course-At-A-Time offers us a unique opportunity to design an entrepreneurship program for public and private sectors. We can combine classwork with internships and special projects to give students a first-hand experience in creating something new.

Cornell has a comparative advantage in leadership development. Our commitment to the liberal arts nurtures the ability to think and communicate. Our One-Course-At-A-Time delivery system helps students learn how to work with ideas in a focused way. Our leadership programs enhance student activities and athletic programs. Our commitment to community service, supported by our church relationship, nurtures the values followers respect in leaders. We must seize the opportunity to develop this strength.

I have been pleased with the responses to my earlier White Papers and welcome your reaction to these ideas and your suggestions for how to implement them. Several alumni have already been helpful as we have considered the scope of the center. Please let me hear from you.

Leslie H. Garner Jr.
President