The UConn Honors Leadership

Experience

Catalyzing Student Capacities for Change

Leigh E. Fine, Ph.D.

Assistant Director, Honors Program

October 26, 2018

Honors Students and Leadership

• UConn Honors wants to

empower our students to be

leaders in their chosen fields

of study and beyond.

– So what does that mean?

• UConn Honors believes

leadership is…

– …a process, not position;

– …something that requires

connection with others;

– …something that results in

change for the common

good (Rost, 1991; NCLP,

Komives, & Wagner, 2016).

Individual

Group

Society

CHANGE

(Komives, Wagner, & Associates, 2009)

Honors Students and Leadership

Honors Students and Leadership

Individual

Group

Society

CHANGE

(Renzulli, 2002) (Komives, Wagner, & Associates, 2009)

The University Honors Laureate

Leadership Experience

• By completing the University Honors Laureate

Leadership Experience, students will be able to:

– articulate a personal definition of leadership that

includes an examination of the role of self, others,

and society / context;

– exercise leadership that creates positive change in a

community of practice;

– reflect critically on a leadership experience to both

learn from successes and identify areas for future

leadership development.

The University Honors Laureate

Leadership Experience

Three Phases (Ash &

Clayton, 2009;

University of Maryland,

1999):

1. Preparation

2. Action

3. Reflection

Phase I: Preparation

Three major steps:1. Attend a leadership workshop facilitated by an Honors Guide for Peer

Success (GPS) peer mentor

- Explore definitions of leadership

- Engage with UConn Honors’ approach to leadership

- Identify spheres of influence

- Start to identify leadership gaps / needs in spheres of influence

- Leadership Experience process

2. Submit a Leadership Action Plan (LAP) via Portfolium

- Personal definition of leadership

- Identifying spheres of influence and gaps / needs in spheres

- Developing a SMART plan to address a need in sphere of influence

- Preparing for coaching

3. Honors GPS peer leadership coaching

E-Portfolio System

E-Portfolio System

Peer Leadership Coaching

• Coaching

– A proven framework that leads to enhanced leader efficacy and goal completion (Boyce, Jackson, & Neal, 2010; Ladegard & Gjerde, 2014)

– Throgh a solution-focused relationship, coach can ask mentee incisive questions to promote goal completion, recognition of blind spots, and development of tactics to facilitate success

• Why peers?

– Peer mentorship is as – if not more – efficacious in generating student learning as compared to faculty- or staff-led interventions (McKeachie, 1994; Newton & Ender, 2010)

– Reciprocal peer leadership

Phase II: Action

• Examples of LAPs in Progress

– A scholarship information handout and session for current

students who want to fund their research ideas

– A pen-pal and in-person mentoring program for UConn

undergraduates and students in the Hartford public school

system

– A recycling program at university-owned apartments

– Development of a partnership between local restaurants and

campus food reclamation systems to provide more resources to

local food banks

– Inventing a sensor to determine when residence hall laundry

machines have finished a cycle and texting students; partnering

with Residential Life to install

Phase III: Reflection

• Submission of a Leadership

Reflection via Portfolium

• A reflection coaching meeting

– Successes

– Obstacles / failures

– What could I have done

differently?

– Were communities of

practice transformed?

– Leadership lessons for

future practice

Limitations & Challenges

• Students: “This seems like a lot of extra work.”

– Our students were exercising leadership anyway! Let’s document them and learn from them!

– Focus on improving social conditions a la Houndstooth

• Students: “What if I fail?”

– Students define success on their own terms

– We don’t evaluate on task, but the process (like leadership!)

• Managing community partners

– True community partnerships take time and energy to nurture

– Coaching students: “I’m the only one doing this!” or, “Do this for me, thx”

• Peer coaching: resources, time, training

– Fortunate to have resources

– Training is very time-intensive

• Faculty buy-in: “Is leadership a discipline?” “Shouldn’t faculty be doing this?”

– Many Honors programs have co-curricular requirements

– Leadership as a field of study

– Many faculty have been supportive

Considerations

• What is your leadership infrastructure?

– Who “owns” leadership on your campus? One department? Multiple

stakeholders? Student or academic affairs?

– What do you, your students, and your institution believe about

leadership? Can anyone practice it? Should anyone? To what end(s)

should leadership be practiced?

• What do you want your students to gain?

– Confidence? Tangible skills? An appreciation for diversity? An

appreciation of group processes? The ability to improve social

conditions?

• What resources do you have available?

– Staff? Training? Time? Monetary? Community partners?

• What is attainable, and with whom do you need to partner?

References

• Ash, S. L., & Clayton, P. H. (2009). Generating, deepening, and documenting learning: The power of critical reflection in applied learning. Journal of Applied Learning in Higher Education, 1, 25-48.

• Boyce, L. A., Jackson, J. R., & Neal, L. J. (2010). Building successful leadership coaching relationships. Journal of Management Development, 29(10), 914-931.

• Heifetz, R. A., Linsky, M., & Grashow, A. (2009). The practice of adaptive leadership : Tools and tactics for changing your organization and the world. Boston: Harvard Business Review Press.

• Komives, S. R., Longerbeam, S. D., Owen, J. E., Mainella, F. C., & Osteen, L. (2006). A leadership identity development model: Applications from a grounded theory. Journal of College Student Development, 47(4), 401-418.

• Komives, S. R., Lucas, N., & McMahon, T. R. (2013). Exploring leadership: For college students who want to make a difference (3rd ed.). San Francisco, CA: John Wiley & Sons.

• Kuh, G. D. (2008). High-impact educational practices: What they are, who has access to them, and why they matter. Washington, DC: Association of American Colleges and Universities.

• Ladegard, G., & Gjerde, S. (2014). Leadership coaching, leader role-efficacy, and trust in subordinates. A mixed methods study assessing leadership coaching as a leadership development tool. The Leadership Quarterly, 25(4), 631.

• McKeachie, W. J. (1994). Teaching tips: Strategies, research, and theory for college and university teachers (9th ed.). Lexington, MA: D.C. Heath & Company.

• NCLP, Komives, S. R., & Wagner, W. (2016). Leadership for a better world : Understanding the social change model of leadership development (2nd ed.). Newark: Jossey-Bass. Retrieved from http://www.vlebooks.com/vleweb/product/openreader?id=none&isbn=9781119207603&uid=none

• Newton, F. B., & Ender, S. C. (2010). Students helping students (2nd ed. ed.). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

• Northouse, P. G. (2012). Introduction to leadership (2nd ed. ed.). Los Angeles, CA: Sage.

• Priest, K. L., Bauer, T., & Fine, L. E. (2015). The hunger project: Exercising civic leadership with the community for the common good in an introductory leadership course. Journal of Leadership Education, 14(2), 218-228.

• Renzulli, J. S. (2002). Expanding the conception of giftedness to include co-cognitive traits and promote social capital. Phi Delta Kappan, 84(1), 33-58.

• Rost, J. C. (1991). Leadership for the twenty-first century (2. print. ed.). New York, NY: Praeger.

• University of Maryland. (1999). Service learning models: The P.A.R.E. model. Retrieved from http://source.jhu.edu/publications-and-resources/service-learning-toolkit/service-learning-models.html