Summer Institute on Leadership and the Liberal Arts a Success

How can leadership be understood in countries such as Africa? Is religion an asset or a liability in public leadership? And how can leadership studies make good on the promise of the liberal arts?

These were just some of the questions addressed during the Jepson School Summer Institute for Leadership and the Liberal Arts held at the University of Richmond May 19-21. The Institute was an opportunity for scholars to explore topics in leadership and the liberal arts and the intersection between leadership and the humanities, social sciences and natural sciences.

Scholars and students from nearly 60 colleges, 27 states and 6 countries – Kazakhstan, Pakistan, Mexico, Singapore, Canada and the U.S. – participated in the Summer Institute. The overwhelming response to the Summer Institute created dynamic opportunities for stimulating intellectual exchange among the 120 attendees.

Session themes included character education, leadership across the curriculum, democratic leadership, international perspectives on leadership, personal religion and public leadership, philosophical foundations of leadership, women in leadership and diverse inclusive leadership. Faculty and graduate scholars presented papers related to each session’s theme.

The Institute was an extension of a workshop held last summer at Claremont McKenna College titled “Leadership Across the Liberal Arts Curriculum” that was co-sponsored by Claremont McKenna College, Loyola Marymount University and the University of Richmond. The Institute was made possible by a grant from the W. M. Keck Foundation.

Those who attended the 2008 Summer Institute were pleased with the outcome. Newcomers to the field of leadership studies as well as seasoned leadership studies scholars complimented the program.

“As a relative newcomer to interdisciplinary leadership studies via the doors of sociology and religion, I found myself impressed and informed by the wide variety of unique, but overlapping, approaches to the subject,” Carol Wickersham, director of the Leadership Initiative at Beloit College, said. “It was helpful to be able to focus in on specifics and case studies, and then to step back and look at philosophic or historic underpinnings.  Perhaps most of all, I was encouraged by the variety and quality of the scholars present.”

Richard Couto, a senior scholar at the James MacGregor Burns Academy of Leadership at the University of Maryland and a founding faculty member of the Jepson School, agreed.             

“Usually if I can walk away from a conference with one good idea, I consider it a success,” Couto said. “But I’ve gotten several good ideas here.”

Dean Sandra Peart of the Jepson School believes the Institute was a good example of how the Jepson School approaches the study of leadership. “One participant remarked that the Summer Institute showcased ‘what the Jepson School of Leadership Studies does so well.’ It brought together scholars from various disciplines, including history, philosophy, economics, and religion, to examine problems in leadership from various disciplinary perspectives,” she said. “In that sense, the Summer Institute represented, in microcosm, what we do all year long at Jepson.”  

Many attendees expressed strong interest in attending another such conference in the future.