Leadership Development Becomes Priority for Many Institutions

Colleges have always prided themselves on teaching the next generation of leaders. But it has only been over the past decade that they have begun to formalize that training.

"Some think the students will get leadership skills in student government, hut they must do more," said Gwendolyn Dungy, executive director of the National Association of Student Personnel Administrators.

Because historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) were established to produce leaders, Dungy said, it is surprising that so few of the schools are offering extensive training in leadership studies.

"A lot of it is done through mentoring and role modeling at HBCUs, but it needs to be more formal and broadened," Dungy said.

Which is exactly what Morehouse College officials are planning to do by creating a new Leadership Development Center (LDC), which has as its mission to "provide a focal point for Morehouse's efforts to develop graduates equipped to assume leadership roles in a variety of settings and assist practicing executives and other leaders in developing positive approaches to current challenges.

The Morehouse Legacy

Since the early days of Morehouse, when its president, Dr. Benjamin E. Mays, developed a set of leadership principles that students at the college would have to follow, teaching academics and preparing students for leadership roles has been an important part of the school's curriculum. The success that the institution has in producing leaders such as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. has come to be known as `The Morehouse Mystique' -- a phenomenon that many graduates say is appropriately named because it is hard to explain how the process works.

However, Dr. Willis Sheftall, director of the LDC, said, "It doesn't have to be a mystique anymore. We know and should know what we do and now we are formalizing it."

Dr. Frank Jones, director of program development for the project, agrees. Jones, who comes to Morehouse from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), added that he believes a leadership center at the school is timely because, "A lot of things have happened that have destroyed the foundation rocks that the mystique was built on.... The mystique is more appearance than reality, which is a huge issue that has to be dealt with."

In addition, because Morehouse's enrollment has gone from several hundred students in the early years, which made informal leadership mentoring easier, to 3,000 students today, Jones said, "The need to formalize leadership activities in the curriculum is greater than it was before."

A Decade of Growth

In the past, such programs have been headquartered in business schools. Now, however, they are cropping up in departments ranging form psychology and political science to women's studies and history.

According to a report by the Center for Creative Leadership (CCL), leadership courses and programs have increased tremendously over the past decade. Most schools are offering a few courses in leadership studies and according to CCL, ninety-three community colleges across the country are now offering at least one leadership course.

In 1992, the University of Richmond broke ground by becoming the first institution in the U.S. to have both a major and minor degree program in leadership studies. An extensive list of courses are offered to approximately eighty juniors and seniors accepted into the program at the school each year. CCL also cites Stetson University, North Central College, Columbia College, and Alberson College as offering minor degrees in leadership studies.

Currently, Morehouse is the only HBCU to announce the development of a full-fledged leadership center. But many other HBCUs are creating courses for the first time or adding on to what they have done in the past.

This semester, for the first time, Spelman College is requiring all of its freshmen and sophomores to take a leadership course each semester. Juniors and seniors will be encouraged, though not required, to sign up for leadership workshops, internships and seminars. Students who stay in the program for four years will receive a certificate in leadership training when they graduate.

Hampton University's Student Leadership Program is run through the Student Activities Office and is strictly voluntary. The program, which started in 1975, is designed for student government leaders but other students can also apply. Throughout the year, the approximately 120 students in the program: attend workshops on leadership; are required to assist in setting up and working campus events; and must do ten community service hours each semester.

Formalizing an Unwritten Formula

Similar to what many institutions have done, for the past three years Morehouse has had a structured leadership program in its business school. But Sheftall said this new project will be more expansive.

"It's not conceived as a program that belongs to any one department, but an umbrella under which all departments will be involved so that there will be a significant leadership component in all courses," he said.

Morehouse officials say they plan to initially offer a concentration in leadership studies to its students with the expectations that a major program will be developed in the future.

For Morehouse President Dr. Walter E. Massey, the leadership development center is a high priority. "It will be a major new facility intended to formalize some of the experiences we want Morehouse students to have," he said.

One of those students is nineteen-year-old Jermaine Dawson, who chose among several full scholarships when he graduated from high school three years ago. Dawson, who grew up in a crime-riddled public housing project in Atlanta, chose Morehouse College because he wants to help the youths in his old neighborhood make something of their lives. He thinks Morehouse will help him to do this because of the school's historic reputation for focusing on the development of leadership skills.

"I know I made the right choice.... Here they teach us how to be leaders and not just how to work," Dawson said.

Nearly thirty years ago, Alvin Darden, who now heads Morehouse's mentoring program for freshmen, enrolled in the psychology program at Morehouse for the same reason.

"I was a product of the sixties and the social issues of the time. I wanted a place where they developed leaders and Morehouse has a unique unwritten formula that produces an unusually high rate of African American leaders," Darden explained.

Corporate Funding

Morehouse will use funds from a $1 million, three-year grant the school received from the Coca-Cola Foundation to develop a lecture series bringing national and international leaders in various fields to the campus to conduct public lectures. In addition, the funds will allow the speakers to spend a full day on campus to conduct small group seminars with the students to talk about leadership challenges. In February, financier Warren Buffet is scheduled to be the first speaker in the series.

Funds from Coca-Cola will also be used to award grants to faculty members to develop proposals on ways leadership training can be included in the curriculum and how courses can be revised or added.

Jones said, "How the faculty incorporate leadership in each department will differ. [Through these grants] we want to free up individual thought about these issues [so that] we can rethink what we're doing to meet the changes of the world and the era."

The Coca-Cola grant will also pay for the incorporation of leadership training in a high school summer program.

Funds are being sought to build a facility for Morehouse's Leadership Development Center and various departments which will be heavily involved in the center's activities.

Michael Bivens, education director for the Coca-Cola Foundation, said it makes sense for Morehouse to expand in an area that they have had a lot of success and he thinks the kind of training the school plans to do is essential.

"If young people get leadership exposure early, they will have an edge in being prepared for the challenges that they will face in business or whatever career they are in in the twenty-first century. All students, especially students of color, need that experience to deal with the world," Bivens said.

Stress on Community Service

Community service is an important part of leadership training at Morehouse. "We will stress community service because you have to learn how to serve others and society to be a good leader," Massey said.

Stressing community service has historical roots at HBCUs, but according to the CCL, this is becoming a significant trend in leadership programs at traditionally white institutions as well. More schools are going beyond basic leadership theories -- of decision making, teamwork, communication skills, business etiquette, and the like -- to requiring students to apply what they learn in the classroom by volunteering in human service agencies and community projects.

"Out of necessity, leadership programs at HBCUs have to be more community based and service oriented. Students are being taught, `How can I also help?' and not just, `How can I get ahead?' HBCUs are taking the leadership role on this," Dungy said.

Like many HBCUs, Morehouse is surrounded by public housing projects and located in a large urban center that has a lot of social problems. Because of this, Jones believes that a significant part of Morehouse's leadership training has to focus on community service and social issues.

"This is Morehouse. It isn't Harvard or MIT. By and large, [schools like Harvard and MIT] don't care about these problems. But this is what drives Morehouse.... We have to lead on this issue," Jones said.

Jones predicts that in order for the Leadership Development Center to maintain the institution's effectiveness in producing leaders of the calibre of Dr. King, Morehouse officials will have to ask critical questions such as whether it wants to be a commuter or residential institution. Currently there are only eleven dorms on campus and half of the school's almost 3,000 students commute daily. Jones believes that building more dorms will be crucial in making the project work because the connection dormitory life has to leadership can be explained by the importance of on-campus housing in the early years.

"[Dorms were] where the streets and `bourgies' came together and worked things out. It's where [students] gained a sense that they were part of the same train. [Accomplishing this would be] hard if you are a commuter school because commuters don't care, they go to class and leave.... It's a critical issue which has to do with leadership," explained Jones.

Sheftall thinks they are on the right track. Morehouse plans to strongly emphasize community service as well as making sure that the LDC addresses the changes occurring in private and public organizations that are creating a greater demand for leadership skills in college graduates.

"In bureaucracies there are fewer titles [because of the downsizing of middle management], which means more responsibility sooner for aspiring leaders. Given this expansion and need for people with leadership abilities, it seems to me that increasing the pool of African Americans with leadership skills is as necessary as it is appropriate," Sheftall said. "It's something we ought to be doing."