The Challenge of Developing Faculty to Teach Leadership as a Secondary Discipline

Abstract

In colleges of agriculture leadership education is one area of study where enrollment and demand are outstripping the capacity of institutions to deliver the coursework. However, few faculty members are prepared to teach leadership contextually based in agriculture. Responding to this challenge, the Leadership Education Institute (LEI) for faculty in colleges of agriculture was created. The primary goal of the project was to prepare agricultural faculty to teach leadership as a secondary discipline. This multi-year project, funded by a USDA Higher Education Challenge Grant, was a collaboration of faculty from Oklahoma State University, the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, and the University of Georgia. The project resulted in directly impacting food and agricultural sciences education at 10 institutions across the nation by improving teaching competency of leadership education faculty in colleges of agriculture.

Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources: Developing Future Agricultural Leaders

“…The USDA funded project brought together ten faculty from ten different institutions for a 2‐year professional development program in leadership education. The Leadership Education Institute (LEI) provided participants with curriculum libraries, training in methods of teaching leadership, leadership theory, leadership education research, and site visits to model programs (Weeks, Weeks, Barbuto, & Langone, ).…”

TEACHING LEADERSHIP IN ‘MAJOR’ CONTEXTS: A ‘Minor’ Application

“…Worse, minors often become a 'buffet' of isolated courses from a myriad of departments with little integration among them (Diallo & Gerhardt, 2017;Pennington, 2005). Unfortunately, given that academic leadership programs are often already hampered by staffing constraints in general (Fritz, Townsend, Hoover, Weeks, Carter, & Nietfeldt, 2003;Pennington, 2005;Weeks, Weeks, Barbuto, & Langone, 2009); offering major-specific courses is usually not feasible given the lack of qualified or interested faculty members that would be required to teach them. In the absence of a transdisciplinary curriculum, it would benefit students to least take a leadership course oriented towards their own academic disciplines to examine the unique nuances of leadership inherent in them.…”

The Balancing Act: Exploring Scholarship for the Agricultural Leadership Educator

“…However, it is common for leadership educators teaching in the context of agriculture to be academically prepared as agricultural (teacher or extension) educators and then later assigned to teach agricultural leadership. Typically, leadership educators in agricultural departments are agricultural educators, first, and leadership educators, second (Fritz & Brown, 1998, Pennington Weeks, Weeks, Barbuto, & Langone, 2009. For the purposes of this paper, leadership educators teaching within the context of agriculture will be referred to as agricultural leadership educators.…”