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LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT IN A COMMUNITY CONTEXT
Leadership education took a turn toward feminism in the 1990s. The decade's notions about leadership embrace feminist ideals of shared power, reciprocity of influence, and the value of relationships. Feminist pedagogies that value personal experiences enjoy a good fit with college and university service learning and civic leadership programs. Educators are being awakened to injuries foisted upon girls, particularly middle school girls, highlighting a need for female-friendly practices at all levels. Furthermore, the recently recognized interdependence between institutions of higher education and their surrounding communities exemplifies the value of relationships, an idea long associated with women's perspectives.
The confluence of these trends set the stage for a unique women's leadership course at Tulane University. Newcomb College, the coordinate college of Tulane for undergraduate women studying the liberal arts and sciences, wanted to strengthen its leadership development program by bridging the curricular and the co-curricular. The College was ready to extend its mission of education women to the development of girls as well. Faculty had recently affirmed service learning. Also, Tulane had recently entered a collaborative effort with Xavier University called the Campus Affiliates Program (CAP) which aims to enrich both academy and community by building partnerships and programs involving both.
The time was ripe for "Leadership Development in a Community Context," a two-semester course jointly offered by Psychology and Women's Studies designed to develop the leadership skills of college students through their work in expanding the leadership skills of girls in New Orleans public housing. During the first semester, college students were to consider writings and research about adolescent development, environmental factors affecting young African-American women, and models of collaborative leadership, while carrying out a service learning experience with sixth grade girls. By the end of the first semester, they would be ready to create an affirming and empowering leadership curriculum for the girls. Students would implement this curriculum during the second semester.
Tenets of women's studies pervade the course. The leadership model being used is based on feminist views of shared power. The service learning aspect emphasizes the connectedness of the academy and its surrounding community. The psychology portion of the curriculum focuses on the development of girls. Personal reflections come about through required journaling. Finally, an interdisciplinary...