magazine

Feature
DEVELOPING LEADERS
My confidence comes from knowing that embedded in Wheelock’s brand
of education, in its classrooms and within its programs, is a kind of
teaching and learning that grows leaders. Much of this is based on types of
leadership that Lucy Wheelock practiced and that have been an excellent model
for me during my presidency.
The Wheelock Way of Moral Leadership
Leading an institution with a moral mission has great advantages. It attracts
passionately caring, altruistic individuals, unifies them into a uniquely
strong community, and focuses them on a common goal even if their individual
paths toward it vary. It provides a standard against which, as President, I have
always measured every aspect of institutional growth and development.
Do we need more or different opportunities for student service and practice
that teach moral leadership? Can a new graduate program in Nonprofit
Leadership bring Wheelock’s brand of moral leadership into more nonprofits
and nongovernmental organizations while also adding job opportunities for
graduating students? How can a new Political Science and Global Studies major
best help students understand how local policies have far-reaching effects on
children and families and that different cultures have different ideas about
equity and justice? Does the Wheelock student experience reflect what we teach
about inclusion and equity?
Teaching and modeling moral leadership and guiding students as they
struggle with its complexities and contradictions are fundamental to fulfilling
Wheelock’s mission.
Collaborative Leadership
Learning to work collaboratively with colleagues and with members of
a community being served is one of the hardest and most important
challenges every leader confronts.
Collaborative leadership requires learning to set aside the more traditional
notion of individual accomplishment and to trust that there is more to be gained
by individuals working together as a group toward a shared goal. This is not easy.
Collaborative leadership teaches humility along with many other lessons! But by
bringing together — to the table, the project, or the classroom — the individual
resources that everyone has, our own ideas will be improved, our paths will be
made made shorter and straighter, and even our understanding of the goal may
shift because of new perspectives on it.
I have been fortunate to be President of a college that has an abundance of
leadership resources within its administration, faculty, and staff; on its Board of
Trustees; and among its accomplished alumni who are making great differences
Wheelock alumni – standard-bearers of the mission
“You will be the
standard-bearers in
your community.”
- Lucy Wheelock
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