Developing Students' Leadership Capacity

Book excerpt: Leadership education has become an essential outcome of higher education in the past decade and yet leadership development efforts vary greatly on campuses. In response, the International Leadership Association (ILA) published “Guiding Questions: Guidelines for Leadership Education Programs.” The Guiding Questions document is a result of a five-year, collaborative process to create guidelines for leadership education programs. ILA’s format of open-ended guiding questions is applicable to any student affairs practitioner developing a leadership learning program. This sourcebook was developed specifically to assist higher education professionals in their understanding, conceptualization, and implementation of the five standards outlined in the ILA Guiding Questions: Context, Conceptual Framework, Content, Teaching and Learning, and Assessment of Leadership Education. It explores leadership education for undergraduate students and provides a foundation for readers to develop students’ leadership capacity. Using the ILA’s Guiding Questions as a framework, this sourcebook will enable you to develop a leadership education program on your campus. This is the 140th volume of this Jossey-Bass higher education quarterly series. An indispensable resource for vice presidents of student affairs, deans of students, student counselors, and other student services professionals, New Directions for Student Services offers guidelines and programs for aiding students in their total development: emotional, social, physical, and intellectual.