Undergraduate Leadership Minor
In collaboration with the Hubert H. Humphrey Institute and the University's Office for Student Affairs, the Department of Organizational Leadership, Policy, and Development offers an undergraduate minor in leadership. The 17-credit leadership minor program is interdisciplinary, multidimensional, experiential, and global. As a participant, you will explore and experience multiple frameworks of leadership. The program prepares you for real-life leadership experiences, both on campus and in the larger global community by combining social change theories of leadership with authentic community leadership.
Mission:
Through an interdisciplinary curriculum, the leadership minor program
will provide each student with the opportunity to develop core knowledge
about leadership within the larger context of social action and social
change and to demonstrate leadership through written, oral, and
field-based experiences.
Vision:
The leadership minor will be a high quality, interdisciplinary,
multidimensional, experiential and multi/intercultural program that
exposes undergraduates to, and prepares them for, real life leadership
experiences. Students will explore issues of leadership, citizenship and
social change within the context of an inquiry, experiential, and
competency-based instructional design.
The Leadership Minor Explores Various Topics
- Personal vs. positional leadership
- Conflict management
- Social change
- Vision, mission, and goals
- Group and team development
- Adaptive, integrative, and citizen-leadership approaches
- Leadership theories/philosophies/frameworks
- Culture and ethnicity
- Decision-making
- Goal-setting
- Systems thinking
- Congruency
- Ethics and values
Goals for the Leadership Minor
- Reinvigorate the education of undergraduate students within the University of Minnesota's learning community. The Leadership Minor will help accomplish this goal by incorporating inquiry-based and experiential-based instructional strategies that promote the success of its students, not only during their experience at the University of Minnesota, but throughout life.
- Incorporate a cross-discipline collaboration among the College of Education and Human Development, The Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs, and the Office for Student Affairs to ensure that the program is relevant to students from different backgrounds, values, cultures, ethnicities, perspectives, and experiences.
- Become a vehicle for students in all majors to incorporate a leadership and citizenship component into their academic program as they prepare for the workplace and meaningful community involvement.
- Expose undergraduates to diverse career opportunities and provide meaningful opportunities for learning about leaders through field-based experiences, community-engagement, and other experiential and instructional strategies.
Expected Learner Outcomes
Students will:
- Gain an understanding of perspectives on leadership including frameworks, theory and practice, styles and models.
- Develop an evolving personal definition of what it means to lead and the role of personal responsibility in leadership throughout the course sequence of the leadership minor.
- Gain an understanding of leadership opportunities within the University and the larger community.
- Learn how to engage with others in order to affect change .Apply your knowledge of leadership in real-life settings .Understand the role of ethics, democratic citizenship, and social change in leadership.
- Demonstrate critical thinking through oral and written communication skills.
- Prepare to become a responsible citizen in a diverse, democratic society.
Courses
The core courses are the following:
- EDPA 1301W/PA 1961W—Personal Leadership in the
University (3 cr) - EDPA 3302/PA 3961—Leadership, You, and Your Community (3 cr)
- EDPA 3402/PA 3971—Field Experience (3 cr)
- EDPA 4303W/PA 4961W—Leadership for Global Citizenship (3 cr)
Electives:
To complete the minor, students must take 5 credits of elective leadership courses. Elective courses must expose and challenge students to explore the concept of leadership and must meet the identified learner outcomes of the minor. One elective course must be 3000-level or above. ANY study abroad experience will count as your 5 credits of electives regardless of the study abroad credit load. List of current electives [.pdf]. (If you do not see a course on this list that you believe should count as an elective, please email leadup@umn.edu. In your email please attach the syllabus and a one page description explaining why this course should be added.)
Additional Information
More leadership minor program details are available online at the LEADUP! website at http://www.leadup.umn.edu.
Contact
If you have questions about this program, please contact the Leadership Education and Development Undergraduate Programs office at 612-624-1559 or leadup@umn.edu.
Revised November 2010
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