Collaborative Leadership
During the fall semester of my freshman year at the University of Cincinnati, I had the opportunity to participate in an Honors Seminar called Collaborative Leadership taught by Dr. Gail Fairhurst. The purpose of this class was to "challenge the assumption that leaders are heroes with sweeping visions" while deeper inspecting the concept of "wicked" problems that necessitate collaboration among other communication ideas. Our class met Tuesday and Thursday mornings and consisted of roughly fifteen students of varying majors (from engineering to DAAP and everything in between). We spent the first half of the semester learning various communication concepts and their prevalence and application in all dialogue. For the remainder of the semester, our focus switched to investigating collaborative leadership theories. In addition to the in class academics, Dr. Fairhurst had our class work closely with the local organization, Beyond Civility, in order to relate the academic topics to real world efforts to spread the messages of collaboration and civility (with this organization's focus being incivility in politics).
Being a mechanical engineering major, this class was a wonderful change of pace from the other introduction to engineering classes I was taking my first semester. I soaked up all of the communications concepts like a sponge and actually surprised myself with how much I enjoyed this type of class. Being my first semester and my first Honors Seminar, I had no idea what to expect from Collaborative Leadership. However, any expectations I did have for this experience were certainly far exceeded. Personally, my favorite part of this class was our work with Beyond Civility. Regardless of one's political convictions, incivility among politicians and a seeming refusal to cooperate is definitely one of the most frustrating aspects of our political system. As I have shared in that frustration (even in my limited life experience), I found Beyond Civility's efforts to combat this problem head on inspiring and innovative in their approach (for example, rather than lecturing politicians on the need to collaborate one of Beyond Civility's programs simply requires politicians to discuss how they came to this point in their life and to their current political stances--with the hope that understanding will be the basis of a relationship).
I feel extremely fortunate to have had the opportunity to participate in the Collaborative Leadership Honors Seminar. I believe that this class helped to make me a more well-rounded student and individual. I had lectored at my church since second grade, so I was familiar and comfortable with public speaking although I was completely unaware all that the communication field had to offer. My intentions for my long term career have not drastically altered, but this course provided a communication background that I am positive will be useful throughout my academic and professional pursuits. Also, our entire class seemed to enjoy and engage with Beyond Civility in a meaningful way and I am hopeful that we can serve as a resource for them in order to continue to further their influence on politicians. Collaborative Leadership has already significantly contributed to my development as well as sparked a sense of excitement in me for all that the University of Cincinnati may offer over the coming years.
Being a mechanical engineering major, this class was a wonderful change of pace from the other introduction to engineering classes I was taking my first semester. I soaked up all of the communications concepts like a sponge and actually surprised myself with how much I enjoyed this type of class. Being my first semester and my first Honors Seminar, I had no idea what to expect from Collaborative Leadership. However, any expectations I did have for this experience were certainly far exceeded. Personally, my favorite part of this class was our work with Beyond Civility. Regardless of one's political convictions, incivility among politicians and a seeming refusal to cooperate is definitely one of the most frustrating aspects of our political system. As I have shared in that frustration (even in my limited life experience), I found Beyond Civility's efforts to combat this problem head on inspiring and innovative in their approach (for example, rather than lecturing politicians on the need to collaborate one of Beyond Civility's programs simply requires politicians to discuss how they came to this point in their life and to their current political stances--with the hope that understanding will be the basis of a relationship).
I feel extremely fortunate to have had the opportunity to participate in the Collaborative Leadership Honors Seminar. I believe that this class helped to make me a more well-rounded student and individual. I had lectored at my church since second grade, so I was familiar and comfortable with public speaking although I was completely unaware all that the communication field had to offer. My intentions for my long term career have not drastically altered, but this course provided a communication background that I am positive will be useful throughout my academic and professional pursuits. Also, our entire class seemed to enjoy and engage with Beyond Civility in a meaningful way and I am hopeful that we can serve as a resource for them in order to continue to further their influence on politicians. Collaborative Leadership has already significantly contributed to my development as well as sparked a sense of excitement in me for all that the University of Cincinnati may offer over the coming years.
**** The following documents are attached as the best representation of my work in this course ****
Collaborative Leadership Midterm: For this course's midterm we were given a roughly eight page case study in which we were tasked with identifying and explaining as many communications concepts as we were able to in the given page limit.
midterm_paper.docx | |
File Size: | 21 kb |
File Type: | docx |
Collaborative Leadership Final: For this course's final our class watched Steven Spielberg's 2012 film Lincoln and were asked to relate concepts from two of the communication texts we read from as well as commenting on pre-midterm concepts applications to the film.
final_paper.docx | |
File Size: | 27 kb |
File Type: | docx |