Athens, GA (May 2, 2007) — As May arrives, graduation is on the horizon not only for students but also for 22 UGA faculty and staff members. May 9th will mark the end of an intensive 18-month professional development program created by the Office of the Vice President for Public Service and Outreach.Early in 2003, Public Service and Outreach recognized the need to develop a group of skilled leaders who would be ready to step into positions — either on a short- or long-term basis — left vacant by upcoming retirements of people within public service and outreach who have the deepest knowledge of the university’s history and inner workings. The ensuing leadership gap could mean the university would suffer from lost institutional memory and rougher transitions. The Leadership Academy was created to help fill this gap.

“The Leadership Academy represents an amazing investment because it shows that the university recognizes that an organization is only as good as its people,” said Allison McWilliams, Leadership Academy program coordinator and faculty member at the Carl Vinson Institute of Government.

The program kicked off in January 2006 and included nine face-to-face, bi-monthly meetings where participants discussed outside readings, listened to guest speakers, discovered their individual leadership skills, and developed proposals for solving public service dilemmas.

Participants were exposed to and discussed nearly every conceivable topic related to leadership: strategic planning, budgets, conflict management, community dynamics, ethics, international public service, diversity, and how to understand change and hidden power structures.

“The Leadership Academy is about leadership development and personal growth — enhancing the skills of high-performing faculty and staff so they will be more competitive when opportunities and vacancies become available,” said Vivian Fisher, associate vice president for public service and outreach.

Many Leadership Academy participants agree that the guest speakers, interactions with each other, and meetings across the state to see outreach in action have been beneficial to their leadership development. Each also was assigned a mentor from the university or the community and many said that the relationships they built were invaluable.

Craig Edelen, associate director of auxiliary operations at the Georgia Center for Continuing Education Conference Center and Hotel, spent more than 20 years managing hotels and restaurants before coming to UGA in 2001. He credits his mentor, Rodney Bennett, vice president for student affairs, with helping him better understand how the university operates and the differences between working in public higher education and private industry.

“The focus in the private sector is on developing profit, whereas what we do at the Georgia Center is about education and lifelong learning,” Edelen said. “To be able to go to Staff Council and to the president’s cabinet meetings with Rodney and then to have lunch and just hear him talk about his role in the university helped me see the workings of the university from a different point of view.”

Other participants appreciated the opportunity to evaluate their leadership abilities through self-assessments and 360° assessments, which involve receiving detailed feedback about strengths and weaknesses from co-workers and supervisors.

“We got feedback that certainly helped me see areas that I was proficient in, such as decision-making, accessibility and helpfulness to others, openness to change, and team building and some that I need to improve on, such as delegating to the lowest appropriate level and challenging others to solve their own problems rather than interceding on their behalf,” said Sue Chapman, a public service associate and extension coordinator for the College of Family and Consumer Sciences.

Supervisors and co-workers of Leadership Academy participants have noticed a change as well.

“I was able to see tremendous growth professionally and leadership-wise over the last 18 months,” said Georgia Center director Bob Leiter, who had three of his staff members go through the program and served as a mentor for another participant. “They see leadership from a different perspective than they did before and realize that they’re in a role where they can lead, manage and change lives.”

Developing leaders for an organization as complex as UGA is difficult, but an essential part of public service, said Art Dunning, vice president for public service and outreach. “The Leadership Academy is one way we’ve chosen to address this issue in a very organized and deliberate manner, and it’s been exciting to see talented people examine the complexity of the university and the state with an eye toward serving the needs of our citizens,” he said.

Having gone through Leadership Academy, these individuals understand that even if they are never called upon to step into a greater role, they are obligated to give back to their communities. Whether they define that as their department, public service and outreach, the university, or the state, Fisher said, “If they’re giving back, that is success.”

The second Leadership Academy class will begin in February 2008.

For more information, go to http://outreach.uga.edu/leadership-academy.

This article was posted on Tuesday, May 1st, 2007 at 10:28 am and is filed under Uncategorized.