CORCORAN A. & NYEMA GILLESPIE
Associate Provost for Academic Affairs and Professor of Theology Dr. Love Sechrest developed the Ethical Leaders Program alongside Assistant Athletic Director and Cross Country and Track & Field Director, Jay Phillips.
The Ethical Leaders Program connects the Mount’s core curriculum to real life through experiential learning activities. Each activity will connect to a different virtue (service learning to justice, internships to integrity, study abroad to humility and leadership experiences to courage).
“If you were attracted to the Mount, the Ethical Leaders Program is why,” says Sechrest.
There are two tiers to the program, the first is Holistic, required for current first-year and future students to graduate. The second is Medallion, an optional path for students of any year who “see themselves as leaders and want to develop their leadership gifts,” according to Sechrest.
The Holistic tier requires the completion of one experiential learning activity, while the Medallion tier has additional requirements. The Medallion tier asks students to complete both service learning and leadership experiences, along with a free, zero credit course (that could become one credit if needed) called “Vocation, Virtue and Leadership” and requires students to attend six approved on-campus events.
Students of the Medallion tier can choose to split their campus engagement in half to also pursue “spiritual direction” (not limited to the Catholic faith) or swap for it entirely. Sophomores and above are not required to complete the course if they pursue the Medallion tier.
The benefits of this program, as described by English and Western Civics Professor, Dr. Sean Lewis, are to ensure that students are highly valued in the communities they choose to impact and by employers when seeking job opportunities. “That is just another level of both exporting our goodness as well as forming our students to be the kind of graduates we have always wanted them to be,” he explains. Professors play a significant role in guiding students in these experiential learning opportunities.
Lewis remarks, “As a professor, I think I have been doing that kind of work on the intellectual side, on the moral side, on the side of the heart and the mind in the core and then beyond that.” While students are in class, professors take the initiative to ask intellectual questions to help shape the students' perspectives on what it means to be an ethical leader by applying these insights to the outside world.
The future for this program and its impact on students is hopeful in Lewis's eyes. “In my 20 years of higher education, I have seen programs come, I have seen programs go. I think that is what gives me hope and excitement for this program…. I don't think they are going to see this as some sort of burden that they now need to do, but instead something that is hopefully a positive experience for the student.”
The program looks to not only help students become leaders, but to also leave a positive mark on Mount St. Mary’s through the means of helping one another through service to God and others.
The Ethical Leaders Program can be embarked on as a first year but first year students are only required to complete it before graduation, not immediately. To begin, students should contact either Sechrest or Professor and Director of the Ethical Leaders Program Dr. David McCarthy to develop a plan.
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