Leadership Programs

Core Leadership Competencies unite all of Georgia College's leadership development efforts. They are the leadership traits and competencies that Georgia College students must master as they strive to make a difference in their communities and lead fulfilling lives of citizenship, leadership, and service. The core leadership competencies represent the essential skills that members of the faculty and staff must integrate into their leadership development programs at GC.

A Georgia College leader:

Communicates Effectively. A Georgia College leader develops and delivers multi-mode communications that convey a clear understanding of unique needs of different audiences.
Collaborates. A Georgia College leader builds partnerships and works collaboratively with others to meet shared objectives.
Values Difference. A Georgia College leader recognizes the value that different perspectives and cultures bring to an organization.
Demonstrates Self-Awareness. A Georgia College leader uses a combination of feedback and reflection to gain productive insight into personal strengths and weaknesses.
Manages Complexity. A Georgia College leader makes sense of complex, high quantity, and sometimes contradictory information to solve problems effectively.
Reasons Ethically. A Georgia College leader gains the confidence and trust of others through honesty, integrity, and authenticity.

For more information, visit www.gcsu.edu/leadership.

Emerging Leaders Program

The Emerging Leaders Program is a leadership development program designed specifically for first-year students and Georgia College. In this yearlong cohort experience, led by a select team of peer mentors, participants learn about and practice the tenets of effective leadership. Participants in the Emerging Leaders program will:

Define personal values, beliefs, and guiding principles to develop their definition of and approach to leadership.
Develop leadership skills to use in peer, informal and formal leadership roles in college and in their communities.
Practice leadership by engaging in opportunities to collaborate with others to create positive change and serve as leaders for the public good.

The foundation of the program is the Social Change Model of leadership – which approaches leadership as a purposeful, collaborative, values-based process that results in positive social change. This model fosters learning and discovery around three dimensions: individual values, group values, and society values. The Emerging Leaders Program introduces these three dimensions and reinforces the associated seven key values of the Social Change Model of leadership development: consciousness of self, congruence, commitment, collaboration, common purpose, controversy with civility, and citizenship. H. S. Astin and A. W. Astin. A Social Change Model of Leadership Development: Guidebook, version 3 (Los Angeles: Higher Education Research Institute, University of California, 1996).

Leadership Certificate Program (LCP)

Georgia College's Leadership Certificate Program provides students the opportunity to learn the principles of effective leadership and to acquire hands-on learning experiences beyond the classroom. The program's core tenets are:

Leadership for the Public Good. Building and maintaining productive relationships in pursuit of justice, peace, and prosperity.
Civic Engagement and Public Affairs. Engaging productively in civic affairs with a deep understanding of interconnected institutional relationships.
Social Entrepreneurship. Leveraging relationships across the public, private, and nonprofit sectors to address public challenges.
Leadership and the Disciplines. Establishing leadership within practical and disciplinary conventions.

Through the Leadership Program, students examine the central concepts of the arts and letters: citizenship, morality, virtue, authority, power, and justice. The topics students explore occupy a prominent place in the western canon and among the modern secular philosophers. Using a variety of disciplinary methods and conventions to engage with the material, students learn that leadership is inherently a civic good, articulated and defined in the public sphere and for a social purpose. Academic programs in leadership and public affairs represent a distinctive feature of American liberal arts universities--institutions that have traditionally defined their public-service missions in civic terms, preparing a new generation of civic leaders and leveraging their intellectual capital to serve the collective good.

For more information, visit www.gcsu.edu/leadership/certificate.

Georgia Education Mentorship (GEM) Program

The Georgia Education Mentorship Program provides opportunities for students to learn about leadership from members of the Georgia Chamber of Commerce. Each year, twenty-five Georgia College students are matched with the state’s top leaders in business, politics, law, education, healthcare for a year-long mentorship. As students and mentors work closely together, Georgia’s leading minds become integrally involved in the education of Georgia College students, reinforcing the qualities and characteristics needed in the next generation of our state’s leaders. GEM allows students the opportunity to observe real-world leaders who use their professional standing to positively influence civic engagement within Georgia. Across their year in the program, GEM students participate in the program’s opening reception and closing dinner, leadership conferences, luncheons with state leaders, meetings at the Georgia Chamber of Commerce and Georgia State Capitol, and leadership forums with visiting executives. They benefit from direct consultation with faculty and staff members who challenge them to integrate their GEM experiences with the principles of leadership they have studied at Georgia College.

For more information, visit www.gcsu.edu/gem.

Inspire! Student Leadership Forum

The Inspire! Student Leadership Forum series invites seasoned leaders to Georgia College to share leadership lessons with our students. The forum is designed to be engaging and to allow for exchange between the presenters and guests. All GC students are invited to attend. Inspire! presenters share the university’s commitment to leadership for the collective good, whether in business, the non-profit sector, or public affairs, and are typically C-suite executives in private enterprise or hold leadership roles in the public sector.

For more information, visit www.gcsu.edu/inspire.

Omicron Delta Kappa

Omicron Delta Kappa, the National Leadership Honor Society, recognizes and encourages superior leadership and exemplary character. Membership in Omicron Delta Kappa is reserved to those who demonstrate leadership achievements in one of five phases of university life: Scholarship; Athletics; Community service, social and religious activity, and university governance; Journalism and rhetoric; and the creative and performing arts. Nominations come from within the Georgia College Circle of OΔK.

For more information, visit www.gcsu.edu/odk.

Collaborative Programs

The Office of Leadership Programs maintains institution-wide responsibility for management, coordination, and development of all Georgia College leadership programs and initiatives. Through GC Journeys, Leadership Programs staff works collaboratively with members of GC's faculty and staff—providing resources, support, and advocacy for leadership development opportunities at Georgia College

Through a progressive and scaffolded framework, all GC students who choose "intensive leadership programs" within their GC Journeys path will benefit from a common set of core leadership competencies, integrated through all of Georgia College's leadership-related courses and programs; common reflective experiences, documented in Portfolium; and 1:1 leadership-development consultations, provided by Leadership Programs staff and program partners. As with each of the GC Journeys “transformative experiences,” students must use an established programmatic vehicle to satisfy their “intensive leadership programs” requirements. A broad range of Georgia College’s curricular and programmatic offerings will comprise that GC Journeys experience. Proposals for certification as a “transformative experience” will come from the faculty or staff member who oversees and administers the course or program.