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).