Session Type: Panel Discussion Accepted by MIG(s): Development Time Allotted: 90 Description: While many focus on youth leadership development, there is relatively little available in the way of consolidated and/or documented knowledge about best practice in engaging and supporting youth in the inner work of leadership development. This panel will focus various approaches to facilitating leadership development in adolescent youth and young adults by sharing their expertise in leadership development, service learning, civic engagement, and mentoring on outcomes such as reduced risk behaviors, identity development, spiritual development, and enhanced social support for youth. The development and implementation of existing programs will be discussed, including evaluation data on program impact. Abstract: Youth Leadership for Transformation: Guiding Young People Through the Inner Work of Leadership Development
While youth leadership development is being done in high schools, in colleges and universities, and by other youth serving organizations around the world, there is relatively little available in the way of consolidated and/or documented knowledge about best practice in engaging and supporting youth in the inner work of leadership development.
This panel will focus on that issue through engaging discussion on various approaches to facilitating development in adolescent youth and young adults. Each panelist will bring to bear their expertise in leadership development, service learning, civic engagement, and mentoring on outcomes such as reduced risk behaviors, identity development, spiritual development, and enhanced social support for youth. The development and implementation of existing programs will be discussed, including evaluation data on program impact.
Presenter 1, Search Institute, will discuss the developmental assets, both external and internal, that research shows are vital for supporting youth to become caring and responsible adults. She will also describe the application of this model to adult engagement with youth in community settings. Her presentation will lay the groundwork for the discussions that follow on youth leadership development, mentoring support, civic engagement, and the life entrepreneur approach to working with youth.
Presenter 2, Center for Creative Leadership, will describe the development of a leadership mentoring program developed in partnership with the YMCA Black and Latino Achievers program. This program features a four year leadership curriculum for high school students based on seven content themes (e.g., who am I as a leader, managing conflict, teaming). The mentoring is based on a “family group” process, whereby a small group of youth are mentored by a college student mentor and an adult mentor. Youth participate in the leadership mentoring sessions one Saturday per month and attend a day long kick off and focused engagement in community service and summer internships. Special attention is paid to mentor training, based on research showing that trained mentors provide better results, particularly for at risk youth. Evaluation data are collected throughout the year and will be presented for the early years of the program, which is currently in year two.
Presenter 3, City Year, will describe the leadership development curriculum that the organization has created to guide its corps members--ages 17-24 years old—through a challenging year of full-time service. He will describe how City Year has adapted the U.S. Army’s “Be, Know, Do” leadership development framework for use with civilian service youth. He will also provide an overview of “The Idealist’s Journey”, the organization’s new curriculum designed to focus corps members on the inner work of leadership development that occurs while providing transformational service to communities in need. Initial evaluation results will be shared, and key frontiers for learning and program improvement will be highlighted.
Presenter 4, Duke University, frames the idea of “life entrepreneurs” as ordinary people who integrate their life, work, and purpose through distinctively entrepreneurial behavior—and, in so doing, create extraordinary lives of significance. Drawing on his research with fifty-five high impact entrepreneurs, Chris will describe the approach he takes to working with youth using the “life entrepreneur” framework. This creative and compelling approach to youth leadership development will tie together many of the ideas presented by other panelists and provide an exciting segue to questions for the panelists.
Following short (15 minute) presentations by each panelist (60 minutes total), the moderator (Center for Creative Leadership) will prompt the panel with a set of questions designed to provoke deeper discussion (15 minutes). The session will end with audience questions/comments and panel response (15 minutes).
Nancy Tellett-Royce, Search Institute
Bio: Nancy Tellett-Royce is the Community Liaison at Search Institute. For the past nine years, she has provided technical assistance to many of the nearly 600 communities around the United States and Canada that comprise Search Institute’s Healthy Communities • Healthy Youth initiative. She covers topics such as initiative start-up and revitalization, awareness-building strategies, involving youth as partners, engaging community partners and evaluating initiative efforts. Nancy has presented on the Developmental Assets framework and its application in community settings at numerous national and regional conferences. She is past co-chair and member of the Executive Committee of Children First. Prior to joining Search Institute, Nancy was Director of the Career Development Center at Macalester College in St. Paul, MN overseeing career counseling and job skills training for students and alumni as well as the college’s internship program and volunteer program. Prior to that she worked in the College of Liberal Arts at the University of Minnesota as a Senior Academic Adviser and as a Career Counselor. Nancy received her Bachelor of Science Degree in Elementary Education from the University of Minnesota.
Joel Wright, Center for Creative Leadership
Bio: For the past 3 years, Joel has worked with the Center for Creative Leadership on projects aimed at "democratizing" leadership development by making it more affordable and accessible. As a part of this initiative Joel is championing a focus on early/youth leadership development. Joel has conducted training globally for young people at places like: Duke, TISS (India), Elon University, Guilford College, UNC-G, Campus Compact, YMCA (Sri Lanka, Prague, India & US) and content developed for this audience has already traveled all over the globe. In addition, Joel has trained NGO/Not-for-Profit leaders, professors and corporate professionals locally and abroad.
Prior to his time at CCL, Joel was a consultant with Olympic University (United States Olympic Committee) -- responsibilities include program design, development, and facilitation of programs. Before the USOC, Joel worked for six years with the YMCA, including one year living and working in Sri Lanka for the National Council of YMCAs. In Sri Lanka, he was responsible for designing and conducting an island-wide YMCA directors training program, youth leadership programs, residential camping and coordinating a YMCA volunteer initiative in response to the Indian Ocean tsunami. Joel's other 5 years with the YMCA were with Silver Bay YMCA of the Adirondacks, a conference and training center in upstate New York. During his tenure there, Joel was part of the senior Director/leadership team and designed and developed leadership and team building programs for youth, college students, corporations, non-profits and conferences. Prior to his transition to the non-profit world, Joel held various other business positions. Joel graduated from Wittenberg University in 1995 with a Bachelor of Arts Degree in History.
Bio: Dr. Max Klau is the Director of Leadership Development at City Year, Inc., a national service program headquartered in Boston, Massachussetts. His efforts focus on leveraging a challenging year of full-time citizen service as a transformational leadership development experience. Max received his doctorate from the Harvard Graduate School of Education in 2005; his studies focused on civic leadership education. He is an alumnus of four service programs, has led service programs in Israel, Honduras, Ghana, and the Ukraine, and led a Civil Rights tour for Black and Jewish high school students involving travel to historic locations across the U.S. south. Christopher Gergen, New Mountain Ventures, LLC
Bio: Christopher Gergen is a Founding Partner of New Mountain Ventures, LLC, a national leadership development company (www.newmountainventures.com), and co-author of Life Entrepreneurs: Ordinary People Creating Extraordinary Lives (www.lifeentrepreneurs.com). Additionally, Christopher is the co-founder and Board Chairman of SMARTHINKING (www.smarthinking.com), the leading online tutoring provider in the United States. Other entrepreneurial ventures include starting the first coffeehouse/bar dedicated to promoting the arts and music in Santiago, Chile and helping to launch the “Entrepreneur Corps” —a national service initiative sponsored by AmeriCorps*VISTA that placed 400 full-time business volunteers for a year of service in over 90 non-profit organizations across the country.
To spark the entrepreneurial imaginations and civic spirit of the next generation of leaders, Christopher started LEAD! a non-profit leadership, entrepreneurship, and service program for high school students in Washington, DC. He is also a founding board member of E.L. Haynes Public Charter School – a math and science school located in inner-city Washington DC that has been recognized nationally for its outstanding learning culture and academic results. Further professional experience includes serving as Vice President of New Market Development for K12 Inc. and Chief Operating Officer and Vice President of Business Development and Strategy for New American Schools. Christopher received a Bachelor of Arts with honors from Duke University, a Master’s Degree in Public Policy with a focus in education from the George Washington University, and his MBA from Georgetown University.
Chair: Ellen Van Velsor, Center for Creative Leadership
Bio: Ellen Van Velsor is a Senior Fellow at the Center for Creative Leadership headquarters in Greensboro, North Carolina. Ellen is co-editor of the Center for Creative Leadership’s Handbook of Leadership Development (1998, 2003, 2010), and co-author of Breaking the Glass Ceiling: Can Women Reach the Top of America’s Largest Corporations? (1987, 1991). She has authored numerous book chapters, articles and reports, including “Leadership Development as a Support to Ethical Action in Organisations” (Journal of Management Development, 2008), “ A Complexity Perspective on Leadership Development” (Uhl-Bien & Marion, 2007), “Experiential Learning through Simulation” (Silberman, 2007), “Developing Organizational Capacity for Leadership” (Hooijberg, Hunt & Antonokis, 2007), and “Constructive-Developmental Coaching” (Ting & Scisco, 2006). Her current research focuses on leadership practices and processes related to corporate social responsibility in global organizations. Ellen has a B.A. in Sociology from SUNY Stony Brook, an M.A. and Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Florida, and completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the Center for the Study of Aging and Human Development at Duke University. Return to complete program |
