The two-credit Leadership Tutorial is open
only to, and required for, students in their second semester of the Paul H.
Nitze Scholars Program. The tutorial
develops the study of leadership by building upon both some of the issues
raised in the Leadership Seminar I, which Nitze Scholars take in their first
semester in the program, and some of the issues raised by the visits of the
year’s Paul H. Nitze Senior Fellow.
The Nitze Senior Fellow for the
2007-08 academic year is former Lieutenant Governor of
A. Tutorial materials
1. Dostoevsky’s "The Grand Inquisitor" and Related Chapters (excerpts from The Brothers Karamazov; Hackett Pubs.) [It is important for our discussions that you get this edition.]
2.
Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin’s
Three Cups of Tea (Viking Penguin,
2006)
3.
Kathleen
Kennedy Townsend’s Failing America’s Faithful: How
America’s Churches Are Mixing God with Politics and Losing Their Way
4. a subscription package (13 weeks) to the weekday paper
edition of the New York Times,
available for $29 from the Campus Store
There will also be readings circulated to
you as handouts, and we will view several films.
B. Tutorial requirements (out of a semester
total of 100 points)
|
1. |
You
on leadership |
40 points |
Each of you
will select an issue raised by the readings we will be doing, on which you will write an 8-12 page paper, due March 7. This is not intended as a research paper
(although you are free to consult other sources), but rather an opportunity for
you to develop some clarity for your own sake about some issue about leadership
you find interesting, perplexing, or commonly misunderstood. In order to help you refine your thinking,
each of you will have five to ten minutes of seminar on February 25 in which to
lay out:
·
the
topic you are writing about
·
what
some views are about the topic
·
what
your view is about the topic
·
why you
are drawn to the view you are drawn to and not drawn to the others
·
in
what way this topic is or will be important.
Ensuing
discussion should be helpful to you in the development of your thinking and
writing.
Here is a
deliberately non-exclusive list of topics:
·
Is
there really such a thing as transformational leadership?
·
Does
leadership reduce to power, and followership to subordination?
·
To
what extent is leadership different in different cultures and the same in
different cultures?
·
Do—or
should—most women lead differently from most men?
·
Are
the differences or the similarities more salient among different contexts of
leadership (e.g., political,
business, educational, journalistic, religious, athletic, artistic, and so on)?
·
Do
leaders have different responsibilities than others do, or simply different
manifestations of basic human responsibilities?
·
What’s
the best way to define “leader”?
·
Is a
democratic leader a contradiction in terms (where the “leader” is supposed to
follow the will of the people)?
·
Is
everyone capable of being a leader, or is that just an intellectually polite
thing to mouth?
|
2. |
Leadership
Engagement Project |
16 points |
Each of you
is to select and execute a project that engages with the world outside
yourself. This might be the world near
at hand; consider Allison Billock, from the 2003 cohort, initiating, organizing
and carrying out the “Last Lecture Series.”
Or it might involve parts of a more distant world, as five students in
the 2004 cohort organized a fund-raiser to sponsor the digging of a well in a
village in
The nature
of some leadership engagement projects may not allow their execution during the
spring semester, as extensive planning or other considerations of timing may be
required. Such projects are not
discouraged, for together we can develop a way for a meaningful portion of work
on the project to be completed by the end of the spring semester; then the
project can still be carried out, within the spirit of this course, if outside
its administrative bounds. Reports
on people’s leadership engagement projects will be given in the final week of
the semester, including each person’s assessment of the challenges, the lessons
learned, and—everyone’s favorite use of the subjunctive—“if I only knew then
what I know now….” Items to report on
include:
·
What you
did/are doing/will do.
·
Why?
·
What are
the components of the project?
·
What are
the speed-bumps you’ve hit, or expect to hit?
·
What
turned out easier than you’d feared?
·
What very
specific outcome would count to you as making this a successful project?
|
3. |
The |
44 points |
For the
purposes of being an interesting person, read thoroughly. For the purposes of this course, find two (or
three or more, but do not dilute your focus) articles per week that exemplify
to you in a meaningful, interesting (read: “non-superficial) way some
characteristic of leadership, either by way of leaders’ conflicting styles,
leaders succeeding, leaders failing, leaders taking risks, or the like, and
write a two-to-three-page paper thereon (due e-mailed to me by midnight
Saturday). Remember not to restrict
yourself to political and business leaders.
Whether artistic, religious, athletic, or intellectual leaders, the NYT
makes a good effort to write about all the leaders that are fit to be printed
about. Especially useful to you will be
papers that tie in to our readings.
Late (even barely late) work loses one full grade, and a further grade for each additional twenty-four hours of lateness.
C. Tutorial schedule’s important
dates
Jan. 17—handouts: Ciulla’s “What Is
Good Leadership?”, Machiavelli excerpt, and Ludwig & Longneck’s “The
Bathsheba Syndrome: the Ethical Failure of Successful Leaders”
Monday, Jan. 21—8:00 p.m. group
showing of Cool Hand Luke in library
Jan. 22—handouts:
Jan. 24—Dostoevsky’s “The Brothers Make Friends” & “Rebellion” [from The Brothers Karamazov]
Jan. 29— Dostoevsky’s “The Grand Inquisitor”
Jan. 31— Dostoevsky’s notes on Elder Zossima
Feb. 5—Mortenson and Relin’s Three Cups of Tea, chs. 1-15
Feb. 7—chs. 16-23
Saturday, Feb. 9—first NYT paper due
Sunday, Feb. 10—6:00 p.m. group
showing of My Dinner with Andre in
library 306
Monday, Feb. 11—8:00 p.m. group
showing of My Dinner with Andre in
library 306
Feb. 12—handouts: excerpts from Tolstoy,
Lao-Tzu, and Du Bois, and Cronin’s “Leadership and Democracy”
Feb. 14—Kathleen Kennedy Townsend’s Failing America’s Faithful: How
America’s Churches Are Mixing God with Politics and Losing Their Way
Monday, Feb. 18—8:00 p.m. group
showing of Meet John Doe in library
Feb. 19—sign-up for leadership engagement projects
Feb. 21—breakfast meeting with Nitze Senior Fellow Kathleen Kennedy Townsend
Feb. 26—Stephanie Klapper (Nitze 06) and Professor Adriana Brodsky visit class
Feb. 28—Associate Provost for Academic Services Lois Stover and Professor Brad
Park visit class; Nitze reception at 5:30 in ARC
Friday, Mar. 7—Leadership paper due to me at noon
Saturday,
Mar. 8—fifth NYT paper due
Saturday, Mar. 22—sixth NYT paper due
Friday, Apr. 4—evening public lecture by Nitze Senior Fellow Kathleen Kennedy Townsend
Apr. 22 & 24—reports on Leadership Engagement Projects
Saturday, Apr. 26—eleventh and final NY Times paper due
My address: mstaber at smcm
dot edu
Go to Michael Taber's home page.
Go to the SMCM home
page.