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
2008-09 academic year is T. R. Reid, who has been a
journalist for The
A. Tutorial materials
1. Talking from 9 to 5: Women and Men at Work, by Deborah Tannen (HarperCollins, paperback: 0-380-71783-2)
2. Antigone,
translated by Paul Woodruff (Hackett Publishing Company,
paperback: 0-87220-571-1)
There will also be readings circulated to
you as handouts.
B. Tutorial requirements (out of a semester total of 100 points)
|
1. |
The |
36 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 succeeding, leaders
failing, leaders taking risks, leaders’ having conflicting styles, 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, or contrast with, our readings.
|
2. |
Patuxent
Defense Forum paper |
6 points |
This is the
fourth year in which St. Mary’s has held the Patuxent Defense Forum, which is
two days of talks and panel discussions about some aspect of the military that
impinges on the work done by those connected to the military contractor and
defense operations in and around Patuxent Naval Air Station. This is organized by the Center for the
Study of Democracy, which will circulate a detailed program schedule in advance
of the forum, which is scheduled this year for April 20 and 21 in
An
additional reason for attending some of the sessions is that you have a
two-to-three-page paper due on the following Saturday about some issues raised
in at least one of the sessions you attended, as those issues intersect either
with issues raised in some other Patuxent Defense Forum session you attended,
with issues raised in your NITZ 180 last semester, or with issues raised in our
readings this semester.
|
3. |
Leadership
Engagement Project |
28 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 Angola, or as three in the 2007 cohort raised funds for a non-profit
to build a fog collector in Guatemala to provide fresh water. Your leadership engagement project might be
doing something quite new here at SMCM, or it might be a substantial
enhancement of an existing program. In
either case, you are not to be a mere participant, although you may well
participate in others’ engagement projects.
If you grow to be weary of this project, then you have not put good
thought into what you would find meaningful.
To live the dull is to have failed to choose the wise.
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?
|
4. |
Nitze
Pen Pal Project |
30 points |
I will provide
you with a list of the 123 Nitze alumni, five of whom each of you will sign up
to interview about what they have found about leadership in their lives after
St. Mary’s. I have contact information
for most, but not all, of the alumni, and part of the assignment is for you to
be resourceful about tracking down the information for the rest. Contacting them will give you the chance to
ask how some of what we have read about leadership is exemplified (or not) in
the real world. Your Pen Pal paper, of
5-8 pages, will describe what you take to be the significant similarities and
differences among your pen pals’ experience with and observations of
leadership, together with any salient conclusions you come to as a result of
your communications with your pen pals.
The paper is due in seminar on April 28, but do be mindful of the
busyness of the schedules of many of these pals. The fact that some of them may be out of town
or even out of the country for extended times militates against
procrastination.
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. 20—Our inaugural
session. The room will be crowded. Standing room will be free of charge. Parading about is optional. Assistant Vice President for Academic
Services Lenny Howard will visit in the second half of seminar, to talk about
major scholarships and fellowships.
Jan. 22—handouts: Burns’s
“What Is Transforming Leadership?”, Greenleaf’s
“Servant Leadership,” George Orwell’s “Shooting an Elephant,” and Zeleznick’s “General Patton and the Sicilian Slapping
Incident”
Saturday,
Jan. 24—first NYT paper due
Jan. 27—handouts: short excerpts from
Carlyle, Tolstoy, Plato, Aristotle, Machiavelli, Lao-tzu, Gandhi, and Du Bois
Jan. 29—handout: Thomas Cronin’s
“Leadership and Democracy”; visit from Professor Bayers, NITZ 280 for 2009
incoming Nitze Scholars)
Saturday, Jan. 31—second NYT paper due
Feb. 3—visit from Professors Savage (next year’s NITZ 180) and Brodsky (next
year’s NITZ 280)
Feb. 5—Tannen’s Talking from 9 to 5, chs.
1-4
Saturday, Feb. 7—third NYT paper due
Monday,
Feb. 9—T. R. Reid’s lecture “Is Health Care a Human Right?”—8:00 p.m.
in Auerbach Auditorium
Feb. 10—seminar with T. R. Reid
Feb. 12—Tannen’s Talking
from 9 to 5, chs. 5 & 6
Saturday, Feb. 14—fourth
NYT paper due
Feb. 17—Tannen’s
Talking from 9 to 5, chs.
7-9
Feb. 19—Antigone
Saturday, Feb. 21—fifth NYT paper due
Feb. 24—tbd
Feb. 25—recommended: 4:40 talk by Peter
W. Singer of the Brookings Institution, “Wired For War: The Robotics
Revolution and Conflict in the 21st Century” in Auerbach Auditorium (For example, will the prevalence of UAV’s—unmanned aerial vehicles—make military intervention
more likely, by decreasing the risk to soldiers?)
Feb. 26—tbd
Saturday, Feb. 28—sixth and
final NYT paper due
Mar. 4—recommended: 4:45 talk by Professor Richard Nickolson,
of Herron School of Art and Design, Indiana University, “How to Tell a War
Story: European and American Perspectives,” in Cole Cinema (This is a talk about how war is represented
in art.)
Tuesday, Mar. 24—regular meeting for final
reports on plans for Leadership Engagement Projects
Tuesday, Apr. 14—T. R. Reid’s
lecture “The Global Superpowers of
2050. (The
Monday & Tuesday, April 20 & 21—The fourth annual Patuxent Defense Forum
will be held throughout the days in Cole Cinema. The theme of this year’s forum is “Roles
of the
Saturday,
Apr. 25—Patuxent Defense Forum paper due
Apr. 28—Nitze Pen Pal paper due at noon.
My address: mstaber at smcm
dot edu
Go to Michael Taber's home page.
Go to the SMCM home
page.