TEACHING:  PHCY 830: THE LEADERSHIP CHALLENGE, Fall semester

Course Coordinators:  Wendy Cox, PharmD; Mary Roth McClurg, PharmD, MHS

INTRODUCTION AND COURSE OVERVIEW

This course has been designed to stimulate one’s thinking about leadership and to foster a sense of responsibility for one’s personal and professional development. The course will expose you to various constructs of thinking surrounding leadership, including principles and practices of leaders.  The course is appropriately titled The Leadership Challenge as it is intended to challenge you to reflect on and thoughtfully consider the complexities surrounding leadership as well as what is motivating you to lead.  Each class session, the assigned activities, the team project, and the assessments require your preparation and thoughtful engagement. This syllabus may be updated and changed as the class progresses throughout the semester so that the learning outcomes of the class can best be achieved. Any updates or changes will be communicated to you.

 DEVELOPMENTAL COURSE LEARNING OUTCOMES

We have designed this course to foster the development of students as leaders. To this end, it is our goal through this course to ensure that you:

Develop an awareness of self and others:

• examine your personal identities, values, and strengths
• learn how to capitalize on your strengths and the strengths of others
• develop a sense of confidence and belief in one’s values and ideas
• reflect on the importance of reliability, honesty, integrity, and credibility
• value leadership as service to others
• challenge one’s own strongly-held beliefs about principles and practices of leadership

Learn to work effectively in teams:

• appreciate the importance of teamwork
• listen to and consider new perspectives
• recognize your role and the role of others within a team
• recognize and value the contributions of others
• understand the dynamics and needs of a team
• recognize the importance of contributing to a common good

Develop practical skills and competence to shape your personal and professional development:

• engage and contribute meaningfully to group discussions
• develop the ability to know when there is need for information (information literacy)
•  identify, locate, evaluate, and effectively/ responsibly use information for the problem at hand
• have the ability to see how individual situations are shaped by a broader context
• learn to communicate effectively both verbally and in writing
• learn how to be productive; to effectively and efficiently “get work done”
• develop skills in time management and meeting management/agenda setting
• learn to listen so that you grow in your ability to understand, consider and respect different perspectives, reflect, develop relationships, and work across differences
• appreciate the process as well as the product