Teaching

Our courses provide learners with the skills most desired by the 21st century workplace: leadership, critical thinking, working collaboratively with others, building inclusive organizations while working with diverse audiences.

Every course outcome, across the leadership curriculum, is mapped to the following essential student leadership competencies espoused by Seemiller (2014): learning and reasoning, self awareness and development, interpersonal interaction, group dynamics, civic responsibility, communication, strategic planning, personal behavior, and leadership content knowledge.

Undergraduate Courses

  • AEE 323: Leadership Development 
    AEE 323 is designed to introduce you to the awesome complexity of leadership. Leadership educators believe that leadership can be learned. In this course, we study leadership theory to help us understand our leadership potential, the potential of others, and the impact great leadership can have on people, organizations, and society. We separate skills you gain from going out and doing leadership [the do] from theories that provide foundations for leadership [the think]. Effective leadership is important in all contexts, including food and agriculture. We believe it is ESSENTIAL that effective leaders both THINK and DO!
  • AEE 350: Personal Leadership Development 
    This course focuses on the development of each student’s capacity to lead in ways that reflect their values and to address big, messy challenges through leadership. Students will examine human behavior through the lenses of authentic and adaptive leadership and work to develop their own capacity for authentic and adaptive leadership. They will apply critical and creative thinking processes to analyze adaptive challenges and develop potential solutions in the realms of agriculture, food, and natural resources.
  • AEE 360: Developing Team Leadership
    Students in this course will study the impact of organized teams and team leaders on the development of agricultural organizations. Principles and techniques involved in creating, organizing and directing teams will be explored. Students will develop skills in team decision-making and communication. Topics of discussion will include: components of a group and team, relationships of group and team members, effectiveness of groups and teams, and communication within groups and teams. This course is designed for students who are interested in positions of leadership and who want to learn more about making the groups and teams they work with more effective.
  • AEE 460: Organizational Leadership Development
    This course focuses on the impact of effective leadership in organizations in both theory and practice. Students will examine the major theories and studies that are most relevant and informative with the regard to leadership in organizations. Students will develop skills in decision-making, management of organizations, and ethical leadership related to agricultural organizations.
  • AEE 490: Seminar in Agricultural & Extension Education
    This course is a senior capstone in which students will synthesize the leadership theories and models studied in previous courses and apply the leadership competencies developed in previous courses. Students will complete a Leadership Learning Experience to apply these concepts and competencies to solve real world challenges that leaders face.

 

Graduate Courses

  • AEE 550: Leadership Theory
    Leadership is ubiquitous in our society. It remains one of the world’s favorite buzz words. However, just because it’s everywhere, doesn’t mean everything labeled so, is leadership. This graduate course in leadership theory will require you to critically examine your ideas of leadership, and reflect on your own [and society’s] notions of “what is leadership”. In this class we will separate the skills you gain from going out and doing leadership [the do] and the theories that provide the foundations for leadership [the think]. Many successful leaders learn their skills via practice; that is important. AEE 550, however, is a leadership education course where we study leadership theory. We will take those theories, long associated with the academic study of leadership, and deconstruct them using critical theory as our lens. Then, using the text as guide, reconstruct them in new ways to meet today’s pressing challenges.
  • AEE 560: Organization & Administrative Leadership
    This course is intended to prepare students to be effective members of organizations, both as team members and team leaders. Theories of organizational behavior will be emphasized in the course; in so much as it is essential to be grounded in theory in order to apply it. Major topics include: motivation, job design, managing diversity, decision making, power, ethics, and organizational design.
  • AEE 595: Critical & Creative Thinking
    Students who take critical and creative thinking will stretch themselves by engaging in the learning enterprise in new ways. Using project based learning, students will choose a pressing current issue and use evidence based practice to design solutions.