Leadership Courses
From a study of leadership in politics and journalism to a study of religion and U.S. social policy, Fox faculty examine every facet of leadership. Distinguished leaders from a variety of fields challenge undergraduates in intellectually rigorous classes that combine lectures, applied research and debate. During the 2007-2008 academic year, Fox faculty and staff will offer at least 8 courses.
In Spring 2008, the Fox Program will offer Leadership and Democracy taught by John DiIulio and Chuck Brutsche, Leadership, Service, and Non-profit Organizations taught by Joe Tierney, Policy Development taught by Mark Alan Hughes, and Healthy Schools: Community Based Participatory Research, Planning and Action taught by Mary Summers.
In addition, Fox faculty and staff oversee many independent study projects and senior theses.
In the past, the Fox Leadership Program has offered Sprited Debate; Urban Politics and Leadership; Leadership in Community Service; Religion, Community Leaders and Social Welfare; Introduction to American Politics and Leadership; Poverty and Development in the United States; Public Management; Policy Development and Leadership; Youth and Civic Engagement; and Leadership and the Media.
Leadership and Democracy: Theory, Practice, and Purpose (John DiIulio, Chuck Brutsche), PSCI 298
“Leadership” is a concept that arose in tandem with modern democracies. This seminar places the concept in its historical and civic context. It explores competing social science theories and related empirical research on “leadership.” It involves individual leadership self-assessments and inventories; intensive case-based analyses; interviews and sessions with “leaders” from diverse sectors (government, business, nonprofit, entertainment, and others); and site-based, problem-solving, “creating public value” projects, including ones to be conducted by student Task Groups in New Orleans, Louisiana during Penn’s spring break (March 9-15); all travel and lodging expenses related to the spring trip break are covered by the seminar.
Leadership, Service, and Non-profit Organizations (Joe Tierney), GAFL 342
This course will look at the proposition that one practical way to improve the life prospects of low-income citizens is to increase the supply of well-designed, well managed, high-performance community-serving programs that meet these citizens' most pressing socioeconomic needs. It will engage students in the study of entrepreneurial civic leadership that focuses on these needs and fostering public-private partnerships, and/or religious secular collaborations, and/or and inter-governmental partnerships to address them.
The course will examine leadership in the context of developing and implementing effective community-serving programs. The primary course objectives are to: 1) Acquire knowledge about current models and approaches to community-serving programs including an understanding of the best practices and most common criticisms; 2) Develop a personal and professional philosophy regarding community serving programs; 3) Develop a basic understanding of the most common types of program evaluation.
Healthy Schools: Community Based Participatory Research, Planning and Action (Mary Summers), PSCI 335/GAFL 335/HSOC 335
This academically based community service and research seminar will develop a pilot program to test the efficacy of using service-learning teams of undergraduates and graduate students to facilitate the development of School Health Councils (SHCs) and the Center for Disease Control’s School Health Index (SHI) school self-assessment and planning tool in two elementary schools in West Philadelphia. This process is intended to result in a realistic and meaningful school health implementation plan and an ongoing action project to put this plan into practice. Penn students will involve members of the school administration, teachers, staff, parents and community members in the SHC and SHI process with a special focus on encouraging participation from the schools’ students. If this model for the use of Penn service-learning teams is successful, it will form the basis of an ongoing partnership with the School District’s Office of Health, Safety & Physical Education to expand such efforts to more schools.
Policy Development (Mark Alan Hughes), GAFL 589
This course surveys design innovation and diffusion in policy making. We will engage in a lively discussion of classic texts and concepts in the field: how is intentional change in policy attempted? why are some ideas considered by decision makers and not others? who influences the alternatives that frame decisions about policy issues? what is the role of information and expertise in setting agenda and alternatives? In addition to this lecture/discussion format organized around a set of readings, we will practice the art and science of policy development through a sequence of writing and speaking exercises, outlined below. These exercises will provide a venue for students to practice one or more policy development skills: framing a problem in a strategic way, specifying an alternative in response to a focusing event, compromising with adversaries in order to advance an idea, and so on.
Ideas in Action: Crime, Education, and Philadelphia's Next Mayor (John DiIulio, Joe Tierney), PSCI 440/GAFL 440
What, if anything, can Philadelphia's next mayor do either to reduce crime, or to improve education, or both? Specifically, what new or ongoing policy or program should City Hall's next incumbent get behind in order to reduce violent victimizations including homicides? And what particular new or ongoing policy or program should he back in order to measurably improve educational acheivement among low-income children? This Ideas in Action Seminar is dedicated to answering these and related questions as a case study in real-time civic leadership.
Religion and U.S. Public Policy (John DiIulio), PSCI 240/GAFL 240
Religion matters politically in America, and always has. Religious ideas----and ideas about religion-punctuate both early debates about the U.S. Constitution and present-day debates about civil rights and civil liberties. Religion influences opinion, voting, and lawmaking. Religious congregations, service agencies, and charities, many with public funding, predominate in the nation's vast and growing nonprofit sector. Religious leaders influence U.S. public policy and programs, both domestic and international. This seminar explores the historical, intellectual, constitutional, electoral, and institutional dimensions of religious leadership and U.S. public policy
The Politics of Food and Agriculture (Mary Summers), PSCI 135/GAFL 135/HSOC 135
This academically based community service and leadership seminar explores the politics and institutions that have shaped –and continue to shape-- food production and consumption with special attention to the Farm Bill. Students use course readings, together with their own research and community service projects to analyze the politics of food in many different arenas: from farms, factories, supermarkets, schools, welfare offices, and kitchens to the federal government, corporations, research institutions, the media, and international trade. Course readings include Hasia Diner’s HUNGERING FOR AMERICA: ITALIAN, IRISH, AND JEWISH FOODWAYS IN THE AGE OF MIGRATION (2001), Michael Pollan’s THE OMNIVORE’S DILEMMA, Eric Schlosser’s FAST FOOD NATION, and Janet Poppendieck’s SWEET CHARITY? EMERGENCY FOOD AND THE END OF ENTITLEMENT.
Course requirements include at least 50 pages of reading a week, several short writing assignments, one longer (10-15pp) research paper and participation in community service. Goals for community service include hands-on experience with some aspect of food politics and the development of political skills (outreach, organizing, strategizing, research, etc.) Options include: a Food Stamp Enrollment Campaign; food and fitness related programs in West Philadelphia schools; FarmEcology’s efforts to promote local food at Penn; area soup kitchens; the Fair Food Farm Stand; and other area food related projects. Students will develop research papers on how an organization, business, or coalition has responded to/shaped/been affected by some aspect of the Farm Bill, the Childhood Nutrition Act, or other federal or state legislation and regulation related to the politics of food. This research will culminate in class conferences where students will use their research in strategizing ways of improving access to healthier, fresher foods and/or addressing some of the health, environmental, labor, and animal welfare problems associated with our current food systems.
Students have the option of receiving an additional independent study credit, if they commit to at least four hours a week for their community service work, a weekly journal, and a relevant research paper or project (which should be discussed in advance with the instructor). Examples of possible final projects include, but not limited to: an evaluation of the project; research report of value to organization you are working with; research on “best practices” with regard to a related issue; a proposal for a campaign or public policy initiative; a series of op ed pieces on related issues; a grant proposal; a series of lesson plans; a multi-media exhibit.
Leadership in Community Service (Joe Tierney), GAFL 341
This course will look at the proposition that one practical way to improve the life prospects of low-income citizens is to increase the supply of well-designed, well managed, high-performance community-serving programs that meet these citizens' most pressing socioeconomic needs. It will engage students in the study of entrepreneurial civic leadership that focuses on these needs and fostering public-private partnerships, and/or religious secular collaborations, and/or and inter-governmental partnerships to address them.
The course will examine leadership in the context of developing and implementing effective community-serving programs. The primary course objectives are to: 1) Acquire knowledge about current models and approaches to community-serving programs including an understanding of the best practices and most common criticisms; 2) Develop a personal and professional philosophy regarding community serving programs; 3) Develop a basic understanding of the most common types of program evaluation.
Poverty and Development in the United States (Mary Summers)
This academically based community service seminar will explore the ideas and theories, alliances and opposition that have shaped policy and organizing efforts addressed to the problems associated with urban poverty in the United States. Students will evaluate contemporary policy debates and programs in the light of selected historical case studies and their own experience working with community groups, institutions and federal programs in West Philadelphia. A focus on the role of leadership in politics, theory, institutions and organizing efforts will include several guest speakers.
Religion and US Public Policy: The Case of Post-Katrina New Orleans (John DiIulio), PSCI 440/GAFL 440
What role have religious nonprofit organizations played in post-Katrina and post-Rita relief and rebuilding initiatives in New Orleans and elsewhere in the Gulf Coast? What role should they play in future relief and rebuilding initiatives, and how, if at all, should that role be conducted in partnership with federal, state, or local governments? What, if any, new public policies and programs are both necessary and desirable as means of affecting such civic partnerships? Using New Orleans and the Gulf coast as its primary case study, this Ideas in Action seminar will explore the historical, constitutional, political, and administrative issues central to understanding religion and public policy in the U.S. today. In addition, the seminar will examine the empirical “faith factor” research relevant to the topic. Students will meet with a variety of governmental officials, community leaders, and others. Students who enroll in this course are required to reserve SPRING BREAK for a possible class trip to New Orleans or other Gulf Coast destinations.
Communication for Effective Leadership (Nyman and Reeves), GAFL 541
As a leader, you will be challenged everyday to persuade, motivate and inspire diverse groups. Strategic and compelling messages are critical to success and these skills are not innate. Your long term success will depend on your ability to understand your own communication strengths and challenges, analyze the hearts and minds of your audiences, and frame messages to ensure that your intent equals impact. It is equally important to harness anxiety, master the art of impromptu speaking, and handle difficult questions. During this course, you will accomplish these goals through experiential exercises, practice, and deconstruction of famous political speeches. Videotaping and feedback will help you to fine-tune your skills.
Introduction to American Politics and Leadership (John DiIulio), PSCI 130
Introduction to American Politics will explore how the institutions of American democracy make policy--how great ideas in Washington, state capitols, and city halls around the country become translated (or not) into results that matter to citizens. Readings and lectures will focus on both the historical roots of the American system and how today's big problems challenge the historical traditions.
Spirited Debate (Jane Eisner)
Religion has emerged as one of the single most important determinants of everything from how Americans vote to what positions they take on controversial issues of the day. For example, citizens who regularly attend worship services vote for Republican presidential candidates at a higher rate than citizens who attend irregularly or not at all. Likewise, on hot-button issues ranging from abortion to gay marriage, the death penalty to the war in Iraq, numerous surveys find that differing religious views, including a big split between religious conservatives and secular liberals, are behind major opinion cleavages and help to explain present-day voting patterns in presidential elections.
Still, as much survey research and many studies suggest, no religious group in America is truly monolithic either in its religious ideas and practices or in its political beliefs and behavior. Differences between religious conservatives and secular liberals are hardly the only, or the most important, differences or patterns worth comprehending. Based on the preliminary results of a review of relevant evidence gathered in 2004 at the Brookings Institution, it is clear that the relationship between religion and politics in present-day America is far more complicated than one would surmise from accounts in the popular press or from much-cited but dated academic treatises. Even if one focuses only on a particular age cohort or a single faith tradition--college-aged Americans or Roman Catholics, for example--the best and latest data are abundant but hard to interpret.
Aided by several expert guest speakers, this seminar examines the evidence in depth, including studies and cases suggesting that intra-religious differences are often more politically salient than inter-religious ones, and figure prominently in elections and "spirited debates" on policy issues.
Urban Politics and Leadership (John DiIulio)
America's big cities - Philadelphia, Chicago, Los Angeles, and others - are home to large and geographically concentrated populations of low-income children, youth, and families. People who live in low income inner-city neighborhoods (for example, Southwest or North Central Philadelphia) experience illiteracy, violent criminal victimization, chronic unemployment, welfare dependency, untreated medical maladies, sub-standard housing, homelessness, arrest, incarceration, and many other problems at rates that far exceed the relevant national averages, and that are also generally far higher than the incidence of such problems experienced by people who live less than a mile away in middle-income or upper-income urban communities or inner-ring big-city suburbs (for example, in Philadelphia's Chestnut Hill section or in the Elkins Park, Montgomery County suburb).
This seminar explores via readings, research, expert guests, field work and group assignments, multiple and competing answers to these questions-answers both academic and practical, both intellectual and action-oriented, both immediate and long-term. The course focuses at length on the following core question: What, if any, community-serving programs exist, or might be developed, that predictably, reliably, and measurably improve the life prospects of low-income inner-city citizens in Philadelphia, and how, if at all, can such programs be identified, supported, sustained, and expanded in ways that benefit more than tiny fractions of urban people in need.
Public Management (John DiIulio)
This intensive service-learning graduate research seminar has three interrelated purposes: 1) to familiarize MGA students and specially admitted advanced undergraduates with a few worthwhile concepts in the academic literatures relevant to public management (principal-agent models, policy implementation, government-by-proxy, devolution) as they relate to selected live public administration challenges (homeland security, health care, city finances); 2) to give students an opportunity to work together and with veteran public administrators on an intensive, multi-faceted civic service-learning project (administrative initiatives to acquire additional revenue for the City of Philadelphia and its people); and 3) to offer students a chance to reflect on their readings and their “doings” in the context of concluding class-wide discussions and individual review essays on two contemporary classics (James Q. Wilson’s Bureaucracy and Mark H. Moore’s Creating Public Value).
Policy Development and Leadership (Mark Alan Hughes)
"Policy Development and Leadership" is designed to provide a survey of agenda-setting and decision-making in public policy: "how does an idea become an idea whose time has come?" Students will engage in a lively discussion of classic texts and concepts in the field. Questions examined will include: How is intentional change in policy achieved? Why are some ideas considered by decision makers and not others? Who influences the alternatives that frame decisions about policy issues? What is the role of information and expertise in setting agenda and alternatives?
Youth and Civic Engagement (Jane Eisner)
The American ideal of universal suffrage was centuries in the making, but many observers felt that it was finally realized in 1971, with the passage of the 26th amendment to the Constitution, which dropped the minimum voting age from 21 to 18. Finally, if you were old enough to be drafted, you were old enough to vote. Politicians predicted a rejuvenated civic culture, infused with the passion of the young and idealistic.
It hasn't worked out that way at all. The electoral participation of young voters peaked in 1972, and has just about been all downhill since. In the last presidential election, only 28% of 18-year-olds reported voting. As young people grow increasingly alienated from the political process, politicians pay less and less attention to their concerns. Ironically, these same young people are far more likely to volunteer in their communities than previous generations - a trend that we thought would lead to voting, but instead too often has become a substitute. Citizenship is becoming privatized. This class examines the history and attitudes behind these trends and analyzes the many attempts to reverse the downward spiral.
Leadership and the Media (Jane Eisner)
What kind of leadership role does the press play in our society? What happens when it fails in that role? This class will examine the differing roles played by the press in modern America, from watchdog to facilitator to entertainer, in the context of events as varied as Watergate, the Clinton impeachment and the recent Jayson Blair scandal at The New York Times. We will study the public journalism critique of the press, and with that in mind, look at how investigative journalism, editorial pages and war coverage all present their own models of leadership. We will also discuss trends - such as declining credibility and the growing corporatization of journalism - that have damaged the press' ability to lead. This class is aimed not only at would-be journalists, but anyone interested in understanding this crucial arm of our democracy.
In prior years, Fox faculty have taught several other courses. Dr. Hughes has taught "Making Work Pay" and "Assessing Regional Readiness for Terrorism." A team of Fox affiliated instructors, led by Professor John J. DiIulio, Jr. and Professor Martin Seligman, taught "Positive Psychology/Positive Institutions." Fox faculty have also taught "Governance of the Public Sector" and "Statistics for Public Leadership."
