Program Goals:

The primary intent of the Contemporary Leadership Minor is to prepare UC Davis students for a lifetime of effective learning and leadership in their professions, communities, nation and the world.

Objectives in support of this goal include fostering critical thinking, building consummate communication skills, and promoting high ethical standards along with a strong sense of personal accountability. Students who participate will be able to rapidly assess complex situations, balance reflection and enthusiasm, weigh tradition against innovation and identify and implement constructive courses of action. They will be positioned to lead in a world of burgeoning technology, flowering multiculturalism, and rapid global change.

The Contemporary Leadership minor is built around menus of courses clustered in four areas:

Ethics and Values:

These courses foster a sense of engagement and promote community service. They help students develop integrity and understand the values of fairness, responsibility for self and for others, and personal accountability. Ethics and values courses provide a framework for evaluating the effects of one’s own behavior on the family, workplace, and community.

Communication, Interpersonal Relationships and Group Dynamics:

These courses build effective communication skills, enhance students’ understanding and sensitivity to others, promote awareness of group dynamics and foster small group leadership skills. Courses are designed to help students develop problems-solving skills and attain excellence in interpersonal communication, writing and public speaking.

Organizational Structures and Cultures:

These selections help students gain familiarity with complex organizations and their cultures and help them learn organizational leadership skills. Courses explore such topics as the individual in the organizational setting, inter-group relationships, the organization in society, stress management, and achieving balance in life.

Multiculturalism, the Global Community, and Social Change :

Courses in this area prepare students for a modern and complex world characterized by rapid social change. Students explore the causes and consequences of the population explosion, increasing diversity with the US, multiculturalism and emergence of the global community. These courses increase knowledge of social movements, and the sociopolitical forces that lead to large-scale social change. Coursework is intended to equip students to function effectively in a world of evolving diversity

Minor Requirements:

The college of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences, Science and Society Program offers a minor in Contemporary Leadership, open to all undergraduate upper division students, regardless of major. The minor provides a broad overview of leadership theory and practice, and engages students in critical thinking, self-reflection, problem solving and multicultural education.

Requirements for the minor include completion of a core course (SAS 130), one upper-division course from each of the four areas, participation in an internship with concurrent group study (SAS 192), and a capstone seminar (SAS 190X). Students should contact the minor advisor for course selection and plan approval.