Positing a framework for cultivating spirituality through public university leadership development

Abstract

Purpose-Similar to religion, spirituality is considered a private affair along with issues of faith, hope, and love (Palmer, 1998). American public education has been reluctant to address such issues due to our cultural norm of "separation of church and state" (Love and Talbot, 2000, p. 1) yet the American Council for Education calls upon higher education to provide students ways to explore their personal values, world beliefs, and spirituality (Chickering et al., 2006; Dalton and Crosby, 2006). As such, the purpose of this paper is to explore student leaders' perspectives on how leadership development activities influenced their sense of spirituality. Design/methodology/approach-A qualitative case study design was used to explore responses from ten student leaders who completed a leadership development program in the Spring 2015 at a public four-year institution. As part of the leadership development program, students were paired a peer mentor while they completed leadership workshops, a reflection paper, self-assessment, and an ongoing community service project painting murals with individuals who have intellectual disabilities. Participants were from various majors and religious backgrounds and had completed the leadership development program two months prior to their participation in this study. Findings-Findings revealed that leadership workshops, self-assessment, reflections, peer-to-peer mentorship, and an ongoing shared community service project, influenced students' perspectives of spirituality and their leadership identity. Student leaders both did and did not differentiate the developmental process of leadership from the spiritual development process, defining both as cognitive and emotional development deeply grounded in self-awareness. Study participants shared that through self-reflection, developing their inter and intra personal skills through conducting service, shaped their understanding of their spiritual identity and developed their sense of self. Research limitations/implications-Study results are not generalizable but provide insight into the experiences and perceptions of student leaders on two hard-to-define topics: spirituality and leadership. The order of the interview questions may have influenced the thought process leading up to student's responses connecting spirituality and leadership concepts. Another limitation is that the leadership activities were designed and coordinated by the lead investigator. Hence, there may be findings that were influenced by the investigators' personal beliefs about leadership. Study participants may have also felt more comfortable discussing their beliefs about spirituality because of their familiarity with the lead investigator.

The Intersectionality of Leadership and Spiritual Development Through Mentoring

“…Research asserts that there are strong connections between spiritual and leadership development (Astin, 2004; Astin & Astin, 2000; Astin et al., 2007, 2011; Nolan‐Arañez & Bresciani Ludvik, 2018; Palmer, 2000; see also Chapter 9). Leadership and spirituality can be simultaneously and intentionally fostered in our students (Chickering, Dalton, & Stamm, 2005; Dalton, Eberhardt, Bracken, & Echols, 2006).…”

“…Until recently, spirituality has long been a private matter along with issues of faith, hope, and love (Palmer, 1999) and has not been incorporated into educational curriculum due to separation of church and state ideology (Komives & Woodard, 2003; Love & Talbot, 2000; Palmer, 1999). This becomes a detriment to students, as research has shown that these belief systems shape how students engage with leadership curricula and how they integrate what they learn into their leadership identity (Astin, 2004; Gehrke, 2008; Nolan‐Arañez, 2016; Nolan‐Arañez & Bresciani Ludvik, 2018). Providing opportunities for students to integrate their personal, spiritual, and religious values and beliefs into their academic and experiential learning, can deepen students’ application of leadership into their own lives.…”

“…A values‐based learning environment fosters leadership skills such as active listening, empathy, commitment to others’ wellbeing, proactivity, open mindedness, and community building as a vehicle for spiritual development (Dugan & Komives, 2012; 2014; Nolan‐Arañez & Bresciani Ludvik, 2016; 2018). Active engagement in inclusive community building allows students to experience the humanity in themselves and others.…”

“…Mentoring is an effective and inexpensive tool for building leadership skills and capacity among students (Astin & Astin, 2000; Astin, Astin, & Lindholm, 2007; Campbell, Smith, Dugan, & Komives, 2012; Nolan‐Arañez & Bresciani Ludvik, 2018). Intergenerational mentoring is a relational and reciprocal paradigm of learning that pairs youth with individuals who are 55 or older (Karcher, Kuperminc, Portwood, Sipe, & Taylor, 2006; Kram, 1985) but I believe that the reciprocal benefits of these connections do not need to be fixed by age.…”

Building a More Intimate Connection Between Spirituality and Quality Service Performance at Work

“…While EQ is about the ability to identify and manage emotions, Spiritual Intelligence (SQ) is a higher dimension of intelligence that results in more profound meaning and purpose. SQ has also recently been connected to the effectiveness of group training, maximizing the service industry's bottom line, fostering leadership, learning and education, corporate disclosure quality, and human resource development, to name few (Wirawan, Jufri, & Patak, 2018;Salehi, Mirzaee, & Yazadani, 2017;Rupcic, 2017;Nolan-Aranez & Ludvik, 2018;Mahmood, Arshad, Ahmed, Akhtar, & Khan, 2018;Ramachandra, Krauss, Hamzah, & Idris, 2017).…”