Elon’s new Leadership Faculty Scholars begin program

Four Elon faculty members have begun their roles as Leadership Education Faculty Scholars for 2024-25. They will participate in a series of workshops to learn more about leadership education and design an experiential leadership component to use in a course during the following year in connection with Elon’s Leadership ELR. The faculty members will also receive a stipend for their work.

The scholars are:

• Jessica Gisclair, associate professor of strategic communications
• Brian Pennington, director of the Center for the Study of Religion, Culture, and Society and professor of religious studies
• Will Pluer, assistant professor of engineering
• Stacey Thomas, assistant professor of nursing

At Elon, leadership education is not centrally about giving orders or attaining formal power. Rather, Elon’s approach is relational and collaborative, and focused on helping students develop into ethical, purposive and inclusive leaders and initiative-takers in organizations and society. This approach is consistent with shifts in the field as leadership education has grown beyond its early focus on formal authority to embrace topics like self-knowledge, informal leadership, effective cooperation, group dynamics and conflict resolution, which are relevant for students regardless of what formal roles they may attain.

The scholars program is led by Raj Ghoshal, faculty fellow for leadership education and associate professor of sociology. Applications to be a Leadership Education Faculty Scholar go out every spring.