Innovation and leadership are nothing new to Adam Goodman, the Undergraduate Leadership Program’s current director, who has been revamping the program’s curriculum since he began work in August 2007.
ULP is a certificate program that combines coursework, retreats and self-study with the goal of building leadership skills among undergraduate students. In the past, freshmen and sophomores enrolled in any of Northwestern’s six undergraduate schools can apply for the program. Starting this spring, though, juniors were also allowed to enroll.
All students in the program must take an introductory course on the paradigms and strategies of leadership during the spring quarter of their first year enrolled in the program. The course consists of a two-hour lecture and a two-hour lab each week. As director of the program, Goodman teaches the lecture component of this class. He has made major changes in the curriculum, shifting the learning process from project proposals and brainstorming ideas to researching and nominating present-day leaders.
In previous years, lab groups would each be assigned different issues in society and given the task of developing a project that would address the problem. Students would then initiate these projects in real-life settings.
“We ended up getting sponsored by the Alumni Association,” Teaching Assistant Lauren Berry said of her lab group. With the other students in her team, Berry, a Communication sophomore, designed a campaign called “Purple 2 Green,” which led to the distribution of purple Nalgene bottles to the freshman class during New Student Week last year.
Students who use their bottles at dining locations across campus receive discounts
This year, instead of designing projects, students are now expected to nominate leaders who play influential roles in their communities, Goodman said.
“We’re asking students what are the leadership values and challenges that they see, what their own leadership skills are and how do they close the gap,” he said. “My intent is for students to learn about leaders from an inspirational perspective.”
Each lab group was given the task of researching and identifying a leader whom the students felt deserved the Hope Leadership Award, a hypothetical prize Goodman created that has the potential to become a reality.
“Adam Goodman’s dream is for this to be something real,” Berry said, adding that the final decision to implement the award depends on a board of trustees.
Of the 24 teams, four lab groups will be chosen to present their nominee in front of the board, which will then select a winner. Presentations will be held next Monday.
“It’s a different project with a different focus and different pros and cons,” Communication sophomore and teaching assistant Abigail Goldman said. “Students have the opportunity to make it their own, and once the prize is a real thing, students will see that the people that they are nominating are being recognized.”
