MS Leadership & Graduate Certificate in
Leadership Course Descriptions
Required Capstone Course
LDRS 500 – Principled Leadership Seminar – 0 Credit Hours
Free course with required completion in first semester enrollment.
Core Leadership Courses
LDRS 710 – Ethics, Values, & Principled Leadership – 3 Credit Hours
In this course students will study ethics, to include its philosophical foundations. Students will also learn and practice ethical decision-making through dilemma resolution processes. Leadership virtues, values, and character will be emphasized as leadership essentials. Servant leadership, authentic leadership, and the role of individual spirituality will be explored. Principled leadership will be defined as the subscription to a particular set of positive values.
Prerequisite: None
LDRS 711 – Leading Change: Organization Development and Transformation – 3 Credit Hours
In this course students examine the leadership processes associated with achieving effective change, including transformational and situational leadership. Students will study the conscious and purposeful processes involved in developing an organization’s capabilities targeted toward achieving its mission. Students will engage in organizational diagnoses and study leader intervention methods aimed at achieving organizational change with the goal of improvement toward mission accomplishment.
Prerequisite: LDRS 722
LDRS 714 – Strategic Leadership, Vision, Mission, and Contemporary Issues – 3 Credit Hours
The critical importance of vision as purposeful direction in emphasized in this course. Strategic leadership is examined as the alignment of the organization with its environment in terms of mission orientation. Contemporary issues are derived from the examination of the current environment for leadership and leaders.
Prerequisite: LDRS 722 or PSYC 570
LDRS 715 – Leadership Capstone Project – 3 Credit Hours
Students will conduct a formal research project under the guidance of a professor who serves as the project monitor. The project will focus upon leadership or a topic directly related to leadership.
Prerequisites: This course should be taken within the last six hours of a student’s MS Leadership program of study.
LDRS 721 – Leading High Performing Teams – 3 Credit Hours
This course prepares students to work in and to lead teams and to manage conflict in appropriate ways. The course emphasizes the development of positive interpersonal behaviors for teams, team building, effective decision makings, and other team processing, and managing the sources of conflict and conflict behaviors in order to resolve organizational problems.
Prerequisite: None
LDRS 722 – Leadership in Organizations – 3 Credit Hours
This course is a seminar that focuses on the understanding and application of organizational theory and leadership principles. In addition, the course will include comp1nts on developing individual leadership skills and different theories of organizations. The applications component of the course will include a variety of approaches such as cases, films, guest speakers, individual self-assessments, role-play, team building exercises, and a leadership portfolio.
LDRS 724– Leadership for a Global Society – 3 Credit Hours
This course will develop students’ ability to analyze and navigate complex global challenges, collaborate respectfully with others, take responsibility, and take action to drive results as principled leaders. Students will develop the ability to understand and navigate people in groups (organizational, societal, and global). The course will examine the role of perceptual processes from the individual to system levels to answer questions about how we interact, how we fit in and remain unique, how we create an environment in which everyone contributes, how we connect with people to facilitate knowledge sharing and collaboration across the globe.
Prerequisite: None
LDRS 725 – Curious Leadership: Methods of Inquiry & Action Research – 3 Credit Hours
Students let curiosity drive their methodological inquiry into a leadership problem of practice. While designing their own action research project, students will concurrently explore basic qualitative, quantitative, and mixed-methods practices used in leadership research. Students will be equipped to interpret, critique, and apply leadership research as practitioners within their specific field. Cultural consideration and ethical practices in leadership will be explored as students engage in principled leadership.
Prerequisite: None
Elective Courses
LDRS 716 – Independent Study – 3 Credit Hours
An in-depth study of a selected topic in leadership.
Prerequisite: Permission of the Department Head
LDRS 723 – Communication for Leadership – 3 Credit Hours
This course provides insight on the role of organizations as communication systems in which effective writing and speaking are crucial. Emphasis is on developing awareness of verbal and written styles, interpersonal skills, and creating a repertoire of writing and speaking strategies.
LDRS 733 – Nonprofit Leadership – 3 Credit Hours
Nonprofit organizations play a vital role in our pluralistic society. The shared governance model, funding structure, and policy constraints present complex leadership challenges for nonprofit executives, board members, staff, clients, and financial supporters. This course will prepare nonprofit board and staff members to navigate these unique challenges and strategically optimize opportunities to advance their organizational missions.
Prerequisite: None
LDRS 733 —Crisis Communication and Leadership – 3 Credit Hours
Due to its unexpected arrival and catastrophic potential, a crisis can overwhelm an individual, an organization, and a nation. This course explores how leaders respond to crisis through the use of communication skills and strategies. Particularly, case studies will illustrate the organizational and rhetorical contexts that leaders of all industries need
to identify in order to respond effectively and appropriately to internal and external stakeholders before, during, and after a crisis.
Prerequisite: None
PSYC 500 – Human Growth and Development – 3 Credit Hours
An analysis of the principles of human development with emphasis on the contributions of biological, social, psychological, and multicultural influences as applied to an understanding of cognitive, emotional, social, and physical development across the life-span. Particular emphasis will be given to the psychobiological nature and social context of development as well as cultural and ethnic variations impacting on developmental processes.
Prerequisite: None
PSCI 500—Seminar in Social Science – 3 Credit Hours
An interdisciplinary introduction to the social sciences with an emphasis on the perspectives and patterns of inquiry of several subfields. This course surveys the empirical and theoretical contributions of different social science disciplines in order to provide a fundamental understanding of the dynamics of individual and group behavior. Topics include ethics, social science methodology, and the key criticisms of these methods.
Prerequisite: None
PSYC 570 – Social and Cognitive Foundations of Interpersonal Behavior – 3 Credit Hours
This course presents a survey of the scientific study of social influence, emphasizing that a fundamental understanding of the basic forces affecting how individuals think and behave in social settings serves as a cornerstone of effective interpersonal behavior and sound leadership. Prerequisite: None
Graduate Certificate in Military Leadership Course Descriptions
LDRS 500 – Principled Leadership Seminar – 0 Credit Hours
Free course with required completion in first semester enrollment.
LDRS 711 – Leading Change: Organization Development and Transformation – 3 Credit Hours
In this course students examine the leadership processes associated with achieving effective change, including transformational and situational leadership. Students will study the conscious and purposeful processes involved in developing an organization’s capabilities targeted toward achieving its mission. Students will engage in organizational diagnoses and study leader intervention methods aimed at achieving organizational change with the goal of improvement toward mission accomplishment.
Prerequisite: LDRS 722
LDRS 750 – Evolution of Military Leadership Thought – 3 Credit Hours
This foundational course utilizes principles, theories, and empirical models of effective and principled leadership to explore the development of military leadership thought. Leadership will be examined as a behavioral science and applied in the specific context of military teams, units, and organizations. The course welcomes graduate students from various organizational and career backgrounds who are interested in military leadership.
Prerequisite: None
LDRS 751 – Survey of U.S. Military Leaders – 3 Credit Hours
This course gives the student the opportunity to apply the leadership theories and models learned in LDRS 750 to examine U.S. military leaders. The course will focus on selected U.S. military leaders. These leaders will be examined for their historical significance, their successes/failures, their styles, their backgrounds, how they developed as leaders, and their leadership skills and effectiveness.
Prerequisite: LDRS 722 or LDRS 750
LDRS 752 – Survey of World Military Leaders – 3 Credit Hours
This course examines military leadership in world history, identifying the qualities and precepts of military leadership to distill applicable principles and instructive examples for contemporary and future leaders. It examines military leadership at the strategic, operational, and tactical levels, and across multiple eras. The focus is on non-American military leaders.
Prerequisite: LDRS 722 or LDRS 750
LDRS 753 – Strategy and Contemporary Military Leadership Issues – 3 Credit Hours
This course focuses on contemporary military leadership issues derived from the examination of the current environment for military leadership. In addition, the course covers the basics of strategy and will include a significant examination of U. S. military strategy.
Prerequisite: LDRS 722 or LDRS 750