Institute for Leadership Studies

• Upcoming Events

What is the Institute for Leadership Studies?

Dominican’s Institute for Leadership Studies (ILS) is center for leadership development that incubates leadership learning ideas and actions. We seek to facilitate positive individual, organizational and societal change, engaged citizenship, and socially responsible leadership.

It is a consortium of faculty and students with business and community leaders committed to providing leadership development and practice opportunities.

Through leadership education and training, research and consulting services, public forums and community service projects, the Institute serves individuals and organizations both locally and globally, as well as the Dominican University of California community.

Leadership Philosophy

Leadership education and training experiences at Dominican University of California have an underlying theme promoting the leader’s responsibility for shaping a constructive organizational culture. An organizational culture where colleagues trust one another, maintain ethical values and hold one another accountable for achieving shared organizational goals, tends to emerge from an organizational environment that establishes clear priorities and focuses on results. Participants of the Institute for Leadership Studies will explore how leaders, teams and individuals are in relationship with one another within cultural contexts. We believe that trust, constructive conflict, clarity of purpose, mutual accountability and achieving results are inter-related. We believe that thriving organizations empower all employees to demonstrate leadership.

Guiding Principles and Values

ILS’ guiding principles are based on Dominican values.

• ILS serves as a partner to our campus and our civic & business communities as we strive toward continuing to achieve our Dominican values of service and community based upon knowledge and reflection.
• ILS serves the Bay Area and Dominican communities, inviting organizations to incorporate Dominican students in projects fostering leadership learning, service and constructive societal and organizational change.

Guiding Principles

Study

• Develop leadership skills through study, research, & experimentation
• Conduct cutting-edge research of leadership ideas and practices
• Ensure that leadership models are broad and responsive to ethical, cultural, contexts & situations
• Integrate leadership theory & practice across the curriculum

Reflection

• Engage in creative vision that is integral to effective, ethical leadership
• Examine multiple perspectives of moral principles in reflecting on defining ethical leadership
• Meet the needs of organizations by guiding their choices of strategic objectives through action research
• Seek full participation to reach agreement on mutual organizational goals

Community

• Effect positive organizational & community change through the process of leadership development
• Promote civic engagement as a cornerstone of democracy
• Offer opportunities to practice socially responsible leadership
• Recognize the importance of leadership & partnership at work, home, & in the community

Service

• Bridge the university & Bay Area community through research, education, & community service
• Improve our campus by moblizing students to service in the community
• Partner with organizations to resolve conflict & achieve their goals towards positive change
• Practice teamwork to creatively achieve community or business effectiveness

Upcoming Events 

An Evening with Author Amy Tan and Composer Stewart Wallace

Making of the Opera: The Bonesetter's Daughter
Sunday, September 21, 2008 * 7pm

This event offers a “behind-the-scenes” look at the making of a major artistic event. The Bonesetter’s Daughter, a new opera based on the best-selling novel of the same name by Amy Tan, was commissioned by the San Francisco Opera. The music is by Stewart Wallace with a libretto by the author herself. Excerpts from the Opera performance will be presented.

An Evening with Cherie Blair

Speaking for Myself: My Life from Liverpool to Downing Street
Monday, October 20, 2008 * 7pm

Tickets for this event are $35 per person (includes a copy of Blair's book) and can be purchased at www.bookpassage.com or by calling 415-927-0960. Tickets can also be purchased in person at the Book Passage store in Corte Madera or San Francisco.

In Speaking for Myself: My Life from Liverpool to Downing Street, Cherie Blair shares her astonishing journey from an unconventional childhood to her life as a working mother and wife of the Prime Minister. She writes about her encounters with scores of foreign leaders and her friendships with Presidents Clinton and Bush, as well as the royal family.

VoteSmart Challenge ‘08

Thursday, October 23, 2008 * 9am, location to be announced

Student/faculty research teams will present key findings on six critical policy issues -- health care, education, economy, foreign policy, environment, and ethics. Students and community members will be joined by key representatives from the McCain and Obama campaigns to discuss the specific issues. Using handheld devices, audience members will vote on the issues and the best performance by the presenting teams. Responses will be immediately calculated and real-time results will be shared.

An Evening with Marian Wright Edelman

The Sea Is So Wide and My Boat Is So Small: Charting a Course for the Next Generation
Monday, October 27, 2008 * 7:30pm, Caleruega Hall

Tickets for this event are $30 per person (includes a copy of Edelman's book) and can be purchased at www.bookpassage.com or by calling 415-927-0960. Tickets can also be purchased in person at the Book Passage store in Corte Madera or San Francisco.

In her newest book, The Sea is So Wide and My Boat is So Small: Charting a Course for the Next Generation, civil rights leader Marian Wright Edelman implores America to pay attention to the state of America’s children and argues that every step we take to improve the lives of children improves the lives of all of us.