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.

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