Online Class On Leadership Is Big Hit
Picture a college seminar. Topic: Shakespeare. Specifically, the scene in Henry V in which the warrior-king, disguised as a common soldier, walks through his camp the night before a fateful battle and speaks with some of his men. A student comments, “I see this exchange as a newly appointed and relatively untested monarch trying to explain to his followers why he is leading them into battle. He does not have all of the answers…” Another student responds, “This was one of my favorite parts of the play. Shakespeare has Henry doing his own sort of informal opinion poll of the men, to get a true sense of what they feel about him and the battle they are fighting at his bidding.”
Now picture this: the above exchange taking place not in a classroom but over the Internet, on an electronic discussion board in a Washington College online seminar. The students—alumni and parents—are at home, communicating via PCs and laptops. Over the duration of the course they will post hundreds of messages, and spend many hours reading each other’s posts as well as the assigned texts.
A pilot online seminar for alumni and parents, the course was titled “Images of Leadership from Moses to the Internet Age,” and included Moses, Machiavelli, Shakespeare, and other texts. It was taught by Michael Harvey, assistant professor of business management. Harvey’s approach to teaching leadership is squarely attuned to the College’s liberal arts mission. “Leadership is not simply a question of techniques or technology,” he says, “but of understanding, creativity and empathy.”
Harvey was eager to experiment with the new teaching possibilities allowed by the College’s partnership with Blackboard.com, a web-based learning enterprise. “Last year, at the encouragement of President Toll, I taught an online management course for the largest web-based learning program in the world, University of Maryland University College,” Harvey says. “I was eager to bring some of what I’d learned back to Washington College. This alumni course struck me as a natural, because I believe the learning relationship between a college and its students is a lifetime contract, not a four-year term.”
Harvey says he expected a dozen students, but got many more. “There’s clearly strong demand for this kind of lifelong learning opportunity.” A full archive for the course, including all student postings, is available at http://blackboard.washcoll.edu.
And, most important of all, what did students think? There was plenty of positive feedback, but here’s one representative comment: “I was hoping I would learn something to take out into the ‘real world’ and apply to my professional life, and I think that I have achieved that goal. Thanks again!”
The Alumni Office hopes to offer additional alumni courses in the near future.
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