A Collaborative Leadership Development Workshop for Emerging Leaders in Science and Society; Bainbridge Island, WA - Jaunuary 14-18, 2016

American Association For The Advancement Of Science, Washington DC

Investigators

Abstract

Complex societal challenges require synthesis of expertise from many academic disciplines and collaboration across multiple institutions. Graduate Ph.D. programs that develop disciplinary experts do not generally provide the context or training for applying narrow expertise in a broader context. This limitation of traditional graduate education programs has created an opportunity to devise programs to prepare PhD students for a range of careers in which STEM expertise is needed for working in broad rather than highly specialized contexts. To address this need and opportunity, the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is piloting a novel model of professional development for graduate students called Emerging Leaders in Science & Society (ELISS), building a network of collaborative STEM leaders by recruiting graduate students from multiple campuses and disciplines to participate in a 15-month service leadership program. These students collaborate with mentors and community leaders to catalyze new connections between the university and broader community and bring relevant research to bear on a timely challenge. This project is supporting the 2016 ELISS Collaborative Leadership Workshop that will introduce the knowledge, skills, and attitudes necessary for collaborative approaches to problems that cross disciplines, institutions, and geographies. This workshop will convene 22 graduate students from seven campuses for a 4.5-day workshop that will build capacity in the context of planning a "think tank" project that will bring relevant research to bear on pressing challenges in their communities. Materials and results of the network will be shared with an ELISS mentor network at participating campuses and through the AAAS network to make collaborative leadership training available to graduate students more broadly.