Leadership and Mentoring for Students and Professionals

The splintering of the left and right sides of the brain in academia and the professional workspace does not serve students or clients, both are vital to functioning in the real world. Furthermore, a student’s undergraduate years are some of the most formative in their social and intellectual development requiring time and space to explore, for the sake exploring.

The downside of our current system, particularly in High School, is that students have become accustomed to a great deal of hand holding and continuous praise for little effort made, and very few outcomes anyone would consider to be extraordinary. It seems everyone has a 4.999 these days. The question is; what have you done? Alfie Kohn, author of the book “Punished by Rewards,” has said;

most praise, even for effort, encourages children to be “praise junkies” dependent on outside feedback rather than cultivating their own judgment and motivation to learn

In sum, our educational system has failed us and it will take decades to catch up with current research and trends to change the rat race path paved over the last three decades. It is apparent that students, and even adults, are craving new types of leadership and mentoring. In light of its absence, more and more professionals are opening space to consult, advise, and mentor students.

Parents save enormous amounts of money in hopes that their children will go to a good college; my goal is to ensure that the student is thinking about, and connecting with the emotive aspects of such big choices. The challenge is most acute for a senior in high school; a time when they are trying to successfully finish, yet plan for a future unknown.

I have accumulated executive experience strategizing, fundraising, and implementing new and innovative programs in the private, non-profit, and governmental sectors. More recently, my peers, colleagues, mentors, and friends have encouraged me to dedicate more time to both leadership development, and mentoring students by drawing on the extensive experiences that I have acquired.

Most of my friends know that I love helping people get to where they want to go, whether students or clients seeking advice. They also know that I enjoy breaking down the obstacles that are most often the illusions that attempt to keep a person from overcoming their own fears of the unknown.

My goal as a mentor is straight-forward: I work with students and clients to develop a love of learning, an insatiable curiosity for the unknown, a passion for thinking critically about how to identify solutions to real world problems in the midst of a cacophony of opinions, and then I teach them to articulate their ideas and act.

I am highly dedicated to teaching and I have been involved in higher education and undergraduate instruction since 1999. My combined experiences, coupled with my academic background have allowed me to easily make relevant linkages between on-going theoretical debates and current institutional practices, both conceptually and empirically. Reading, writing, thinking critically, and verbal communication are central goals of my pedagogical approach.

Unfortunately, these skills are not taught as much in public universities (e.g. University of Colorado) as Administrators are more interested in tuition increases to pay higher salaries for executives, decrease tenure track professorships to reduce cost, and enlarge class sizes to increase profit margins per seat; classes often taught by a Graduate Teaching Assistant who is often unprepared for such large and mind numbing spaces.

I wonder, is this what parents really seek to pay for after contributing to a college fund for eighteen years? Would they choose differently if their son or daughter had a “gap” year to think and feel their way toward the future? Common in Europe, the ‘gap year’ offers students the time and space to think about who they are, and what they want, after years of jumping through hoops and performing in the educational dog and pony show.

The gap year is often designed by the student and includes reading for fun, traveling, volunteering, and acquiring skills that prepare them for the eventual collegiate choice they do make. It is in this regard that I work with students and clients one-to-one, or in small groups of four, to help them design their gap year so that it flows seamlessly into the next phase of their lives.

My formal teaching and training skills were acquired during my service as a Conservation Training Specialist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s National Conservation Training Center. I developed curriculums and delivered training programs for adult learners in the US government, non-profits, and private companies; a different type of teaching in contrast to the university setting.

I have also had the good fortune to teach at a number of universities, in foreign countries, and for a wide range of socio-economic groups. I have taught courses outside of the United States at the University of Cambridge, England and at the University of Zamorano, Honduras. I have taught undergraduates at the University of Colorado, The George Washington University, and in the Institute for Environmental Studies at Shepherd University. I have rarely been confined to a single discipline since my own education is so diverse; permitting me to teach a wide range of subjects in the sciences and the social sciences.

The advantages of studying at Cambridge, coupled with working in Washington DC for the US Department of Commerce, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Office of International Activities, while also conducting field research in Honduras provided me with a perspective few consultants or mentors can offer their students or clients.

Teaching in diverse contexts has made me an extraordinarily well-rounded academic researcher and an educator, which is complemented by my healthy knowledge and understanding of the international system from a variety of viewpoints. Now, I use my professional knowledge, skills, and abilities as a scholar, teacher, trainer, and as a practitioner to help today’s students and professional clients create their own unique path.

Since resigning from the Bush Administration in 2007, my goal has been to teach, train, consult, and create opportunities for students and clients through consulting, mentoring, and serving as a personal advisor and guide. I would argue that this is a focus all professors in higher education ought to consider a part of their position, it simply is not the case. Professors are motivated by competition for limited financial resources, sustaining their egos in hopes of tenure, and pushing out papers at a rate that affords them little time to adequately prepare to teach or work with students individually.

Communicating ideas, encouraging students, and translating research into action are more valuable to me than theorizing alone. Secretly, I take time to tuck myself away with two to three people and concoct theoretical debates to no end. However, I mostly enjoy testing ideas and weaving webs toward aspirations that lie beyond most of our imaginations, and then identify what it takes to make it happen. When mentoring students I where several hats; strategic educational planning, tutor, private professor, and counselor. As students and clients express the various visions they have for their future, the primary aim is to weave their wishes into a coherent whole, as anything is possible with imagination and creativity.

Means:

Mentoring optimizes students, while forwarding their mission and vision. As a life long learner, I believe that teaching is mentoring, as the goal is to get students where they want to be in their own future. One of the most creative ways that I work with students and clients is through having them write a dream biography, where a student imagines their life as if it had already been lived.

In this regard, teaching and mentoring becomes a two way process of setting goals, moving contemplatively through blocks (internal or external), identifying strategies and action steps, and holding students and clients accountable as they seriously consider the paths ahead of them.

Integrating knowledge across disciplines and illuminating its relevance in specific contexts has provided students and clients I have taught or consulted with a strong basis to contemplate, analyze, and communicate in their personal and professional lives, regardless of the formal discipline that they are studying.

I create each of my programs so that students learn how to construct, defend, and criticize arguments; identify and assess tacit assumptions; and gather and evaluate evidence qualitatively and quantitatively.  My approach to instructional analysis and design is focused toward developing students’ core competencies in those areas that align with their goals. For example, competencies may include:

• Intellectual: critical thinking, analysis, synthesis, problem solving, evaluation.
• Communication: dialogues in seminar format with a group of four; speaking, listening, reading, writing, presenting (oral/written), giving and receiving feedback.
• Organizational: self-assessment, working independently, responsibility, initiative, time management, and increased awareness of career options within the field.
• Interpersonal: teamwork, leadership, negotiating, networking, and managing time. 

Individualized programs emphasize exploring combinations of competing methodologies for acquiring knowledge in a specific discipline, understanding key arguments, and the problems of interpreting original literature and data. In addition, students are taught to subject arguments to scrutiny from competing cultural, social, or methodological perspectives.

The courses that I have taught include a combination of dialogues in a seminar format, brief lectures and presentations, offering students and clients a repertoire of approaches to choose from in the process.

Grading is not a part of the process, but students are encouraged to take courses that assess them based on  written assignments, participation, gathering of primary sources, writing essays, completing blue book exams, and final papers. Reading, writing, communicating, and thinking critical are important to anyone’s career, thereby emphasis is placed on courses and choices that allow a student to practice, practice, practice.

Topics are selected with each student based on their dream biography; and then I help them draw on the readings, previous lectures, or individual and group assignments to get a better grasp of the material. I consider the reasoning process more important than pre-conceived facts or beliefs. If I make errors of logic or fact, it is acceptable for a student to correct me. My overall objective is to facilitate discussion, encourage students to reason rather than comply, or attempt to appeal to any supposed ‘authority’. All of my programs or courses place particular emphasis on the following skills relevant to the students’ aims:

• Logical and critical thinking – the ability to extract key principles from a collection of sources and to analyze key points resulting in written materials;
• Ability to interpret texts – extracting the meaning, pertinent data or information from texts;
• Computing skills – basic software applications such as word processing programs;
• Research skills – gained through advising students and clients as they write essays, proposals, or business documents.
• Skills relevant to small group work – when advising in groups of four, the goal is to teach students to plan, collaborate, and complete collective objective related to topics they have been assigned in school or at work.
• Communication skills – verbal skills developed during meetings and before a student or client has to present academically or professionally; writing skills developed through courses, essays, final papers, or professional documents. The goal is to ensure students and clients are writing and communicating clearly and effectively;
• A multi-disciplinary approach – critical theory is introduced as a means toward understanding the contested nature of various concepts (e.g. sustainability, terrorism, etc.);
• Experience – developing professional skills, independence, stamina, sociability, decision making, and responsibility – all of which are essential for most careers;
• The ability to meet deadlines and work under pressure – gained from consistent participation and achievement of their goals.