2015

2015 Institute: Ethical Global Partnerships, Learning, and Service

In August the Staley School of Leadership Studies will host its first, four-day Leading Change Institute, "Ethical Global Partnerships, Learning, and Service." We will harness creative, collaborative thinking from globally recognized leaders addressing this real issue with tangible strategies for moving forward. The institute will begin Monday August 10, at 5 pm and conclude Friday, August 14, at noon. Participants will represent diverse perspectives from around the world, coming from applied, academic, and policy circles in the private and non-profit sectors. We expect approximately twenty-five participants at the institute.

The institute's structure and participant list explicitly recognizes that our most challenging problems are multi-layered, cross-sector, and interdisciplinary. Spaces to engage challenges in a way that honors that complexity are rare.

Participants have been invited because they have demonstrated particularly innovative leadership in this area. Each invited participant comes to the group with a form of expertise. This is not a forum to present formally about that expertise. Instead, that expertise will be engaged in dialogue to develop and harness new thinking, generate connection, and seed collaboration with other individuals attending from around the world. We will be employing various forms of media to mobilize our conversation during and after the Leading Change Institute.

Institute Goals, from less to more tangible

Harness creative, collaborative thinking from globally recognized leaders addressing real issues with tangible strategies for moving forward
Generate connection, seed collaboration
Mobilize dialogue to reach decision makers related to international volunteering and global service-learning, including teens
Ensure the results of this particular dialogue reach higher education and K-12 leaders and practitioners in particular, as well as nonprofits and companies working in this area (educational tours, service tours, service-learning partnerships, volunteerism, voluntourism).
Coordinate NGO partners, academics, and other stakeholders to envision relevant, applied, multi-institutional research that will help answer the often-advanced question: where is the rigorous community impact assessment?

Facilitators

Dan Knoll

Daniel Noll is co-founder of Uncornered Market a blog and influence platform that promotes respectful travel and facilitates discussions on sustainability and the human dimension of tourism. As a consultant for QV Global, he works as a digital bridge between organizations and consumers, helping clients communicate advocacy issues such as sustainability in a way that connects to and resonates with target audiences. With experience in over 90 countries, he has consulted for U.N. Foundation organizations on sustainable tourism storytelling and social media, and has spoken at United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO), TEDx and entrepreneurship, marketing and leadership conferences worldwide. As one of the facilitators of the Leading Change Institute, he aims to help participants render the issues of ethical service learning to service-inclined students.

Audrey Scott

Audrey Scott is co-founder of Uncornered Market a blog and influence platform that promotes respectful travel and facilitates discussions on sustainability and the human dimension of tourism. As a consultant for QV Global, she works as a digital bridge between organizations and consumers, helping clients communicate advocacy issues such as sustainability in a way that reaches and resonates with target audiences. With experience in over 90 countries, she has consulted for U.N. Foundation organizations on sustainable tourism storytelling and social media, and has spoken at United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO), TEDx and entrepreneurship and leadership conferences worldwide. As one of the facilitators of the Leading Change Institute she aims to help render the issues of ethical service learning to stakeholders by helping them better understand their available choices and the impact of the decisions they make.

Tim Steffensmeier

Associate Professor and Division Head of Communication Studies at Kansas State University. He is also a faculty associate with the Institute for Civic Discourse & Democracy (ICDD) at Kansas State and co-editor of the Journal for Public Deliberation. Tim was a faculty participant in the Interactivity Foundation's 2006 Summer Institute and has continued to work with IF in the development and teaching of an undergraduate course at KSU: "Communication & Democracy."Tim teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in rhetoric and communication. This includes courses on deliberation, civic leadership, small group communication methods, public speaking, and rhetorical theory. Tim earned his Ph.D. in Communication Studies from the University of Texas-Austin in 2005, his M.A. from Wake Forest University in 1999, and his B.A. from Hastings College in 1997.