The first students to earn a master’s degree from Wartburg College graduated last weekend with a Master of Arts in leadership. The 15 graduates etched their names in Wartburg’s history books on May 27 when they received their master’s hoods and again on May 28 when their degrees were conferred.
“It was an incredible moment to see the inaugural cohort of Master of Arts in leadership students donned with Wartburg College hoods and to give our first graduate-level diplomas,” said Wartburg President Rebecca Neiduski. “We look forward to continuing to extend our reach into the graduate space by building on our distinctive curricular and co-curricular programs.”
The graduate students came from as far away as Copley, Ohio, and Oak Park, California, and represented an array of work sectors, including business, K-12 and higher education, public administration, the military, agribusiness and faith communities.
The online degree program was designed for working professionals and provides a deep foundation of problem-based learning about leadership from different perspectives. It builds on the college’s longstanding commitment to leadership education, which includes a thriving undergraduate minor, the Irving R. Burling Distinguished Professorship in Leadership and the college’s Institute for Leadership Education.
Michael Gleason, associate dean for graduate studies and director of the Institute for Leadership Education, said the program’s emphasis on real-world project implementation makes the program valuable not only for the students but also their communities and workplaces. The cohort model helps students develop deep relationships and learn from classmates with different perspectives, and the online, primarily asynchronous delivery model allows working professionals to fit coursework into their schedules.
“From the beginning of the program, we ask students to think about deep, complex issues they would like to address in their workplace or community. Throughout the curriculum there are project-specific classes where they learn the skills needed to analyze problems in different ways, but they also are able to make connections with courses such as Inclusive Leadership or Leadership Resource Management that make their projects more successful,” Gleason said. “This way our students are seeing the relevance of what they are learning in our program in their own workplace and communities every day.”
Student projects included the implementation of a professional development program for paraeducators, maximizing workflows across a family of banks and improving a workplace employee evaluation system.
“My progression through the Master of Arts in leadership has given me the opportunity for more self-exploration in the last two years than I have had in the previous 20 years. I have grown in so many ways, from uncovering how my leadership journey began and the life events that molded that experience, to discovering my strengths and how to use them more effectively,” said Tara Winter, executive director of admissions at Wartburg and the graduate selected by her peers to speak at the hooding ceremony. “During that process, I have also recognized my weaknesses and been able to dig deeper into the areas I can work on to become a better leader.”
The graduate students each received the traditional master’s hood lined with peacock blue, which represents the field of public administration and is closely associated with leadership. For more information about Wartburg’s Master of Arts in leadership, visit www.wartburg.edu/leadership-masters.