Leadership Development Scholars Program
2023-2024 Leadership Development Scholars Program (LDSP)
The goal of the Leadership Development Scholars Program is to provide current graduate students with authentic experiences that will help build their leadership skills. The main focus of this opportunity is to have students develop a specific project that will contribute to the professional development of their peers.
These projects could be in the form of a workshop (by facilitating or organizing the workshop and identifying a speaker) on a transferable skill applicable for successful career transitions, developing online resources, organizing a panel discussion or forum on an area of leadership, arranging and leading peer-support mechanisms focused on teaching development, etc. Appropriate topics could be related to leadership or other professional and career development topics not already offered to the graduate and professional student population. The proposals should focus on a specific professional development need related to success in graduate school and beyond. This is an opportunity for students to take the lead on a project, implement it and assess its impact, and thus serve as an opportunity to develop leadership skills.
Review Criteria
Proposals will be reviewed by a committee of faculty & students. The proposals will be evaluated with consideration for creativity & innovation of the idea, importance of the identified need, feasibility of the approach to addressing the challenge/issue/skill and the quality of the evaluation plan.
Proposals should be no more than two pages, single spaced, 12 pt. font (Arial or Times New Roman).
All current graduate students across disciplines in Master’s and doctoral programs administered by The Graduate School are eligible. Individuals and groups of no more than 3 are encouraged to apply.
Required elements of the application (priority deadline February 29) – Email to Vanessa Doriott Anderson
- Title of the proposed project
- The issue/need in professional development of graduate students to be addressed
- The solution or idea, how it is aligned with the professional development core competencies, and how the idea will impact graduate education
- Implementation plan: Define the intended audience and the proposed intervention strategy/strategies that will address the need
- Timeline of implementation: When, how, where.
- Proposed budget: Justify how much is needed and for what purposes ($500 maximum)
- Evaluation plan: How you will measure impacts, i.e. that your intervention was effective and/or resulted in change
- Reflection: How the applicant will be involved (role) and how this experience will impact the applicant’s own professional development
Applicants of funded proposals will:
- Implement the proposed project and evaluate outcomes
- Participate in a leadership workshop designed for this group of scholars
- Engage in on-going communications with other scholars and program director
- Document reflections about their own leadership skills
- Highlight this experience as developing transferable skills in job search
Previous Scholars and Project Descriptions