TEACHING LEADERSHIP AS ENGAGED 21ST CENTURY SOCIAL SCIENCE: A PORTFOLI O OF TRANSITION LEARNING ECOLOGIES

ABSTRACT

This article explores four questions: (1) What are common themes in meaning among the terms social science, engaged social science, leadership, and teaching? (2) What forces are driving the need to make progress teaching leadership as engaged social science? (3) What examples in the author's portfolio illustrate a search for such progress? (4) What lessons do we draw for a future scholarship of teaching? A conclusion from experience in three recent courses (congressional, naval, and private sector-virtual) is a hypothesis that leadership is an important integrative concept in the 21st century social and behavioral sciences, and that the need for leadership practices of a high order is increasing under conditions of hyperturbulent change. Such leadership can be facilitated through problem-based, student-centered learning ecologies that model requirements to deal with the complex demands of changing boundary conditions. These “courses as transition learning ecologies” will be key mechanisms for future diffusion and increase of knowledge. An implication is to question the impact of this reasoning on the status of the public administration field as a social science. We are at the very early stages of learning how to fulfill these requirements.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

The author thanks Ronald Stupak, Frank Sherwood, Joseph Wholey, Michael Austin, Leah Roust, Stephanie Woodson, Beth Rubin, José Martinez, Krista Moran, and Carla Stang for useful inputs in the design and implementation of this study. Special thanks to the congressional, naval, and private sector executives and staff who are the real “teachers” in all of these endeavors.