Building Leaders For The Greater Good (NAPSA)—In the board game “Jenga,” players try to remove sections of an assembled tower without sending the structure crashing to the floor. Those who keep their towers standing can win. Isabelle Cherney, Ph.D., the director of the new Interdisciplinary Doctorate in Education (Ed.D.) Program in Leadership at Creighton University, likens good leadership to this board game: shaping and adapting the organi- health care, Cherney points out. “The Interdisciplinary Ed.D. Program in Leadership wasspecifically developed as a diverse, generalist degree that can be applied to any occupation. The possibilities are endless,” Cherneysays. without damaging and, even better, while enhancing, the whole. A top tier university, Creighton’s approach to education creates a passion for learning and a zeal for making a difference, while its focus on the development of ethical and spiritual values produces graduates whoare highly motivated to succeed and make a lasting impact in their chosen careerfield. Pulling together faculty and an array of national standouts from the fields of arts and sciences, business, pharmacy and health professions, medicine and law, the school care, directors of clinical education or clinical residency. zation in ways to improve it— now offers a new doctorate, designed to be strongly interdisciplinary in its teaching of leadership. Cherney believes a strength of the program is its interdisciplinary nature, which encourages a broadened, socially aware perspective across the curriculum. In a globalized society facing financial, environmental, and social hardships, farsighted and ethical leaders devise strategies for growth and change that merge with goals for the common good. Graduates of the new doctoral program have open to them many possibilities across the broad fields of education, business and In education, for instance, opportunities include, but are not limited to, careers as school principals or superintendents, deans or vice presidents; in business, directors of human resources, or program managers; in health “True leaders do more than just help an organization become successful. They institute and lead changes that benefit society.” —Dr. Isabelle Cherney QD Cherney believes the new doctorate not only will break new ground in the field of leadership training. Probably the program’s greatest strength and, indeed,its distinctiveness, Cherney says,is its tie to the Jesuit mission: Preparing graduates to lead wisely for the greater good. Covering 60 credit hours, the program is reaching out to an array of people who are “learning from each other,” Cherney adds. Almost exclusively online (students will come to campus to meet in the summer and again at the close of the program), the new doctorate lets students solve problems not only within their own organizations, but outside of their areas of expertise. Cherney explains, “We want the students to reach out of their comfort zones and their backgrounds to work on something that needs changing”for the better. The leadership program is divided into eight-week modules online. The first seven modules are in sequence, followed by a more open schedule. From the beginning, students are in touch with each other online but they’ve also scrutinized themselves. The first course, Cherney explains, involves finding one’s own strengths. Leaders must know themselves before leading others, she believes. Only then do you learn how others work best. Because the degree is online, students will be working while they’re taking the courses. This meanstheir day-to-day experience is also a laboratory to put into practice what they’re learning at Creighton. Today, a successful leader, Cherney asserts, must understand the different social backgrounds that come together in a given organization. She also believes that good leaders today must work with limited financial resources and be able to prioritize the lists of needs within strained budgets. They must also make good employment decisions and understand how new technology can changesocial relationships at work. Legal issues and new regulations from government, including those in health care, also are affecting the workplace today, says Cherney, and shaping the decisions leaders make. For more information on the new Interdisciplinary Doctorate in Education (Ed.D.) Program in Leadership, visit www.creightononline.com or call (866) 717-6365 to speak with an admissions representative.
