The Excellence in Academic Partnerships award recognizes accredited academic learning institutions that have partnered with an organization in the past year to develop skills, competency or knowledge in a general employee population.
by Marygrace Schumann
December 12, 2017
Excellence in Academic Partnerships: Recognizes accredited academic learning institutions that have partnered with an organization in the past year to develop skills, competency or knowledge in a general employee population.
Babson Executive Education/Leader’s Quest
When McGraw-Hill Education CEO David Levin was appointed in 2014, he wanted to change the mission of the company from its legacy as an analog textbook publisher to a cutting-edge learning science company with a suite of digital educational platform services. A change of that magnitude would require a shift in the company’s culture. McGraw-Hill Education’s learning and development team worked with Babson Executive Education and Leader’s Quest to design Catalyst, a rebooted learning and leadership development program.
Catalyst features targeted development using hands-on learning, role-play, seminars and modeling along with coaching and feedback, followed by a 360-degree leadership assessment. Leaders took part in a program that took them into a wide range of environments focused on developing emotional and intellectual knowledge and asked participants to infer how changes would impact their business and then come up with strategic plans for the business. Mentoring focused on action planning, exploring insights and takeaways from the learning experience and internal and external networking.
In the end, all participants reported the program was effective, 94 percent said they applied the skills they learned at their jobs and 92 percent credited the program with improvement at work.
Florida International University
As leaders of their school, principals are in the best position to make change and influence positive learning environments. Miami-Dade County Public Schools wanted to make sure their principals were best prepared for this task.
The Florida International University Center for Leadership created the Principals Leadership Development Program to give principals the tools to manage change in their schools and address issues like employee motivation, leadership, developing a positive school culture, leading change and autonomy in decision-making. The program ran for seven days and started with a five-day intensive summer institute and then two days of sessions featuring more than 20 learning lessons and 56 hours of instruction. Learning strategies included the use of research-validated assessments, one-on-one executive coaching and the use of a leadership competency builder tool. Participants also created individualized action plans on which they reported progress.
Westminster College
Employees at the Callaway Energy Center were eager for a broader education that would teach them problem-solving skills and help them manage others. However, due to time and the nature of their work, many of them had a hard time finding the right undergraduate programs. Westminster College launched a bachelor’s degree in leadership that employees could complete remotely and includes courses on management, technology, history, strategic leadership and wellness. The cohort model and small class sizes allow students to interact with one another and receive mentoring from professors.
Marygrace Schumann is an editorial intern at Chief Learning Officer magazine. She can be reached at editor@CLOmedia.com.