Organizational Leadership M.A.

CNPY 502 Theories of Counseling and Helping Professions 3 Credits

Introduces the theoretical constructs of the primary theories being used in counseling and other helping professions, such as coaching. The theoretical constructs will be explored for use in self-reflection and self-development and to serve as the basis for development of psychological maps for understanding purposes of clients’ behaviors.

Prerequisite(s): COUN 500 with a minimum grade of D or concurrent enrollment.

CNPY 514 Psychopathology 3 Credits

A survey of the study of abnormal psychology. Includes classification, assessment, and treatment and prevention of psychopathology. Characteristics of healthy psychological functioning are examined. Biological, psychological, and sociocultural bases of well-adjusted and maladjusted behavior patterns are considered. Stress, anxiety, and milder forms of psychopathology are considered, as are more severe psychopathological conditions.

COUN 500 Introduction to Counseling and Helping Professions 3 Credits

Educational, social, and psychological foundations of counseling services. Basic theories, principles, and techniques of counseling and related helping professions, such as coaching, and their applications to professional services. Emphasizes self-awareness as related to becoming a facilitator of helping skills. The team approach to counseling services and the contribution of the various specialties within the total counseling services program are stressed.

COUN 505 Vocational/Career Development 3 Credits

Includes organizational change and vocational development theories, research, and literature in the field to inform practice with clients with vocational/career concern. The problems and techniques of using occupational and career information, assessment tools, educational and vocational goal setting, conflict management strategies, and individual and group processes are stressed. Includes concepts of career/life planning and counseling and coaching techniques, lifespan transitions, and the interrelationships among work, family, and other life roles.

COUN 508 Foundations of Clinical Mental Health Counseling 3 Credits

This course will provide the foundation of clinical mental health counseling, including discussion of roles, policies, history, diversity, systems, programs, interventions, fiscal issues, community resources, consultation, advocacy, and assessment issues that are unique to clinical mental health counselors. Projects include searching for government and foundation funding, writing a grant proposal, developing a resource directory, and visiting and writing reports on clinical mental health agencies.

COUN 515 Substance Abuse Counseling 3 Credits

This course analyzes the development, intervention and treatment of substance abuse. Family dysfunction and its results will be examined with the various addictive behaviors. This course is designed to help students understand addictive behaviors and how they function. Specialized techniques for treatment will be examined along with related elements, i.e., family, parenting, the characteristics of dysfunction, developmental growth problems, physical problems, effects on school and job performance.

COUN 520 Multicultural Counseling and Relationship Development 3 Credits

Introduces, examines, and critically analyzes and reflects upon major origins and dimensions of human similarities and differences. Explores and personalizes the social-psychological and behavioral implications of these similarities and differences. Examines issues of race, ethnicity, class, disability, age, gender identity, sexual identity, etc., in the light of theories of individual and group identity development and the impact of these on, between and within group relationships. Each student is expected to utilize this knowledge for the development of healthy multicultural skills. A semester-long engagement in a multicultural interaction and a presentation of a multicultural discovery project are required.

COUN 530 Legal and Ethical Issues in Counseling and Psychotherapy 3 Credits

Examines and analyzes the legal, ethical, and professional parameters of counseling and psychotherapy. Discusses legal liabilities and malpractice cases arising from constitutional, tort, contract, family, privacy, and criminal laws. Examines client rights and counselor duties and responsibilities. Explores legal, ethical, and professional implications of third party payment, informed consent, medication, case documentation, client termination and abandonment. Advertisement of counseling services, crisis and case management, consultation and supervision, "duty-to-warn" and court appearances of an expert witness will be explored. Special attention will be given to child abuse reporting issues, dual relationships and to regional legal and ethical developments.

EDUC 525 The Higher Education Organization 3 Credits

This course allows students to gain perspective on the historical and societal context of higher education in America and the organizational structures, functions, behaviors, and cultures that exist within institutions.

EDUC 530 Student Affairs & Experiences in Higher Education 3 Credits

This course will highlight how individuals access higher education and how that education affects students’ development via programs, services and interventions designed to promote student growth. The course will explore multiple dimensions of the student experience and how student development theory is used to understand and enhance those experiences. Students will also explore student affairs organizational structures and functions common in colleges and universities.

EDUC 535 Legal and Ethical Issues in Higher Education 3 Credits

This course discusses the fundamentals of American law that directly and indirectly affect the environment of higher-education. Students will use diverse sources of law to understand the many different ways laws, code and common law affect the life of an higher education administrator. Ethical issues will be explored in relationship to critical issues in higher education such as admissions, affirmative action, dismissal procedures, academic honesty, and student loans.

EDUC 540 Leading Operations, Change and Assessment in Higher Education 3 Credits

In this course, students will gain an understanding of the daily and long-term operational challenges colleges and universities face. The course intends to cultivate a strategic mindset about higher education organizations and a recognition that institutions exist in a competitive environment that require them to change in order to survive.

EDUC 541 Assessing Organizational Performance in Higher Education 3 Credits

Through this course, students will be introduced to the concept of institutional effectiveness which focuses on an institution’s ability to use planning strategies and evaluation information to assess current performance and plan for improvements. Students will understand the importance of a performance assessment culture including the presence of clear performance goals and measures, collaborative decision-making, and engaged leadership. A focus on determining what should be assessed in academic and administrative units and strategies for initiating performance assessment programs is reviewed.

EDUC 542 Assessment of Student Learning in Higher Education 3 Credits

This course examines institutional effectiveness matters focusing on assessment processes in higher education. It explores topics such as the evaluation of academic programs, assessment of student learning outcomes, and involvement in accreditation and accountability demands in higher education. Here, the focus is on how colleges and universities are doing assessment, at the classroom, program, and institutional levels. The course covers the pragmatic planning skills and decision-support tools relevant to assessing student learning. Just as businesses are expected to adhere to compliance and ethics standards, this course provides an in-depth look at how universities’ adherence to standards pertaining to academic success can and will lead to an assurance that accredited universities are achieving their institutional goals, meeting the public's’ expectations, and realizing their greater societal mission.

EDUC 543 Communicating Educational Data 3 Credits

Through this course, students will develop skills in statistical communication, incorporating data into delivery methods such as writing, public speaking, teaching, informal conversation and collaboration, programming, and graphic visualizations. Students will understand the importance of creating a data-informed culture and how it contributes to an organization’s success. They will also learn methods and strategies of how to communicate to a non-technical audience.

LEAD 500 The Practice of Leadership 3 Credits

This course allows students to gain an understanding of the practice of leadership and how they can develop as leaders. Students will explore leadership models, creativity in organizations, and approaches to decision making as they begin to form their own leadership philosophy.

LEAD 510 Organizations: Design and Dynamics 3 Credits

This course will provide students with foundational knowledge in the area of organization studies. Students will gain insight into organizational structure and how it affects interdepartmental behaviors, communication and work flow. The course emphasizes how organizational environment and culture generate and reinforce the way organizational systems work and how leaders operate within these organizational contexts.

LEAD 511 Facilitating Culture and Process Change in Organizations 3 Credits

Organizational culture and existing processes can enable productive and effective environments, or they can be barriers to carrying out the central missions of corporations, not-for-profits, governmental or educational institutions. For organizations to thrive and survive in the future they must be able to change and develop rapidly. This course provides a working knowledge of the key theories and practices necessary to be an effective change agent. Students develop skills in diagnosis, design of interventions and strategies for communicating change.

Prerequisite(s): LEAD 510 or concurrent with LEAD 510.

LEAD 512 Forms of Diversity in Organizations 3 Credits

Increasingly, leaders and employees are part of a more diverse, multiethnic and globally influenced workforce. Students will become more conversant with forms of diversity, such as different cultural traditions, as well as differences in generational sensibilities, ableness, gender, and level of adult development. Students will learn about the different “worldviews” which organizational members bring into the organization, and how that affects their ability to work together. The course develops students’ knowledge of and skills in practicing: principles for optimizing human performance in organizations, cultural intelligence, human diversity, and leading multicultural organizations.

Prerequisite(s): LEAD 510 or concurrent with LEAD 510.

LEAD 531 Developing The Human Side of Organizations 3 Credits

This course examines Strategic Human Resources Management (SHRM) within today's organizations, and is designed to provide students with a comprehensive understanding of SHRM practices from a systemic and strategic perspective. Students learn approaches leaders use to recruit, select, evaluate, and develop employees and strategies to create a positive work environment.

Prerequisite(s): LEAD 510 or concurrent with LEAD 510.

LEAD 532 Program Design for Training and Development in Organizations 3 Credits

This course provides a full circle approach to workforce training and development that is applicable to professionals in human resources, organizational development, or other leaders who see themselves as trainers, mentors and coaches. The course is designed for students to explore “real world” applications for programs, services and operations in a training environment, and covers key principles such as adult learning theory, facilitation skills, curriculum development, needs assessment, training methodology and techniques, resources and constraints, as well as learning how to evaluate and improve the efficacy of training programs.

Prerequisite(s): LEAD 510 or concurrent with LEAD 510.

LEAD 533 Conflict and Crisis Resolution in Organizations 3 Credits

Leaders face conflict and crisis in their organizations. Being effective in their resolution is an important leadership attribute. Skills that support positive and integrative outcomes include mediation, negotiation and crisis resolution skills. This course will use multiple case studies and role-playing assignments to engage students in understanding how individuals and teams handle mediation and negotiation scenarios. The course will also use multiple case studies to enhance students’ understanding of the components of effective and ineffective leadership for crisis.

Prerequisite(s): LEAD 510 or concurrent with LEAD 510.

LEAD 534 Facilitation and Team Leadership 3 Credits

This course examines the characteristics and behaviors of teams that produce good results and/or generate new ideas. The focus of the course is on how to lead high functioning teams and the development of facilitation capabilities, so that students can effectively lead teams and organizations.

Prerequisite(s): LEAD 510 or concurrent with LEAD 510.

LEAD 540 Strategic and Financial Decision-Making in Organizations 3 Credits

This course explores the importance of information and financial resources within the culture of organizations, and the necessary relationship that exists between the two. The course draws on current literature and student experience to explore resource management and focuses on the effective use of information resources within the boundaries defined by financial realities. The relationship between data analyses and effective decision-making will be explored.

Prerequisite(s): LEAD 500 or concurrent with LEAD 500.

LEAD 550 Organizational Research 3 Credits

The purpose of this course is to prepare future organizational leaders to read professional journal articles, plan research, and critique research. The course covers basic research methods, such as experimental, ex post facto, correlational, case study, time series, interviews, surveys, and basic statistics in terms of understanding and selecting statistics. These concepts are taught within the framework of organizational leadership. This course should be taken at the end of your program.

Prerequisite(s): LEAD 500, LEAD 510. Permission of Program Director required.

LEAD 598 Capstone in Organizational Leadership 3 Credits

All MA candidates complete a capstone research project to demonstrate the application of core program competencies to a specific organizational or leadership problem. Reflecting upon their own leadership philosophy developed throughout the program, students will formulate, research, and write a leadership capstone paper that integrates the skills and concepts from the core courses as students use quantitative and qualitative methods to analyze a problem. Core and concentration courses should be completed before taking this course.

Prerequisite(s): Must be taken in last semester of study. Permission of Instructor required.