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9
Professional Development
Reading Group in the Liberal Arts
A group of faculty and staff met on August 17th at Vestavia Library in the Forest to discuss
Michael Roth’s
Beyond the University: Why Liberal Education Matters
. Funding was provided
by the Hess Center. Fifteen faculty and staff members discussed the relationship of Roth’s
argument to leadership, general education, and community engagement, exploring the
implications of his ideas for educational practices and curriculum at the College.
Gulf South Summit
Birmingham-Southern once again provided representation at the Gulf South Summit on
Service-Learning and Civic Engagement through Higher Education in Savannah, Georgia,
this spring with Krulak Institute staff members Kent Andersen, Jessica Pincham-King,
and Kristin Harper in attendance. This is the third year that Kristin has served on the Gulf
South Executive Committee and she presented a pre-conference session for new service-
learning directors.
McDonough Leadership Conference
Two students presented their Leadership Studies senior capstone projects at a student-run
academic conference sponsored by the McDonough School of Leadership at Marietta
College in Marietta, Ohio. Mara Scarbrough (’17) examined how industrial and post-
industrial leadership paradigms shape participation in leadership roles in the Kappa
Delta sorority. She found varied, sometimes conflicting, orientations to leadership
among Kappa Delta members. Connor Wright (’17) examined the Birmingham-Southern
College track team’s capacity to recognize and address adaptive challenges. Adaptive
challenges, unlike technical challenges, do not have clear solutions and may not be
clearly defined. He concluded that the team prefers work avoidance over identifying and
addressing adaptive challenges. Both presenters also provided recommendations to their
campus organization colleagues for sustaining and improving leadership practice, thus
emphasizing the conference theme of social responsibility.