The spring half of the 2009-10 Principium Faculty Lecture Series will have audiences thinking about wisdom and leadership while doing a little dreaming, too.
Dr. Vern Ludden, chair and professor of the Division of Graduate Studies in Leadership School of Business and Leadership in the College of Adult and Professional Studies, will present "Wisdom and Leadership" on Feb. 2, 2010.
Ron Mazellan, professor of art in the College of Arts and Sciences, will address "Dream Once, Dream Again" on Feb. 9, 2010.
Lectureship launched to showcase faculty scholarship
Hosted by the John Wesley Honors College, the annual Principium lectures are open to the public and include a question and answer period with the speaker.
"We established the faculty lecture series as a recurring venue in which to showcase some of the research and scholarship being pursued among the IWU faculty," says Dr. David Riggs, director of the John Wesley Honors College and associate professor of history in IWU’s College of Arts and Sciences.
Riggs founded the Principium series in 2004. "God has blessed our university with a wealth of gifted and passionate Christian scholars in numerous fields and disciplines," he says. "The hope is that the faculty lecture series will serve as a catalyst both for increasing the number of faculty involved in research and scholarship and for facilitating interdisciplinary conversations and research endeavors among our faculty."
Series connects students with faculty research
The lectureship helps connect Honors College students with professors who are actively engaged in research, says Riggs, noting that undergraduate research is key to the Honors College curriculum.
According to Dr. Todd Ream, associate director of the Honors College and assistant professor of humanities in the College of Arts and Sciences, the lecture series is also an opportunity for faculty to solicit feedback from an audience of peers and students.
"Such a venue is intended to provide faculty members with an opportunity to present their research in its initial phase—and then leading to national or international dissemination through publication," says Ream.
2009-10 Principium Faculty Lecture Series
"Wisdom and Leadership"
Professor Vern LuddenTues., Feb. 2, 20104 p.m. to 5 p.m.Elder 143
Socrates said, "At any rate it seems that I am wiser than he is to this small extent that I do not think that I know what I do not know" (Plato: Apology). Thus, Socrates posits that the beginning of wisdom is knowing what we do not know. Wisdom is a concept that has fascinated great thinkers from ancient philosophers such as Plato to modern psychologists such as Robert Sternberg. Today, scholars are still interested in wisdom but the focus for leaders has been more on intelligence (Sternberg), multiple intelligences (Gardner), and emotional intelligence (Goleman). Sternberg, Kunzman, Baltes and a growing number of scholars in psychology, organization theory and management have been among the social scientists interested in pursuing a research agenda that considers the meaning and manifestations of wisdom.
The emphasis in business and public administration on statistical modeling and financial analysis has proven to be lacking as the basis for effective leadership. Ethical, economic and social stresses on government, business and nonprofit sectors suggest that not only intelligence but also wisdom is needed for leaders to guide their organization through treacherous circumstances. This lecture will explore wisdom and how it can support leadership using a model based on both classical thought and modern social science research. It will also consider how wisdom can be examined from a Christian perspective to bridge the gap between modernism and postmodernism. The model presented in this lecture examines how wisdom is manifest through intelligence, knowledge, authenticity, experience and interaction with wise people, creativity, intuition, spirituality and critical thinking.
"Dream Once, Dream Again"Professor Ron MazellanTues., Feb. 9, 20104 p.m. to 5 p.m.Elder 143
A dream is defined as something hoped for, a possibility, however unlikely. Despite improbability, thousands of aspiring young men cling to the hope of making it to an NFL training camp while an adolescent. Yet, statistics hardly detour focused individuals who yearn for the orchestrated drama that takes place on brisk fall afternoons. Even young adults from coveted collegiate programs are rarely drafted, and fewer still will make it through their first arduous summer with an NFL team.