Mission

The purpose of the Center for Faithful Leadership is to enhance campus-wide efforts to educate students for lives of leadership and service in a global society through academic and co-curricular programs. These efforts involve providing students with opportunities to grow and learn experientially through concrete experience, reflective observation, abstract conceptualization, and active experimentation. The vision of the Center for Faithful Leadership is that Hope graduates a large cadre of students who are more confident in their leadership abilities and more effective in servant leadership; "so that those served grow as persons [and] become healthier, wiser, freer, more [secure], and more likely themselves to become servants" (Robert Greenleaf).

We define a leader as someone who makes a significant difference. While we see the results of leadership, we believe what we don't always see—the character of the person and the processes used—is of greater importance. We therefore define a servant leader as someone who makes a positive and significant difference by helping others meet their need to make a positive and significant difference. A servant leader is internally-motivated, open-minded, others-focused, and purpose-driven.

Our programs consist of a leadership minor, a leadership certificate, mentoring, support for students in leadership positions, and other activities on campus and in the community. These programs are distinctively interdisciplinary, integrative, and intimate. They are interdisciplinary in that we bring together students from many disciplines to practice attitude-changing, communicating, critical thinking, decision-making, learning, and team-building processes. They are integrative for three reasons: we (1) attempt to practice leadership from a Christian perspective; (2) synthesize various perspectives and points of view; and, (3) bridge the inherent tension among the experiential learning components of thinking, feeling, doing, and reflecting. Our goal is to develop the person as well as the mind. Finally, we are academically intimate: we work to customize our program for each student.

The primary way we customize and integrate our program is through intense project-based learning experiences. We learn by working together on meaningful challenges. We read a lot (think), become more self- and socially-aware (feel), apply a lot (do), and share a lot (reflect). Together we make a positive and significant difference by helping others meet their need to make a positive and significant difference.