Ivan Allen College Faculty Tour Georgia Communities for Emerging Leaders Program

Posted July 11, 2019

Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts faculty enrolled in the 2018-2019 cohort of Georgia Tech’s Emerging Leaders Program (ELP) were given a unique opportunity to visit some of the communities their students call home in a tour of Northwestern Georgia in early May.

The tour, which was attended by 18 ELP faculty members, included stops at the Floyd County College and Career Academy, Dalton State College, and several other colleges and organizations in the area. The Ivan Allen College faculty present in this 2018-2019 cohort were Sam Nunn School of International Affairs Associate Professor Margaret E. Kosal, School of Public Policy Associate Professor Aaron Levine, and School of Economics Associate Professor Shatakshee Dhongde. 

ELP has proven to be an invaluable institution for this cohort and other Ivan Allen College participants because it provides ample opportunities to improve their leadership skills and help promote a broader culture of leadership at Georgia Tech.

“The Emerging Leaders Program for me is a way to understand how the Institution works and how I can make it better. While it’s called a ‘leaders’ program, I took away from it just as much about being a team,” Kosal said. “The leaders/organizers and the participants in the ELP are amazing, supportive, all over-committed, and the people you want to be on your team (or you want to be on theirs).”

At Dalton State College, the group met with Margaret Venable, the College’s president and a Tech alumna, to learn about her position and career path after graduating from the Institute. Then, they toured campus with students to gain perspective on student life at other Georgia colleges.

“We got to see how students prepare for college, and how students there are becoming more employable and improving the standard of living in the area,” said Terry Blum, the faculty director of Georgia Tech’s Institute for Leadership and Entrepreneurship. “It’s great to see how other colleges are also engaged in improving the economic climate around them.”

ELP, which inaugruated its first cohort in 2016, is a one-year program open to tenured faculty from every college, and provides opportunities including leadership development workshops, a fall weekend activity, and the summer tour.

“The ELP program was a very positive experience for me. I particularly appreciated the insight it provided into some of the behind the scene processes, such as development or budgeting, that are critical to Georgia Tech’s success but not always apparent to faculty,” said Aaron Levine. “The program also provided an opportunity to connect with a cohort of highly motivated faculty from across the Institute and I expect that building this network will be one of the lasting benefits of participating in the program.” 

Participants for the 2019-2020 program have already been selected, but tenured faculty can apply again in March 2020. The Ivan Allen College faculty for this cohort are Jin Liu, associate professor in the School of Modern Languages, Olga Shemyakina, associate professor in the School of Economics, and Jennifer Singh, associate professor in the School of History and Sociology. Read more about them.

For more information about ELP, visit provost.gatech.edu/emerging-leaders.