Organizational Leadership: 20 years strong By Sean Cuneo
On May 21, 2000, at then-Mercyhurst College’s spring commencement, the degree of Master of Science in Organizational Leadership was conferred for the frst time on 12 individuals, the frst graduating class in a brand-new master’s program. Twenty years later, the Organizational Leadership program—or OL, as it’s widely known—is marking this noteworthy anniversary with a restructured, fexible curriculum and the transition to 100 percent online coursework. “In taking the OL program 100 percent online, we’re trying to meet the needs of the 21st century leadership market,” said Heidi Hosey, Ph.D., dean of Global Programs and Experiential Learning and interim dean of the Walker College of Business, which houses the OL program. “Many students are already professionals working in industry and business, and they don’t have the time or accessibility to sit in classrooms. They need fexibility.”
the region to ofer a Master of Science degree in Organizational Leadership. Leadership coursework had been ofered at Mercyhurst as part of the Administration of Justice master’s program in the preceding years and, according to the May 1998 edition of the Mercyhurst Newsletter, a survey of 100 regional employers indicated overwhelming support for a standalone leadership degree program. Bruce Murphy, Ed.D., then-chair of the Walker College of Business, was the frst director of the OL program. “Most of [the students] have preconceptions about what leadership entails, but when they’re exposed to people from diferent occupational backgrounds, they have to broaden their conception. One of our goals in starting this program was to have some impact on the leadership of this region,” Murphy said in the September 2001 Mercyhurst Newsletter. Celebrated for its broad applicability across diferent professional disciplines, OL provides a theoretical and practical
framework for professionals who currently hold leadership positions or are aspiring to leadership roles in organizations. Students in the program learn to synthesize contemporary scholarship with insight from Mercyhurst’s service-oriented heritage to articulate their own leadership philosophy and put leadership theories into practice in professional settings. “Organizational Leadership highlights the human side of organizations,” said Anne Zaphiris, Ph.D., OL program director. “We study behavior and communication to understand how organizations function and what it means to be a productive member of a team.” The new 100 percent online OL program consists of 10 courses, starting with seven OL foundational core courses. With the remaining three courses, students can choose from electives that are relevant to their professional competencies and goals. Online coursework will provide fexibility for students juggling professional and other responsibilities while also expanding opportunities for those outside the geographic region.
At the start of the 1998-99 academic year, Mercyhurst became the frst college in
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