Dissertation writing help - An examination of involvement and socially responsible leadership development of black students attending predominantly white institutions

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There has been an identifiable decline in moral decision making and publicly responsible behaviors in society based on recent national events such as the Bernie Madoff scandal and Enron (Arvedlund, 2009; Doran, 2004). This study attempts to address this leadership crisis by examining college student leadership and involvement experiences that can uniquely position colleges to facilitate the development of publicly responsible leaders. Higher education professionals play a vital role in educating productive citizens and have the opportunity to integrate moral reasoning and ethical decision making into programming (St. John, 2009). Given that involvement in college and leadership development have long been related with positive outcomes for both individual and society, this population serves as a promising starting point to address this national challenge (Astin, 1993; Kuh, Kinzie, Schuh, & Whitt, 2005; Pascarella & Terenzini, 20050. Thus, this examination sought to better understand the Black student experience at PWIs as they had been identified in at least one previous empirical study as having demonstrated social change values (Dugan & Komives, 2007).

This study utilized both the publicly responsible leadership scale and collective racial esteem scale to conduct a descriptive and correlational examination of social change values as defined in the Social Change Model of Leadership and social change behaviors variables from the Multi-institutional Study of Leadership. Findings suggest that Black students strongly exhibit publicly responsible leadership, are involved in on and off campus activities and participate in community service more than any other activity. Further, this study reveals that collective racial esteem measures are highly correlated with public change behaviors. These important findings illuminate our understanding of Black student socially and involvement responsible leadership, but also provide some critical opportunities for higher education practitioners, researchers and students to additional explore ethical and moral decision making, expand definitions of leadership and implement intentional leadership efforts.