BA in Leadership Online

The curriculum is intentionally scaffolded to support leadership growth from foundational awareness to applied impact:

Introductory: Choose 6 credits

Leadership fundamentals, design thinking, and nonprofit skills

• COL-220E Exploring Leadership (3)
  This is an introductory, experiential course on leadership. The course draws from key historical and theoretical references as well as contemporary research and discourse on leadership. Students will explore leadership through the four lenses of Leading Self, Leading Others, Leading Teams, and Leading Communities and Organizations. They will work in asynchronous pairs and small groups to apply what they are learning about leadership to their lives and work. Contemplative and embodiment practices will be offered to strengthen access to personal power and provide opportunities for integration. Students will also be able to reflect critically on the use of power in leadership and to explore leadership theory and practice from the perspective of black, indigenous and feminist perspectives.
• INTD-301E Gateway to Design Thinking (3)
  In this project-based course, students join visionary creative thinking and dreaming with the hands-on conceptual and artistic work of designing individualized interdisciplinary programs that will guide their work at Naropa and beyond. We engage in design thinking, connecting our values, passions and commitments to the lives and work of changemakers working in diverse fields. We examine and experiment with integrative mindsets, models and practices in the context of a vibrant learning community-working alone and together to connect prior learning with future selves, integrating, honoring and building capacity through joining head, heart and hands.
• INTD-350E Nonprofit Organization Skills (3)
  Nonprofits are fascinating. They are essential to furthering the work of social justice, addressing climate change, taking care of natural resources, reducing poverty, improving access to education, and more. In this course we will explore why they exist and how they fit in with the economy, with the private and public sectors. Best practices for working in nonprofits at any level will be covered—whether as a board member, staff, partner, or volunteer. Relationships and collaborations are vital to nonprofit work, and this course provides opportunities to develop the skills to build and nurture such working relationships.

Contemplative Practice: Engaging Complexity: Choose 6 credits

Mindfulness, embodiment, nature‑based inquiry, and integrative reflection

• ART-200E The Contemplative Artist (3)
  At the very heart of the word “contemplative” is the activity of observing, seeing. Contemplative, originally a term of divination, meant an open space marked out for observation. Contemplate implies attentive and meditative observation. Through mindfulness meditation, studio assignments, and selected readings, students explore a cosmology of art, how art arises, how seeing occurs, literally and poetically, how people navigate and appreciate the world through sense perceptions, how perceptions are affected by culture, and how these two streams of the personal and the public join in an individual’s aesthetic sense and artistic statement.
• ENV-350E Nature & the Sacred (3)
  An exploration of the individual, cultural, and contemplative dimensions of the human/nature relationship. It provides the contemplative tools of mindfulness meditation, sensory awareness exercises, and other nature-based awareness practices in order for students to examine and refine their own experiences of nature and the sacred. A solo contemplative nature walk is a required part of the course.
• ENV-371E Complexity Thinking (3)
  Indigenous and Buddhist worldviews and thought traditions can offer many ways to break out of the dominant mindset in order to create justice and expand our perception of reality, uncovering the complexity that is at the heart of being human. This course will help students disrupt their unhelpful thought patterns (and build on their helpful ones) while expanding their perception of reality, epistemologies, thinking traditions, personal transformation, and meeting complexity with complexity. Students will then apply these insights to the most relevant challenges of our times. General systems and complexity theory, language and linguistics, oral and literary traditions, mythology, pattern recognition/disruption, nature-based skills, neuroscience, quantum theory, and even martial arts will be explored.
• PSYB-315E Maitri and Compassion (3)
  This course is an in-depth examination of the principles of compassionate action as taught in the bodhisattva path of Mahayana Buddhism and Contemplative Psychology. Students learn and practice, metta meditations, relational, social, and psychological skills, including embodied presence, deep listening, and compassionate inquiry. In addition, this course introduces the Vajrayana approach to the Five Buddha Family principles through an embodied elemental awareness practice. By studying our psychological and emotional lived experience, we discover how the ordinary world of mind and emotions is full of wakefulness and clarity.
• REL-250E Spirituality/Creative Expression (3)
  This course focuses on exploring spirituality and its manifestation in our lives through creative expression. The foundation for this exploration is Maitri Space Awareness practice which cultivates awareness of our own energetic makeup and how these energies manifest as the core patterns of our daily lives. Developed by Trungpa Rinpoche, Naropa’s founder. This practice is done in five different colored rooms, representing the Five Buddha Energies. In addition to the maitri room practice, we work with several contemplative art forms, such as object arrangement, painting, brushstroke, and space awareness exercises. We also work extensively with the Five Great Elements. The challenge for each of us is to discover, integrate, and appreciate our energetic expressions, and to bring our creativity to form, individually and as a group. Prerequisite: Any Contemplative Inquiry and Practice course that fulfills the Core Requirement.
• TRA-133E Yoga I (3)
  An introduction to the vast tradition of yoga. Students gain both an understanding of yoga in its historical and philosophical context and an experience of its methods, which constitute an in-depth exploration of breath, movement, and consciousness. Students engage with the practices of asana (postures designed to generate sensate awareness, alignment, strength, and ease), pranayama (breath awareness and control), and dharana and dhyana (meditation practices).

Milestone: 12 credits

Restorative practices, systems thinking, project management, and social innovation.

Required Courses:

• ENV-250E Restorative Principles & Practices (3)
  This course provides an interdisciplinary look at restorative principles and practices, with an emphasis on examining alternative perspectives and approaches to conflict and harm. Students will learn the history, development and types of restorative practices. We will co-create a collaborative learning space where students can engage with questions about conflict and harm as they relate with social justice and learn the structure and skills involved in restorative processes.
• POJS-304E Planning, Organization & Project Management (3)
  This course prepares students with the fundamental tools and practices involved in planning, organizing, and project management. The course provides experiential knowledge and skills critical in the fields of social movement organizations (SMOs), non-profit, and government sectors. Planning encompasses a wide swath of topics including personal work plans and campaign plans. Organization examines advocacy, mobilization, and organizing strategies and tactics. Project management provides in-depth instruction on how to manage a project in multi-stakeholder, community and civic based scenarios. This course is predicated on the principle of learning by doing, and students will be working in teams collaborating throughout the semester to practice these skills and principles of strategic planning, effective organizing, and proficient project management.
• PAX-370E Social Innovation & Entrepreneurship (3)
  This interdisciplinary seminar introduces students to the emerging field of social entrepreneurship through readings, case studies, guest lectures, films, and field trips. As we examine the history, methods, challenges, and opportunities of local and global social entrepreneurs and innovators, we elicit our own bold visions for the future. We engage the local community as an incubator of social innovation, exploring the role of creativity, collaboration, courage, and compassion in social entrepreneurship. Students in this course build practical skills, developing business plans and models for ventures that address social challenges in education, health care, human rights, and food security, among others. Students from all disciplines who seek to build capacity as visionary, pragmatic change agents are welcome.

Choose one of the following courses:

• PSYB-373E Social Psychology (3)
  How do attitudes form and change? How do group dynamics influence decision making? What factors influence altruistic behavior? This course examines concepts and research evidence from areas of social psychology, such as the social self, social influence, cultural variation, attraction, and humanitarian behavior, among others. The underlying variables of mindfulness and arousal are examined as a bridge to the contemplative perspective. Prerequisite: PSYB101e.
• PAX-340E Conflict Transformation (3)
  An exploration of theories and practices of conflict transformation in a range of settings and locations. The course examines interpersonal and structural dynamics of conflict, building skills to work effectively with individuals and small groups, and studying attempts to end cycles of violence, revenge, and trauma at the national and international level. We investigate our own assumptions about conflict, the potency of cultural and religious differences, the complexities of intervention, and the possibility of transformation. We consider the role of curiosity, creativity, and the moral imagination in peacebuilding. Students in this course write and produce original digital stories and acquire beginning level skills in mediation.

Capstone (9 Credits)

Internship or advanced leadership coursework plus a required capstone sequence

Required Course:

• COR-440E Capstone II (3)
  Building on work produced in Capstone I, students implement an original project that reflects substantial research and work, which may include contemplative, community-based, creative, and social innovation components. This product could be a 25–30 page academic paper or its equivalent in creative or community-engaged projects (with a minimum 12–15 page text). The semester ends in celebration and ceremony, featuring student presentations of their work, which may include creative writing, dance/movement, film, music, theater, and visual arts as well as socially innovative curricula, programs and models.

Choose 6 credits:

• COL-450E Internship (3)
  The internship provides students with opportunities to carry out a work-based learning experience. It is an opportunity for students to begin to build their professional network and create connections in the community that can help them have meaningful careers. It is also an opportunity for students to deepen their understanding of the practical means of applying their knowledge learned throughout their education to organizations that meet their interests and career goals. Students may secure internships with agencies that require a range of skills such as developing professional helping relationships, grassroots organizing, coalition building, policy research, grant-writing, media development and fundraising. Students may pursue internships that build on prior experience or pursue a new direction. Internship placements range from community-based media to restorative justice initiatives and to educational organizations working on issues of social justice, peace, human rights, mental health, and environmental sustainability. The internship culminates in presentations to the community in which students bring back new knowledge and skills to the Naropa community. Prerequisite: COR-130.
• ENV-401E Environmental Leadership Skills (3)
  Throughout the course students will reflect on and develop their own unique leadership style. Experiential and participatory practice develops skills required for successful environmental leadership in professional, non-profit, government, community, agriculture/ecological and environmental justice settings. The tool-kit for this course focuses on communication strategies, project management, campaign development, and community organizing across multiple settings. The relationship between contemplative practice and leadership is a recurring theme.
• PSYB-474E Leadership Development (3)
  The urgency of racial injustice, the climate crisis, political polarization and growing anger in communities demands that each of us develop the leadership skills needed to make a difference. Navigating complexity in organizations, communities, relationships etc. gives rise to leadership opportunities and challenges and we will use these to both study and practice leadership development. We will bring the theories of Robert Kegan, Jennifer Garvey Berger, Bill Torbert, and others to life through practices such as self-inquiry, exploring polarities, developmental scaffolding, and adult attachment interviews, etc. In other words, this course integrates theory and practice in our lived experience. These theories are not age-based but rather they’re based on growing our capacity to thrive and lead in complexity. Prerequisite: PSYB-345 or permission of instructor.

Total Credits: 33