Ifrane, Morocco – “In my first semester teaching the leadership class in spring 2008, I was talking about my experience of teaching leadership in the USA in the University of Colorado, and just telling about this experience within this class pushed a very active student to come up, and ask a simple question: This is an American style university, so why don’t we have an American style leadership program? And that’s how it all started”. That’s how Dr. Reinhart, the president of the Leadership Development Institute (LDI) at Al Akhawayn University, described the creation of the LDI.
The Institute’s main mission has been from the beginning to distinctively develop designated students to become global leaders that Morocco and the world need in corporations, governments, and NGOs. Further, the teachings delivered at the LDI develop a portable set of skills based on research conducted in house to acknowledge the skills that should be taught to students and skills that Morocco crucially needs.
However, the teachings comprise a global perspective, since they take into consideration qualities that global citizens want from their leaders. For this reason, the LDI’s teachings are also based on global research.
Furthermore, Dr. Reinhart considers the LDI as a model institute that aims toward having a local, regional, and ambitious global impact, not only through teaching, but also by conducting strategic research, knowing that there is almost no leadership-related research published in the region.
The LDI’s President also views the Institute’s strategy as a one that would enable LDI alumni to obtain a domestic conception of leadership, but with a global application, since they will be able to play the role of interlocutors in Morocco or abroad through active cross-cultural leadership.
The LDI is the first program of its kind in Morocco, one of two in the MENA region, and one of very few in the developing world. The LDI is a co-curricular program teaching leadership skills not only via in-class lessons, but also through organized service and experience activities. More so, to ensure that the program has the high standard of the leadership programs in the United States, the LDI uses the standards set by the Council for the Advancement of Standards (CAS) in Higher Education to assess its program.
The LDI is currently working on the Leader of the Year Award, which is an annual competition that awards outstanding leaders of associations in the Ifrane-Azrou and the Meknes regions. Moreover, students in the Institute considerably contributes to the promotion, selection, and awarding of the association’s leaders. The associations’ leaders will be announced this year at the upcoming LOTY celebration on the April 23rd.
There are many other main events on which the LDI is working, such as the annual leadership conference, which is scheduled for this coming September, assisting universities in Meknes and Fez in the establishment of leadership development programs and the publishing research on the best practices of developing student leadership in the MENA region.
In order to expand its practices nationally and regionally, the LDI is looking for grant and sponsorship opportunities.
Edited by Timothy Filla
