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Each year, the Rutgers Pre-Doctoral Leadership Development Institute (PLDI) welcomes a select group of doctoral students from across all disciplines of the University to its two-year program. The PLDI Fellowship program provides an orientation to higher education practices and challenges, and an introduction to an array of leadership concepts and competency-building opportunities. The experience is designed to complement the disciplinary education provided in one’s primary field, and to enhance the leadership insights and competences of Fellows. More generally, the goal of the PLDI program is to provide an experience that will help to prepare more effective colleagues and more competent future leaders – individuals who are better able to address the many challenges facing U.S. higher education now and in coming years.
Colleges and universities provide a rich and dynamic natural laboratory and field research/training site for leadership development. Much as hospitals provide a natural training ground for physicians, colleges and universities offer a wide array of experiences that can be helpful in preparing tomorrow's academic leaders. The Rutgers Pre-Doctoral Leadership Development Institute leverages the organizational and leadership expertise and the broad range of organizational learning opportunities available within the university to create an initiative that will help doctoral students prepare for future leadership roles and responsibilities.
 Traditional doctoral education is devoted exclusively to preparing students for a career in scholarship or teaching within a particular discipline. What this means, however, is that future faculty members complete their degree without a more general understanding of higher education, with minimal knowledge of the structure and dynamics of colleges and universities, and with little if any of the preparation necessary for assuming organizational leadership roles in institutions. There is an increasing need for individuals with doctoral degrees who are well prepared for success within their own discipline, but who also understand colleges and universities, who know the challenges these institutions face, and have the interpersonal and leadership knowledge and competencies necessary to promote effective collaborative problem-solving at all levels.
Unfortunately, the
existing model produces very few individuals with the motivation, competencies, or experience needed to effectively engage the growing array of leadership challenges that confront the academy.
The Institute aims to enhance leadership knowledge, competency, motivation and skills among students early in their doctoral education, and to do so in a way that enhances their traditional discipline-based studies. The components of PLDI include both didactic and experiential elements that together, provide fundamental knowledge of higher education from historical and contemporary perspectives, overview the array of problems and opportunities confronting the academy and other large institutions today, and examine approaches and competencies required of leaders to meaningfully address these challenges.
The same interpersonal, organizational and leadership competencies that are critical in higher education are equally vital for graduates who choose careers outside of the academy in other complex organizations, including industry or government.
 While it may be years before new doctoral graduates move into formal leadership roles, organizational knowledge and leadership expertise is needed immediately for working in teams and workgroups, pursuing research funding and support, participating in mentoring and advising relationships with students and colleagues, and for assuming the many informal leadership roles at their institutions. Through participation in the Institute, students can become more effective members of the academic community, more capable leaders and collaborators within their disciplines and their future places of employment, and for these reasons, more marketable and well-prepared for influential careers.
Click here to see pictures of PLDI programs and classes
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