The Institute for Excellence (IE) kicked off its second year of programming last month. A 10-month professional development program offered by the Training and Development unit in the division of Human Resources, the program is designed to align the university’s strategic goals with personal leadership development to create and promote a culture of excellence.

The IE has two program tracks: one for administrators and one for individual contributors who are not currently in a managerial role. The 2012 class has 16 participants in the administrator track and 10 in the individual contributor track. View the 2012 IE class.

President Lester A. Lefton addressed the opening session for the administrator group and will be spending time with the individual contributors in February. The IE groups will continue to meet monthly for either a full- or half-day session. A partial list of session topics includes discussions with members of the university cabinet, increased financial literacy, emotional intelligence, two 360° assessments to benchmark skills, diversity in higher education and understanding team dynamics. The sessions will combine in-class discussions, self-development tools and opportunities for hands-on application.

Bob Hall, manager, HR Training and Development, says he has received positive feedback from participants during the initial sessions. “Both groups are eager to explore the curricula of the program and HR is excited about developing a core of strong leaders for Kent State,” he says.

Hall added that last year, he received a substantial amount of feedback from the supervisors of the first IE class. “That feedback indicated that supervisors were seeing more and higher quality leadership from participants as a result of the Institute for Excellence. That is precisely what we want to see again in 2012.”