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Rutgers Leadership Academy

About 

Developed in 2015, the Rutgers Leadership Academy (RLA) is a one-year program that brings together mid-career faculty and academic staff who aspire to broadened leadership roles. RLA is facilitated by the Rutgers Office of Organizational Leadership, which is part of the Office of the Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs. The program exposes participants to a range of leadership concepts, competencies, and tools designed to enhance professional capabilities and address organizational and leadership challenges.

Through participation in this collaborative learning program, RLA Fellows develop a deeper understanding of the challenges and strategic issues facing higher education, strengthen their leadership capacity, and engage with colleagues from across Rutgers who demonstrate a shared interest in leadership development.

As a result of participating in this collaborative learning program, RLA Fellows will have an opportunity to: 

  • Develop a deeper understanding of the contemporary challenges facing academic and administrative leaders across higher education. 
  • Increase understanding of fundamental perspectives and concepts of leadership as they apply in higher education along with important dimensions of higher education administration, including organizational structure and mission, governance, finance and budgeting, legal and regulatory issues, diversity, and ethics. 
  • Enhance personal and professional leadership competencies.
  • Foster engagement with university strategy.
  • Strengthen their network of colleagues from across Rutgers who demonstrate a shared interest in leadership development.
  • Advance Rutgers and individual leadership capabilities by leading a field-based project from conception through completion.

A key component of RLA is the design of a capstone project proposal, which allows Fellows to integrate, apply, and develop leadership concepts and competencies introduced in the program. With the support of a senior project sponsor, Fellows conducted preliminary planning for a project designed to address a significant area of need in their unit, department, school, campus, or the University more broadly. The project proposal represents an expansion of a Fellow’s typical responsibilities as a leader-manager and provides an opportunity to engage with multiple stakeholders from across Rutgers. Click here to review the current capstone project proposal guide. This guide is updated annually.

Based on a review of past RLA capstone projects, we identified common themes and issues of concern, which are organized around the following keywords.

Program Topics 

  • Introduction to Leadership in Higher Education and the Rutgers Leadership Academy
  • Leveraging Individual and Collective Strengths in Academic Leadership
  • Leadership and Communication Principles and Pragmatics
  • Higher Education Stakeholders
  • Strategic Planning, Priority Setting, and Project Leadership
  • Critical Incidents in Higher Education Leadership
  • Cultural Competency for Effective Leadership: Diversity and Inclusion in Higher Education
  • Crisis Leadership
  • Enrollment Management
  • Politics, Policies, & University-Government Relations
  • Leading Change in Higher Education
  • Academic Freedom and Free Speech at a Public University
  • Engaging in Difficult Conversations
  • Capstone Session

The nomination process for the 2024-2025 cohort is now complete. Nomination details for the 2025-2026 cohort will be made available in March 2025. See the links below and on the right for additional details of the RLA program. 

Rutgers Leadership Program featured in Chronicle of Higher Education

RLA Participant Testimonials