Leading the charge: Doctoral students gather for organizational change leadership summit

KALAMAZOO, Mich.—This July, the College of Education and Human Development hosted their inaugural Organizational Change Leadership Ph.D. Summer Summit, bringing together organizational change leadership doctoral students from across North America. 

Organized by program coordinators, Drs. Vanessa Hills and David Szabla, over 20 students from the fully online program travelled to campus to engage face-to-face for the first time.

"There are so many benefits to having a fully online program in terms of connivence and flexibility," explains Szabla. "But our face-to-face gathering was an impactful opportunity for our doctoral students to meet in-person."

"With our program now reaching across the United States and Canada, we wanted to bring students together with this summit to build a strong community and collaborate on research that advances the field of organizational change leadership."

Sessions throughout the summit sparked dialogue on a wide range of topics shaping organizational change leadership, including emerging research trends and artificial intelligence. Breakout sessions were used to develop comprehensive portfolios, fine-tune program of study plans and gain insight into what it means to be a scholar-practitioner.

"Student feedback has been overwhelmingly positive," says Hills. "There is already expressed interest in making the summit an annual event for students to come back to campus nest summer.” 

"One of our students summed it up best when they said, 'It’s one thing to learn together online, but it’s another thing entirely to stand in a room full of fellow change scholars, dreaming big and building together.'"

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