MSU students wish to acquire the leadership practices needed to create positive change in themselves and around the world. Leadership Fellows is a wonderful place to begin that journey. All MSU students from all disciplines of study are welcome to take any course offered through the Leadership Fellows program.

New and transferring students to MSU are invited to live on the Emerging Leaders Floor in South Hedges Residence Hall, a living and learning community dedicated to "all things Montana and leadership." Students who live in the Emerging Leaders community are automatically registered for a 1-credit, graded course, Leadership Explorations, by the Registrar’s office. Focused more on creating community and a sense belonging than rigorous academics, and guided by experienced Leadership Fellows instructors, students in Leadership Explorations engage in community service learning, join the MSU student club of their choice, and explore the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem—all viewed through a leadership lens. 

In addition to the two core courses required by Leadership Fellows to earn a Leadership Fellows Certificate upon graduation (Leadership Foundations and Leadership Capstone), students are welcome to dig deeper into leading and following through these compelling Leadership Fellows courses:

Writing and Leading (originally "Critical Thinking & Leading") leans into both critical and creative processes in order to apply insights from systems thinking and conscious leadership theories. Students are asked to think of leadership as an essential creative practice that requires a constant flow of divergent and convergent thinking: We cast outwards, observe, witness, and experience. Then, we synthesize notions of truth, quality, beauty, and success. These are, in turn, expressed to others for reflexive incorporation, thereby creating feedback loops of understanding for the real-world practice of leading. This course uses the “workshopping” process as a forum for growing students' leadership and writing abilities. The focus is on giving and receiving feedback, collaborating to make win-for-all solutions, while gaining a critical, whole-systems view of the world.

Leading Adaptively in a Complex World, a face-to-face seminar, is rooted in the concept that leadership is an action people take to make change. This dynamic course examines the methods and principles for leading in challenging situations within complex social environments. 

Global Leadership & Cultural Humility, compels students to consider leadership from an extra-cultural lens. This course also prepares students from all areas of study for all short- and long-term study abroad programs offered by MSU, including post-Covid study abroad opportunities offered through Leadership Fellows. In this course, students from all major and minor areas of study practice leadership and community development on a global level through the lens of cultural humility.

The Leader’s Way develops deep listening, an essential interpersonal communication skill and behavior for all 21st century leaders.  Face-to-face in-class experiences merge content rigor with skill enhancement activities designed to inspire individual and group behavior change. Within contexts of mediation, facilitation and teaching, students are provided a variety of project-based, in-class experiential activities, and out-of-class assignments in the form of written, auditory, and visual formats from literature, science, learning theory, classical texts, communication practice, and the arts. Each class meeting is designed to enhance students’ deep listening abilities while increasing understandings of processes utilizing a systems approach. 

In Fall 2022, Leadership Fellows will be offering its second Horses Leading People Project to MSU students and to the Bozeman area community. All MSU students from all disciplines are welcome to participate in this 6-hour leader development workshop that utilizes equine-assisted and arts-based modalities to facilitate understandings of personal and interpersonal leadership. The workshop is held in MSU’s Miller Pavilion in collaboration with the College of Agriculture. Horses and people are the instructors. For more information contact: [email protected]

Did you know that HLD 121US, Leadership Foundations, is both a core, seminar course and a required course for earning a Leadership Fellows Certficate upon graduation? That means that you "check off" boxes by taking only one course.


For more information about these courses and/or how to earn a Leadership Fellows Certificate, contact Leadership Fellows at: [email protected]

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