Cultural Competency & Leadership

Dear colleague,

Hello, Maarten Asser and I invite you to respond to the survey as preparation for our workshop on Creating Culturally Competent Leaders of the 21st Century for Higher Education on February 15 in Columbia.

Research shows that cultural challenges present today's higher education leaders with profound dilemmas. We found those leaders that understand, respect, and reconcile these dilemmas have what we have termed Intercultural Competence. This is the competence to work THROUGH the challenges of today's multicultural organizations and resolve/integrate its dilemmas at a higher level.

In order to understand the specific challenges that you are facing at the University of Missouri, we would like you to fill in this short and structured survey and give us insights into your dilemmas. We define a dilemma as: ''two propositions in apparent conflict''. In other words a dilemma describes a situation whereby one has to choose between two good or desirable options.

The survey therefore requests that you communicate academic and leadership challenges in the context of the University of Missouri's ever increasing drive to meet the needs of all of its constituents, from students and faculty to it's legislators and citizens. We will ask you to present these challenges in a particular format. Please select two challenges that are most important to you. This should take you no more than 10 minutes.

Make sure you respond to this survey request ON OR BEFORE February 12 for your answers to be considered in the work session!!!

You are free to omit your name, however please note that it makes it difficult to provide you with feedback. You can give an alias for reference if you prefer.

Please note that all responses will be considered in total confidence and only used to prepare our workshop or consulting intervention. No information from this Webcue survey will be passed back to the University of Missouri in any way that enables any individual source to be identified.

We look forward to our meeting and discussions.

Maarten Asser and Noor Azizan-Gardner