Volunteers are increasingly important in the United States. Not only do financially strapped organizations use volunteers to enhance their capacity, but policy makers and community leaders see volunteering as a vehicle to improve communities and solve public problems. This course may cover topics of volunteer administration: such as planning, marketing, recruitment, screening and selection, training, supervision, evaluation, and recognition. Students will gain an understanding of how the demographic of today's volunteer is changing, how best to deploy the talents of multi-generational volunteers, and how to provide a structured, objective framework to be accomplished by the volunteer corps. Legal issues surrounding the use of volunteers and designing effective volunteer policies may also be addressed.

Leadership is the process of motivating people to achieve project goals, usually in a dotted-line organizational setting. The success or failure of the project, and by extension the manager, is dependent upon the manager's ability to assess the team as a whole, (strengths and weaknesses), and to then apply that analysis to the individual team members. Within the course, students will survey and discuss multiple methodologies used to evaluate teams. We will analyze how organizational dynamics and structure impact the manager, limit or increase their power, and their ability to perform their job.

This course provides students with an understanding of the principles of assessing change, managing change and the communication tools necessary to implement change effectively. Issues regarding client satisfaction, vendor satisfaction, morale and relationships will be explored. The effective manager must possess skills in adaptability to ensure that projects are responsive to changing conditions. This course develops a thorough understanding of strategic change within organizations.

In this course the student is introduced a variety of unique perspectives about leadership, which are drawn from different traditions in the literature, and from which the student selects to develop his or her own model of leadership. An action-based learning approach is conducted by each student to connect personal experiences with the theoretical construct.