| What is LINC? A national leadership development
dialogue established by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation among twelve state and land-grant
university consortiums throughout the United States. Each of these twelve consortiums are
also involved in the W.K. Kellogg Food Systems Professions Education (FSPE) Initiative.
The FSPE initiative seeks to catalyze change in state and land-grant universities
throughout the United States. In order for that change to be successful, new models for
leadership within land-grant universities are required. This Leadership for Institutional
Change (LINC) Initiative seeks to provide guidance and support for new leadership models
in higher education.
Who is involved in LINC? 
These twelve clusters of higher education
institutions are highly collaborative and now impact 29 land-grant
universities in 23 states, over 125 state colleges and universities,
over 140 community colleges, and the entire U.S. public school
(K-12) system of agricultural education. For contact information
within each of these clusters, touch the cluster on the map.
What are the goals and outcomes of LINC?
W.K. Kellogg officials when announcing this leadership initiative said they had 3 main
goals to support community-connected higher education. They are:
- To enhance the capacity of the W.K. Kellogg Foundation to support systemic change
- To support the development of values-based, enabling leadership that is both a cause and
a result of transformational change
- To facilitate change in higher education that better connects colleges and universities
to the needs of learners and communities.
The W.K. Kellogg Foundation had four original outcomes for this Initiative, they are:
- Collective leadership models that focus on faculty and their external partners working
in collaboration for the good of the institution and stakeholder groups.
- Development of a critical mass of faculty and partners with shared leadership skills
built on shared visions and values.
- Catalyzing successful long-term sustainable models that are responsive to those
institutional changes advocated by the resident FSPE project.
- Sustainable models of leadership development that allow universities to continue to
build a supply of sophisticated, well-trained leaders for the future.
What is the national workshop series?
To facilitate learning throughout the twelve projects, six leadership
workshops are being held during 1998 and 1999 to build capacity
for change within their institutions. WorkSpan,
Inc. with expertise in holistic approaches to organizational
change has been retained to facilitate the Workshop
Series. The Workshops are held every four months, with 5-7
different faculty, staff, administrative, and/or student participants
from each project in attendance at each Workshop. The goal of
each Workshop is to share learnings with each other and plan
for continued learning on the return to campus. See Agendas
for upcoming workshops, or notes from previous workshops.
What does art have to do with institutional change?
| During periods of social and educational change, the fundamental issue is
identifying and applying new values. This means changed consciousness, changed awareness;
shifts in feeling, communicating and working with value. Art is a human discipline
wholly dedicated to these necessary skills of mastering transformation. Art adds beauty
and high-mindedness to human endeavor, and serves, as it historically has, as a first
embodiment of newly forged principles. Art uplifts and inspires, especially in times of
intense social need. We believe art allows LINC participants to connect new thoughts in
new ways. Most participants who have been with us agree.
Links:
Art Silo project for CAST
Another example of the inclusion of the arts is with the FSPE public arts initiative
from the Visions for Change
project.
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The first two leadership conferences have included arts components,
supervised by WorkSpan consult Joseph Houseal.
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|
 Painter, Emily Kling,
concentrates on a work-in-progress inspired by conference discussions. |
|
 The
chicago-based Jump, Rhythm, Jazz Project led by Northwestern University Professor, Billy
Siegenseld, performs to an enthusiastic response by conference participants. The visual
and performance art components stimulated energetic discussions at both conferences. |
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What's new in
Leadership and Learning at LINC?
This will be a contributed 1-3 paragraph thought-piece on leadership
and/or learning as may be appropriate for this audience. Ideally, other LINC participants
will begin to contribute.
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