Transformative Learning Experiences by an Innovative and Inspiring Educator

Dr. Leigh and senior students. Fall 2021, Leadership & Ethics class

School of Business and Leadership Professor of Management Jennifer S. A. Leigh, PhD, was recently named co-editor-in-chief (co-EIC) of the prestigious Journal of Management Education (JME). In 2019, Leigh was selected for the Best Instructor Award by X-Culture; and in 2021, she was honored for her workshop on Preparing the Manager for Climate Change, which was chosen as the best professional development workshop at the Academy of Management (AOM) Conference in August.

JME’s Vision and Dr. Leigh’s Contribution

Announced by the Management & Organizational Behavior Teaching Society (MOBTS) Board of Directors, Leigh, alongside her co-editor Dr. Marissa Edwards (University of Queensland, Australia) joined the Board on January 1st, 2021, and took the role as one of the co-EIC for the JME in June 2021. JME's purpose is to enhance teaching and learning in the disciplines of management and organization by publishing articles that reflect the changes and developments of management education. Even though its main target audience is university educators in the areas of management and organization, its broader target includes administrators, managers, trainers, consultants, and coaches; the Journal has been a leading voice in the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL) for over 40 years.

Formally an associate editor for JME, Leigh's wealth of experience and vast knowledge will contribute in the areas of management and management education, just as it has been reflected in her previous publications in scholarly journals and presentations at professional conferences, including the MOBTS annual conference. For the last 15 years, her research has focused on SoTL and emphasized Responsible Management Education (RME) and experiential learning methods.

Despite the challenging post-pandemic times, she is enthusiastic about holding her commitment to high-quality teaching and learning. As stated in a recent JME editorial, co-authored with Edwards, “teaching throughout the pandemic, our purpose as instructors has further invigorated our desire to foster, nurture, and curate more scholarship of teaching and learning that addresses management educators’ enduring and emergent needs.” Leigh knows that the work published in JME is important and impactful, and she hopes that this space will continue facilitating conversations about education. Another challenge in management education globally- in tandem with the pandemic - is racial inequity. As such, Dr. Leigh is an advocate for social justice and social justice education.

X-Culture and Dr. Leigh’s Involvement

Dr. Leigh and senior students who participated in X-Culture. April, 2019

Four the last four years, Leigh and her senior seminar students have been participating in the X-Culture Project, a large-scale experiential learning exercise designed to provide students with an opportunity to gain first-hand experience in international virtual collaboration. In a typical semester, this project consisted of over 5,000 students, in teams of six, from 130 universities from over a quarter of the world’s countries. Working in global teams, these students developed business proposals for companies that partnered with X-Culture seeking to expand outside their home countries. The top proposals are provided to these companies and each team is ranked overall. The highest performing teams and individuals are invited to participate in a global symposium and receive additional awards.

As can be deducted, the X-Culture project is very demanding for both the instructors and students. Dr. Leigh strives to support student learning by assisting students in completing all tasks on time with workshop sessions during class, working diligently with the students to help resolve team conflicts, and responding promptly to students’ questions or concerns. 

Patrice Edwards '20, Business Management with minors in
Legal Studies and German Studies

Last year, Ms. Patrice Edwards (a 2020 SBL graduate) joined as a graduate assistant to the class. Edwards enrolled in the X-Culture Coaches training, available only to high-performing X-Culture alumni, to learn how to mentor the student teams. During Spring 2021, Edwards supported student teams from the three sections of senior seminar to help support student learning by providing examples of high-quality work requested by the X-Culture project and mentoring students as they negotiated common challenges such as time zone conflicts, differing work-styles, and writing competencies.

 

As previously mentioned, Leigh was selected as one of the best X-Culture Educators in 2019. The selection process consisted of a total of 186 instructors and co-instructors that teach at 148 universities in 41 countries, whose students were part of the 2019 round of the X-Culture competition. While most instructors did an outstanding job in helping their students prepare for the competition, a small number of educators (including Dr. Leigh) went the extra mile to help their students. In X-Culture’s words, “the most important factor was the class-average performance. Ultimately, it is all about student performance. Student ratings in terms of effort, intellectual contribution, collegiality, as well as the personal share of the work completed by the students in the total work completed by their teams all were taken into account. Thus, to a large degree this Award goes to the best class/university, rather than an individual instructor.” Dr. Leigh underscores this last point -- that this award reflects the high-quality instruction of all the SBL faculty teaching the core courses that come before senior seminar that prepare students for this intensive interdisciplinary learning.

Other indicators of the instructors’ performance considered were the quality of preparation of the pre-project materials, the quality of the report evaluations submitted by the instructors at the end of the project, and additional help provided by the instructor such as webinars, symposia, and training materials development. Dr. Leigh’s course prioritizes interpersonal process skills, intercultural awareness, and project-based learning. These help prepare students to consider engaging in X-Culture with an open mindset, awareness of our common humanity, and commitment to research that can support the internationalization of small business owners from around the world. All of these concepts align with Nazareth College’s and the School of Business and Leadership’s missions and learning objectives.This level of engagement and commitment to student success in such a global endeavor is indeed a reason for the School of Business and Leadership to be proud to have Dr. Leigh as part of our faculty.